Guardian 100 and the panelists?

Peter Barron, Peter Bennett-Jones, Brent Hoberman, Tessa Jowell, Siobhan Kenny, Andrew Neil, Trevor Phillips, Chris Powell, Janine Gibson and Jane Martinson

How many Women?

25

What companies do these work for?

Jane Tranter
Jay Hunt
Lesley Douglas
Jana Bennett
Helen Boaden
Ruth Jones
Marjorie Scardino
Elisabeth Murdoch
Ashley Highfield
Rebekah Wade
Julian Bellamy
Nicholas Hytner
Carolyn McCall
Gail Rebuck
Sly Bailey
Arianna Huffington
Dawn Airey
Veronica Wadley
Jane Bruton
Lucian Grainge
Joanna Shields
Caroline Michel
Katie Price
Eileen Gallagher
Emily Bell

Most of them were working in the broadcasting or publishing sector connoting that it's more wider than equal as there are more men in the list working in these sectors in the media.

The reason why there are 26 women and 73 men is due to the dominance of men in the higher positions in the media today. As Marxist-Feminists will argue; men are the dominant force in the ruling class who make the list. The fact that there are more men judges than female would also help support this theory.

26% Women

RESERACH

Representation and Youth
The media cannot present the world to us, despite their assertions of truth, reality and verisimilitude. In practice the media offer us perspectives or selected views on our world. They re-present that world to us by constructing images and behaviours for lots of different groups within, and indeed outside, our own society. So we are aware of families represented in a range of television soaps. We have a knowledge of sportspeople through sports coverage in the press and on television programmes. We are dependent on the media for our insights into what it was like to live in a time before we were born. Our knowledge of other countries and lifestyles is usually based on media constructs. And so on.

The fact is that the media have the power through selection and reinforcement to give us very influential portrayals of a whole range of groups, situations and ideas. We make sense of these representations in different ways according to the values and assumptions we carry around in our own heads. So representation is not just about the way the world is presented to us but also about how we engage with media texts in order to interpret and assimilate such portrayals. This concept of representation is, therefore, just as much about audience interpretation as it is about the portrayals that are offered to us by the media.

Another key media term tied in to representation is institution, because we need to consider the reasons why someone or some institution is presenting these images to us. How representations change over time and which points of view are left out or privileged in these representations might also be worthy of consideration. Interestingly the advertising media often give us a kind of social barometer of changing representations of social groups and trends. Think of the 'new man' or 'the independent woman' popularised by the car advertisers in particular.

If we move on to look at this notion of representation in one particular area we can see that many organisations and groups are keen to portray youth for purposes of commerce or social comment. The problem with the youth market is that it is a very difficult one to address because youth's level of engagement with the mass media in general is less than the average with the exception of film and music. The youth market is one that is also characterised by continuous change. So we need to ask how accurately the issues and concerns of youth are shown by these media producers and ask if they are responsive and sensitive in reflecting the shifts in youth culture.

Let us look at the way we are presented with images of youth in some of the popular media forms.

In print it is evident that magazines are often split along gender lines and it is difficult to find any popular magazine that crosses the gender divide. Female gender representations for youth as developed by girls' magazines have been the subject of research by Gillian Murphy. She sees these representations as stereotypical and she is critical of magazines such as Jackie for their negative portrayals of young females. McRobbie, however, takes a different slant. Her interpretation suggests that young females are able to see themselves in privileged positions as opposed to the usual subservient roles developed in other media. So magazines that show young females in lead or dominant roles provide positive and enabling representations. Some moral watchdogs have criticised modern magazines for their content which they describe as unsuitable because the magazines are aimed at and purchased by a younger audience than the designated one (consider Just 17). Are representations in relation to young females changing or are we getting more of the same?

We should also note the rise in 'lads' magazines such as Loaded and FHM which stress other male lifestyle interests such as cars, sport, holidays and clothes - as well as females. These are a long way from the exploitation of females in the soft porn men's mags such as Playboy. Do these representations offer a changing perspective of the young male?

The press has little youth representation because it tends to sell to adults and when they target youth they see them as students, jobseekers or other consumerist categories. However many press stories do involve youth (yob culture, club scene, drug stories etc.) and the accuracy or otherwise of these portrayals needs to be addressed.

