The world is going through an era of information burst.
How mass media impacts women:
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Declaration
This report is as a result of the researchers’ independent investigation and has never been submitted for approval by any other researcher or institution.
Abstract.
The world is going through an era of information burst. To others the globe has developed into a global village. The use of electronic media has revolutionized the media. It does not matter where one is since the information flows from one location to another. Technological advancement has greatly modified the world environment in all manner. The changes are most noticeable among the young generation since the older people are slow to adapt or rather rigid. The types of media include radio, television, telephone, mobile phones, video conferencing, social networking, and newspapers. The world now is more sophisticated than it was in the 19th century (Perse & Lambe, 2016). Mass media are the intellectualized organizations indulging in the formation, selection, handling, and dissemination of content in the world. The media disseminates information to people. The media enlightens, teaches, advertises, and entertains its followers. Mass media is a chief asset for all liberal democracies. Politicians use mass media forums to champion for freedom in the American context. In this democracies, the media advocates for change and criticizes the government. This study investigated the influence of media on women. Literature review was carried out on previous researches on the topic. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative research type. A cross sectional study design was selected for the study to allow collection of data over a period of time.
Chapter one: Introduction
1.1 Problem statement
The constant communication upheaval has unlocked up more prospects for women who have been denied representation for generations. The utilization of the media is still uninhibited and misguided. Children and women are still the most underprivileged groups in community despite the immense boast of technological progression. Women regularly demonstrate on issues of discrimination, disparity, and abuse by the male-dominated media staff. The media is predominantly active in selling injudicious concepts and stereotypes that hamper accomplishing gender equality. Scholars hypothesize that the media carries on the presentation of women as the fragile gender. For instance, in the United States, mass media broadcast sell the belief that men are merely sex-driven in relationships while women function as sexual entities. Feminists claim that the movies shown in the media have resulted to the anorexic Nervosa which is witnessed in the young generations (Cortese, 2015). The new generation has accepted the opinion that men are only fascinated by skinny, young and beautiful women. The aim of the paper is to determine the effect of mass media on women.
1.2 Scope of the study.
The research was undertaken in both rural and urban women.
1.3 Justification
Women have come a long way in the process of achieving gender equality. The gender protests of the 20th century increased women representation in media outlets, although the numbers are far from achieving gender equality. For instance, women only represent 10% of news stories, they only represent approximately 20% of the experts interviewed, television programs generally have less than 35% of women as actors (Patowary, 2014). Besides, women in films play supporting roles. The stereotypes towards women have been especially detrimental. Some of the stereotypes include: that role of the woman is at home where they have to do all housework duties, women cannot make crucial decisions, women must always be dependent on men, and women are sexual objects. Women have adapted to images sold by the mass media of how they should look. An ideal woman should be thin, white, fit, and with blonde hair. The effect of these is manifested in video games where creators display women with revealing clothes or even nude while the men are usually clothed appropriately.
1.4 Research questions
1.4.1 Main Research question
What is the impact of media among women?
1.4.2 Other research questions
What is the impact of media on women perception?
What is the impact of media on women’s involvement in various sectors such as agriculture occupation and entertainment?
How has media contributed to empowerment of women.
1.5 Research objectives
1.5.1 Broad objective
To determine the impact of media among women.
1.5.2 Specific objectives
To determine the impact of women’s perception by the media.
To determine the impact of media on women’s involvement in various sectors such as agriculture occupation and entertainment.
To establish the contribution of media to women empowerment
1.6 Hypotheses
The media has contributed significantly to the empowerment of women.
Women have a negative perception as a result of various media content and practices.
Women have engaged in various sectors as a result of information obtained from the media.
1.7 Limitations and delimitations
1.7.1 Limitations
Researchers experienced time constraints especially obtaining information from the respondents.
The cost of carrying out the research was too high. This is especially on activities such as printing questionnaires and transportation cost.
Some correspondents were unwilling to give information.
There was a language barrier as some respondents could not speak in a national language.
1.7.2 Delimitations
Researchers maximized on carrying out the research during the available time. The sample size was reduced as appropriate.
The researchers hired a means of transportation to be able to reduce on the cost of acquiring one each day. The cost of carrying out the research was cost-shared among the researchers.
Incentives were used to encourage respondents to give information.
Researchers identified a member from among the samples who was conversant with the local language and could speak a national language to interpret when needed.
1.8 Assumptions
That the researchers obtained permission from relevant authorities to carry out the study within their jurisdiction.
That the researchers duly obtained consent from the respondents.
That the information given by the respondents is accurate and can be used to generalize the study on the population.
