Media

• Research into the influence of media on gender comes from Furnham and Farrigan, McGhee and Frueh, and Williams.
• Furnham and Farrigan investaigated sex role stereotypes in adverts and found that men tended to play positions of power, usually as voiceovers due to them speaking with authority.

  This suggests media plays a role in reinforcing widespread sex role stereotypes concerning male and female behaviour.
• McGhee and Flueh found that people watching more television shows were more likely to show sex role stereotypes and gender typical stereotypes in their behaviour and attitudes.
• Williams conducted a study on early 60s Columbia who were receiving a TV signal for the first time.

  Prior to the TV signal being placed, he conducted surveys.

  Those who had been introduced to 1 TV channel had fewer sex typed views after the study (unitel).

  Those who had been introduced to multiple TV channels had more sex-based stereotypes after the study (multitel).
• This is because seeing more people perform gender appropriate behaviour increases the belief of the capability of carrying out such behaviours in the future (self efficacy) and these rigid stereotypes are the result of media reinforcing stereotypes of gender roles concerning male and female behaviour.
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  Real world applications come from Pingree.

  Pingree found that gender stereotyping was reduced when children were shown TV adverts with women in non stereotypical roles (H and M AD).

  However, pre adolescent boys stereotypes became stronger with exposure to non traditional models but this may be explained by a boys desire to maintain a masculine view.

  Therefore this shows real world evidence to show that media can influence the way a child develops gender stereotypes and therefore increases the validity.
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  The research has a positive in that it supports the social learning theory as an explanation for gender as SLT suggests were learn gender roles through observation of role models who we imitate if we see them being rewarded (vicarious reinforcement).

  Media provides children with role models and often males and females are portrayed in stereotypical ways.

  Therefore gender may be explained through socialisation and experience with media and models.
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  An issues with this is that it lacks cause and effect.

  This is because we know media has an influence on the formation and maintenance of gender stereotypes but we don't know the extent, nor do we know if the the media created the stereotypes in the first place for the person or whether media reflects prevailing and preexisting stereotypes and social norms of males and females.

  Therefore you can't say that the media definitively influences gender stereotypes of whether it just enhances them.
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  Another issue is that lots of research completed into the media's influence on gender stereotypes does not contain control groups.

  This is because the majority of children are exposed to the media on a regular basis.

  This makes it very difficult to find a control group of children who haven't been exposed to the media to generate a comparison to see the extent of the media's influence.

  Therefore this leads to research which lacks validity.