The document discusses how media portrays unrealistic gender ideals and stereotypes that can negatively impact people. It reviews research showing that media often sexualizes gender and promotes the idea that men should be dominant breadwinners while women are dependent homemakers. The author's own research using surveys found that social media also reinforces gender stereotypes. While some argue media does not affect them, research indicates it impacts everyone in some way. The author is interested in this topic both personally and professionally as unrealistic media portrayals can pressure people into restrictive roles and behaviors.

1. MEDIA VS. GENDER
MAY 13, 2015
ARKADIY ARONOV

2. Media vs. Gender
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Abstract
Gender inequality, and gender issues in general are always relevant in society, especially
during the current era where any form of media, videogames, social media, television, and so on,
not only sexualize gender as a norm, but also give a false image of what an ideal male or female
should be. The primary focus was to find out if there were any real correlations to be found
between how males and females view media, how much time was spent, and how it may affect
them mentally through a series of questions done throughout qualtrics that was in affiliation with
Baruch College. The reason why this topic is important is due to the fact that we are living in a
very shallow moment in life, all in all with our perspectives of the human body, ideals, and views
in media. This will determine how one can also be affected mentally when they view media.
While many may deny at first that media does not affect them, delving into the research at even a
basic level will prove that everyone, regardless of age, gender and any other factors, will be
affected by media one way or another. This can of course lead to positive factors that will affect
one’s life, but there is also the risk of having it be an incredible hindrance towards one life.
Reading the research, hypothesis, all the data will give you a better perspective of how everyday
people are impacted by media, and how it possibly even impacts you. This does not even assume
the fact that future generations may have a media dominated world. Looking into this now is
something that should be taken with the utmost importance. This is a life we’re living, not a life
we’re living for someone else.
This isn’t so much a general problem, but a focus on how media is a negative influence
on everyone. As mentioned previously, with the impact of emotion, physical appearance and so
on. This is something that impacts everyone.

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Literature Review
“All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can
vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.” This is a
quote taken from William Bernbach, and “All media exist to invest our lives with artificial
perceptions and arbitrary values” by Marshall McLuhan. These two quotes are the general topic
of this paper, and I believe before beginning are something to continue to keep in mind
throughout the rest of the paper, as it will focus on the research and the hypothesis that were
brought during the production of the survey study and observations that were determined from
the survey results and personal research.
A study by Malgorzata Wolska, titled “Gender Stereotypes in Mass Media. Case Study:
Analysis of the Gender Stereotyping Phenomenon in TV Commercials” shows us how mass
media can really play a significant role in our modern world. They go into details of how
stereotypes is probably one of the most dominant features of media and with the impact it has on
gender. Elliot Aronson, an American psychologist said, “Stereotypes are used to attribute the
identical features to each member of a certain group without taking the existing differences
among the members into consideration”. Obviously with the thought of how media will always
pile up all gender stereotypes into one group without considering the fact that many would wish
to break out of the social norms, or that not everyone is the same as is portrayed. Then gender
roles where they found the men have been considered financial providers, career-focused,
assertive and independent through the ages, while women have been low-position workers,
loving wives and mothers, responsible for raising children and doing housework. While the
modern household should be viewed as a mutual partnership with equal work. Generally, the
results for their finding was that change will not be coming anytime soon as media still focuses

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on past norms rather than create new one’s for genders. The stereotype that the male is the
dominant one in a relationship, and being the head of the household is still in strong effect, and
doesn’t show an incredible sign of being changed, but someday will be as norms will change and
media will be forced to adapt despite being the head of these stereotypes and norms that
influence those thoughts.
The second research study was “Gender roles and the Spanish media, a three-decade-long
comparative study.” by Gutiérrez San Miguel, B and company. The main objective of this study
was to identify the gender roles that had been presented in the Spanish media that had been
produced between the 1960’s and the 2000’s. The purpose was to detect if there was any change
in social norms between that timeframe. It was determined by questionnaires to schools, and
those in the workforce. They had used quantitative response variables of the survey questionnaire
and categorical response variables. In the end of the research, their conclusion was that were was
indeed a paradigm shift in the representation of gender roles, in Spain however. While there were
positive correlations that certain social norms were changed in media, they were not all
beneficial. The female gender ended up having a loss of traditional identity, for the sake of
having a more media-centric beauty. Many lost their traditional roots and their views of beauty to
what media, identified as beautiful.
In my research, I had used the findings of Facebook, Twitter and other social media to
identify my results. Research by Rose, Jessica and company, my fourth research study choice
was titled “Face it: The Impact of Gender on Social Media Images.” Illustrates how social
websites like Facebook, as mentioned, enable users to see how media can impact gender in a
closed domain, a parallel world. A panel for the research has used a literature review of pictorial
features that are associated with gender traits, to asses the gender stereotypes that were presented