That the researchers have not violated the ethical code of carrying out a research.
Chapter two: Literature review
2.1 Impact of media on women perception
2.1.1 Body image
Attitude refers to one’s opinion, feelings or thoughts about something. In this subtopic, we review literature conducted on how the media has influenced women’s attitudes to various aspects of life. Of particular interest is body image. A lot of resources are being used to adventure on how women can change their body image. Many women confess to being body conscious and as such will pull all strings to ensure that their body shape is appealing. This has informed the flourishing of the cosmetic industry. Even in the medical field, pharmacological therapies are being used off label to enhance beauty. Some go to the extent of abusing such drugs, sometimes with the aid of the healthcare workers. Media has significantly contributed to this ideas of body image.
Many people especially the young adults have access to information about the ideal state of beauty. Incorporation of these ideas has led to the differentiation between oneself and the ideal state. This has led to the public health problem of body dissatisfaction (Uchoa, 2019). Body dissatisfaction is especially observed among the female gender. As the young girls grow from childhood into adolescence, they identify with their older peers. Its at this point that they learn the ideal state if attractiveness that makes them acceptable among the society. Of note is that the sources of information from which they learn includes social media platforms (Bearman, 2006). Mass media may result in adolescents incorporating the ideal state and consequently go into body dissatisfaction when they can’t measure up to the ideal state (Vries, 2019).
2.1.2 Perception on eating and effects.
With the advancement in technology and evolution of dietary practices, many have drastically transformed their nutritional practice to achieve a certain goal. Professional nutritional advice has also been accessible hence people make informed nutritional choices. However, of interest to this study is the perception that women have on eating. Some women believe that eating some food substances will result in gaining weight and an undesirable body shape. This informs the decision to undertake drastic activities to reduce their body weight. Through the social media people have access to information about the consequences of ingestion of some substances. Others learn through the experience of their peers that are shred in the social media.
Through the media, women learn the standard beauty practices from the actresses, models and the female presenters. Majority of these groups have adopted a slim body shape, hence their viewers end up engaging in drastic body weight reduction practices. The social media seems to glorify some body shapes and discredit others (Spettigue, 2004). There have been shown an increasing trend of eating disorders with the advancement of technology and use of social media. Mass media has promoted the acceptance of the thinness standard. It has portrayed it as an ideal state and as the way to achieve social approval in terms of attractiveness (Peroutsi, 2011).
2.2 Impact of media on women involvement in various activities.
Advancement in media has revolutionized the practice of advertisement. Hitherto, advertisements could be done through the mainstream media platforms including radio and televisions. This was a disadvantage to many women since men were the ones known to be viewers and listeners of televisions and radios respectively. However, with the evolution of media practices, advertisements can be done in any platform including the social media platforms. Its important to note that even social media draw part of their earnings through advertisements. This is quite an advantage to women as majority are known to prefer use of social media than the mainstream media.
2.2.1 Influence on women’s practice of agriculture
For many years, women have been known to provide casual labour in the farms rather than managerial or administrative duties. In the ancient Egyptian culture and the early civilization, the role of women was negated in many aspects. A gender role is a set of standards dictating the activities that are appropriate to be carried out by a certain gender. The women could only engage in certain farming activities while the men could carry out the more lucrative chores (Khalil, 2017). In the current civilization, women still perform most of the labor work in terms of agriculture. However, unlike before, they also enhance in managerial duties. Unfortunately, women still do not measure up to men in terms of their productivity. This partly is due to the discrepancies that exit in terms of education. Women have not benefited much from the educational programs being run in the mainstream media with regards to agriculture (Diiro, 2018).
As in other sectors, agriculture is not left behind in revolution of its media practices. Advertisement of agricultural produce and inputs has evolved to include social media platforms. As aforementioned, these is likely to benefit women who are known to use social media more than men. These practices create awareness and invokes interest among women to engage in agricultural practices (Evans, 2016). In an average, women tend to be use social media more than men (Alnjadat, 2019).
2.2.2 Effect on healthcare practice
Media can influence the kind of occupation one wants to undertake. Women are known to prefer lighter engagements with respect to any duty. Therefore, the efficiency brought about by the media seems to resonate well with them. With healthcare practice in particular, the advancement of telemedicine, professional networking, health information technology and electronic health records has resulted in the field being attractive to women (Ventola, 2018). Physicians utilize media to advertise their services, to refer patients, monitor patients who are on home based care and even carry out patient education
2.2.3 Effect on the media profession.
The articles reviewed reveal that the women are often disproportionately affected by information inequality in mass media. Women are vastly underrepresented in top positions in media outlets. There is no refuting the benefits of mass media on women empowerment. However, women lag behind men in terms of internet accessibility. Women who have been exposed to the internet are prone to sexual harassment (Hanson, 2016). The situation is worse when women do not conform to social norms.