Film is not an easy area due to the high level of US material. We can note the popularity of films such as American Pie, but like the earlier Porkies films they depict teens as sex-obsessed, which is a rather limited portrayal. Some US material is more sensitive and sympathetic in discussing teen angst. For example John Hughes, director of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Breakfast Club offers quite sensitive portrayals of youth coping with relationships, authority and identity. More localised representations of youth in films such as The Commitments and Trainspotting tend to provide a more earthy analysis of youth issues. These do not pretend to be cinema verité but their 'authors' would claim that they reflect the youth experience more authentically than most U.S. film imports. Do you agree?

TV has a selection of youth representations but TV also has low viewing figures for the teen market. There is interesting TV-based research by Buckingham on definitions of masculinity among young males. This points to the constant negotiation of the meaning of masculinity which emphasises the struggle to refine this notion against what are perceived as feminine characteristics. Acceptance of male stereotypes is rejected in this research. For an older age group Hollyoaks and a teen-driven Neighbours are meant focus on relationships and issues that have a youth appeal. Occasionally youth programmes are deemed offensive by some adults: The Word was often seen as controversial because of its style of address. Programmes such as Top of the Pops reflect youth music but have a wider audience. Is TFI Friday a youth programme, given the age of the presenter and many of the guests? US imports such as Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer offer interesting and very popular representations of youth. Both are glossy in production values, script and casting. Buffy probably has a more developed range of characters than Dawson's Creek. Neither of these are as dull and formulaic as Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Can Friends be considered a teen programme?

Radio has youth defined in terms of music - Radio 1 and many local wall-to-wall music stations tend to be based on a formula that encompasses popular music, presenter-led programmes, competitions and tabloid-style news and weather as necessary add-ons. Whatever way the media show images of youth it is important that young people themselves challenge stereotypes and question the representations they encounter. As society places ever more stress on a mediated culture the young must assert the importance of their situated culture and the individuality that is part of what it means to be a young person.

References
McRobbie, A, Feminism and Youth Culture, Macmillan, 1991

Murphy, G. Media Influence on the Socialisation ofTeenage Girls in Curran, J, Smith, A, and Wingate,P \(eds), Impacts and Influences, Metheun, 1987

Buckingham, D (ed), Reading Audiences, Manchester University Press, 1993

© 2001 Gerry Connor

THE RING

The text I chose to compare Flight Plan with is The Ring.

Traditionally horror movies don't have a post-feminist representation of females, with women in horror movies vulnerable and "feminine". However, similar to Flight Plan, the Ring has post-feminist representations. The mother is going taking a more "masculine" approach by going through her way to save her daughter imposed to the stereotypical narrative of a killer chasing the main heroine.

This is similar to Flight Plan which bears a similar narrative; while completely different genres, both show the representation of mothers in movies.

In both movies the protagonists are both mothers, however during the film both actresses take more masculine roles; a gender swap where they are taking the roles of what the father should be (going against patriarchal ideologies). They are both represented as lone-parents, where they don't need any male help to achieve their goals. In our society (which has gone through drastic social change) this has become more appealing to female audiences; Uses and Gratification theory. The audiences want to be like these actresses (a new type of action hero).

This has come alight in our society through how both sexes have swapped gender roles, in some cases men have become more feminine (feminists argue the idea of the "new man" who takes on roles that women take) and vice versa.

With the growth of feminism and the gay movement, the media has created this post-feminism trend of gender swaps. Now in the media powerful male role-models are represented as having a feminine side, e.g. Bruce Willis Die Hard 4.0 (caring father and action hero).

Both movies have similar narrative plots; while different genres the main focus of both is the mother trying to save her daughter. However both movies you can argue that there are some stereotypical values, with both roles being mothers. In the film industry, the only strong representations of females are being mothers. While it does glorify rise of feminism there are hardly any representations of women being more than just mothers.

It connotes that while in our society we can accept a strong mother we can't accept a woman saving a man, and in cases where it has happened films that do these tend to do badly in box office. While it can be argued Kill Bill was a success, in reality she was getting revenge for her daughter.

In conclusion, both movies do show post-feminist representations, through the roles they have, saving their families, are lone parents, don't seek male advice etc. However both movies, and others, that have post-feminist representations are about mothers and therefore to a certain extent still patriarchal. There's still a glass ceiling between that big step to achieve equal roles with men.