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on Facebook. Males had been seen as active, dominant, and independent, similar to the research
conducted by Malgorzata Wolska. Females were under attractive and dependent, again,
following the pattern of having males be the dominant heads while females were just there. The
research found that while it was obvious that there were differences in males and females, it gave
us a broader view on how it could be a mass media issue, where we broadcast these gender roles
ourselves, and not just have media be the ones to portray it as such. The findings were there to
confirm gender stereotypes that were found in prior research, and were proof of how media
depicts to the self-selected social media display.
The fourth paper focus’s on a more serious topic that gets brought up later on in my
personal and professional opinion. Media will only impact one’s self image, but how one will
act. Walsh, Kimberly R’s “Mean Girls and Tough Boys: Children’s Meaning Making and Media
Literacy Lessons on Gender and Bullying in the United States” research is heavy, in the sense
that it is an extreme, an extreme that is indeed a reality to many a scary reality to that. The study
examines how children’s way of thinking on media content is processed in the context that could
portray gender and even to a larger degree, bullying. Sixth graders were asked to respond to
questionnaires that had depictions of gender roles, and bullying based upon their favorite media
content or content that would ever create had they been media producers. There were several
ways of thinking based on the responses, some ranging from direct applications of lesson
concepts to those that evaluate and critique media content. While the results came in that they
had more or less had their own opinions, it was enough to realize that there were some hints that
the children were a bit imposed to media, and that their independent ways of thinking were only
due to their young age, however could easily be influenced overtime. Males of the age that were
surveyed had shown a high amount of action films, and how they viewed media to be. Many

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listed they enjoy violence, they enjoy the hectic pacing. While females were more focused on
reality shows and shows that they fantasize, such as a reality show they wish they could live, or a
princess film. However, media does try to enforce that violence is not the answer, but if it was
under the provision of an action film or a war documentary, it could have a negative impact and
allow bullying to come to act despite the best interest of one’s being.
The final article of choice toward the topic of how media affects everyone, and gender in
specific is Goodall, Hannah’s “Media’s Influence on Gender Stereotypes”. The articles from
before didn’t focus too much on stereotypes besides the first, and seeing that America is a
society that is not only saturated with media, but also with stereotypes, the research goes full
force into explaining how it’s a factor. It states that with age, comes outside influence affects
how they perceive the world around them. Media being an extremely pervasive source, it shows
a lot of exposure on society. It goes into how being swayed by what is perceived to be the social
norms wouldn’t be too hard to believe, with how much emphasis is put into it, and how often
they may go back and mention it. People tend to act and think based on the stereotypes that is
associated with one’s gender that they had seen on a media outlet. It’s harmful toward the young
audience who may not possess the intellectual tools that would allow them to distinguish if the
messages on media is for fictional purposes, or for reality. It ends with how if as a society, we
refuse to accept certain gender stereotypes as truth, then media makers would not be so inclined
onto having it be the center of their messages in media.
Generally throughout the five articles we have the same concept of how media is
harmful, and we need to try and avoid stereotypes as a society, so that media would stop
portraying it so heavily. While it does harm those growing, as they can easily be swayed and
have issues with telling the right from the wrong, it has to start with the current generation.

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Without starting now, there will be issues in which there could be more bullying, more social
inequality, and gender stereotypes getting to even worse degrees.
Discussion
Media has an influence on gender, both male and female for that matter. We live with
media in our everyday lives, if it’s not through television it could be on the radio while one’s
driving in their car somewhere. If it happens to not be that, we have our phones with internet
access, and above that we have computer’s. Out of the realm of technology, we have billboards
sexualizing both genders for the sole purpose of profit, but to what cost, does a simple billboard
affect the person looking at it? While it may be said that it’s generally viewed through one
person’s eyes, and that no one can speak for everyone, there is however, an argument that is
believed that media, in those listed above, or in any other source, is that media portrays
unrealistic goals that cannot be achieved thought he common person’s life. Examples being
Adobe Photoshopped magazines, articles depicting how one person is extremely beautiful and
showing how everyone would want them, or to be them. This just causes a hysteria among many,
and in such, just allows one to be more subjective to media at a much easier, or even faster pace
than others.
Granted of course, this does not apply to everyone, however it should be seen as a high
possibility as we all consume media. It’s in our lifestyle, it’s everywhere we go. Subways, bus’s,
billboards, the radio, internet, television, our phones, advertising in other forms and just the
everyday products that we use. We see unrealistic expectations a lot of the time, and we see that
mostly in humans, and media sources are not oblivious to the fact that we look up to many idols.
Having idols, gives us this entire argument over media and gender. How does media view
females? Most of the time, as sexualized objects that are nothing more than to sell product to