2.3 Contribution to the empowerment of women
2.3.1 Effect of media on women leadership.
At the workplace, majority of the leadership positions are occupied by men. These positions are either reserved for men or the men outshine the ladies in a competitive process to acquire the positions. This has resulted in gender equality. However, through the influence of media, a lot is being done to undo this inequality. At the age of 11-17, girls are believed to be in the stage of “seeing is believing”. They draw inspiration and encouragement from their counterparts who occupy various leadership positions. The women identify with such role models when they have similar characteristics, one of them being the same gender. The internet confers a media of connection between the professionals and those who view them as role models (Katlyn, 2014).
In the united states, despite women making almost half of the workforce, there still exists a significant rift between them and men in terms of occupation of lucrative jobs. Numerically, although the female gender forms almost half of the united states population, they are not proportionally represented in the workforce. This is partly accredited to the negative stereotyping of women with respect to leadership. The media has been shown to perpetuate these stereotypes. Exhibition of photos showing men and women engaging in different traditional activities propagates these stereotyping. The effect of such media activities is profound as it even impacts negatively on women perception on their capabilities (Stefanie, 2012).
2.3.2 Political empowerment
Women have been enlightened on their right to be politically represented. However, this has not achieved much in terms of addressing gender disparity in political positions. It has led to some jurisdictions to draft constitutional laws enforcing the gender parity. The Kenyan two thirds gender rule is a prototype. In the American congress, women hold only 90 of the 535 seats (Stefanie, 2012b). The male gender is evaluated more favorably than the female gender in terms of political positions. Media has aided in propagation of this stereotype by giving more coverage on male political activities than they accord to women (Aaldering, 2016).
Chapter three: Methodology.
3.1 Study area
The research was carried out in an urban area and its outskirts. The outskirts was assumed to be a rural area.
3.2 Study population
The study was limited on adult women. The urban and outskirts designation classified the women into those living in urban areas and those living in rural areas respectively. The researchers obtained information from women in various sectors. In the urban area, the respondents were drawn from those at the workplace and those in various leadership positions. In the outskirts, data was obtained from those in the agricultural sector and those carrying out casual duties.
3.3 Study design
A cross sectional study design was adopted for this study. It merits for this study as information obtained from the sample will be generalized among the women population. It will be used to collect data from the sample drawn from the population. Its strengths are as follows: it is fast, it is cost-effective, there’s no loss to follow-up, it allows collection of data over a short period and there is an in-depth collection of data. Among its weakness is that it is not ideal for testing a hypothesis. Besides, it is difficult to explain a causal relationship from data collected in a cross-sectional time frame.
3.4 Sample size determinationFischer’s et al formula of 1998 for a population less than 3500 was used to determine the sample size.
n=z2 (pq)/d2
Where;
N=desired sample
Z= standard normal deviation set at 1.96 which corresponds to confidence level (1%)
P=proportion of target population estimated at 30% to have characteristic being measured who attend Kabarnet level 4 Hospital. This is 0.30.
Q=1-p
D= margin of error allowed 0.05
In substitution, N = (1.96×1.96) *(0.30[1-0.30]/ [0.05×0.05]) = 322
The desired sample size is 322 women.
3.5 Sampling procedure
Purposeful sampling method was adopted for this study. This was appropriate so as to obtain information only from relevant correspondents.
3.6 Inclusion and Exclusion criteria
3.6.1 Inclusion criteria
Women who are of the adult age (>18 years old).
Women who are of sound mind and were willing to offer information.
Women who were within the designated study area as per the time of data collection.
3.6.2 Exclusion criteria
Women of unsound mind.
Women who fall under the age of minors
3.7 Variables
3.7.1 dependent variable
Impact on engagement on various sectors.
Impact on the perception.
Impact on empowerment.
3.7.2 independent variable
Media.
3.8 Data collection instruments
The researchers administered approved questionnaires so as to help in obtaining information. A total of 330 questionnaires were distributed equally according to the two target groups. Of these, the questionnaires that were obtained back were 301. After cleaning and sorting, a total of 285 questionnaires were used for data analysis.
3.9 Ethical consideration.
The researchers sought permission from the research ethics committee. Upon obtaining permission, the researchers adhered to the ethical code of carrying out a research. The respondents were given information about the research and granted informed consent.
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