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other females, and to have males flaunt over their bodies. This is the view on females at a bare
minimal level. Going further into it, we have how females must be slim, slender, amazing at
multitasking, being house wives while still resembling that of a model’s figure. The issue here is,
this isn’t an observation that is new in the slightest, in fact there are book’s from the 1980’s that
argue this issue, and then even further back argue about how media has influenced many females
to do things they would otherwise never consider. The book titled, Women, Media and Sport:
Challenging Gender Values by Pamela J. Creedon goes into detail about how feminism was
brought up because of media. Giving so many unrealistic expectations, unrealistic and even
unachievable goals. Much of what is listed also applies to males.
While they may have a bit more leeway in the fact that, certain things aren’t as prevalent,
there are still quite a bit. Major one’s would be the factor of still having to be the one to bring the
most revenue, having to always be professional, obtain a fit, muscular body, never be the one to
cry, and the sort. Males have a focus on being macho and lack emotion. While some may argue
these are more focused on social norms, another can argue these are only imposed social norms
because of media. Media is the reason why we have social norms, in such, we have gender
inequality, and we have gender stereotypes, and just generally, gender issues all around. These
stereotypes have led to incredible social norms, as mentioned, how the ideal man is muscular,
and must not show any emotion that could be deemed unmanly, again, a social norm of what a
man should be, and how a male can easily be pressured into locking up their emotions causing a
meltdown for some, and how it could cause more harm than good. Many studies show how
males who are emotionally locked have outbreaks, or even cause harm to others. David and
Brannon in 1976 were able to even outline this fact, and provided such quotes like “no sissy
stuff” where one would distance themselves from feminity, homophobia and to purposely avoid

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emotion to even be deemed either of those. Clearly, over the years this is an issue that continues
to come up, almost yearly with new results arising every single time there is further research
onto the topic.
Personal Interest
My personal interest toward the topic of media and how it can affect genders is that this
is something I see on a daily basis, and it has personally shaped me and many of the people I’ve
grown up with similarly. Humans are, in my opinion born as an empty canvas. We are able to
learn what we see, and mimic what we view interesting. Once media has come to the household,
we have more and more canvases be ruined with ideals that are not our own. We are thrown
idea’s of what a child should do. What one should learn, how one should be. Speaking as a male,
growing up with the fact that I was not allowed to show emotion, how I was not allowed to cry
and not allowed to do anything that was out of the social norms imposed by media was off-
putting. I had enjoyed being a simple child, one who has compassion for things, living and non-
living alike and appreciated things that males should not have appreciated. The concept of
military-action figures for example, a media norm of how males must be strong and one day join
the military to prove such, was not something of interest to me. Human life was valuable and
being told otherwise was just incredibly saddening. Just seeing how male toys are any toy store
were sword, guns, of course of the fake kind, and action figures depicting muscular men with
said items, and having the comparison of females where everything we pink, home-esque where
you could buy a cooking set, or being prepared early for fertility with baby-dolls that would
mimic that of an actual child. It’s great for females in terms of a future, but it doesn’t allow one
to breathe and express themselves. These media norms telling us what to do, what to think and

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what to do create a machine-like society where we only do what we’re told, and mimic what we
see in media.
Professional Interest
As a professional interest, this is a topic as I personally said, feel is important. I feel we
must view this as a serious topic. This is something we need to identify and figure out how we
can tone it down, and also see what we can do so that future generations don’t feel the same kind
of pressure that many of us are feeling in this current generation. Media is a given, it’s something
we need and it is not something that will go away anytime soon. Viewing the world and the
people in it from a different perspective, in which everyone has something to offer, but cannot
due to the media norms overpowering them. Some people for example, may not have the
muscular body shape that’s ideal in society, but have other attributes they would love to show
off, such as an artistic ability for example, but would rather keep it enclosed as it’s not something
that’s considered masculine, and generally would be overshadowed in their eyes compared to a
business-man who is muscular. Granted that’s an extreme, but in this society it’s not an
impossibility to feel restricted in doing something just because media has been shoving other
ideals down one’s throat.
Hypothesis
Another goal is to see if I can make specific correlations with the survey data, and the
research literature from above, and see if there is a direct influence on gender stereotypes from
the media, and how it could affect any those surveyed anonymously. While my main thesis is to
see how gender is impacted by media, and thus how gender is affected by social norms and
stereotypes, I have several hypothesis that go directly under that to more specifications.

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 Hypothesis 1. Those who intake media are subjected to any media stereotypes.
 Null Hypothesis 1. Those who intake media are not subjected to any media stereotypes.
I have a strong belief that this hypothesis are indeed subjected to media stereotypes. Not
only through personal views, but because of the information brought up earlier, and the articles
brought up in my personal and professional goals. They all prove this statement to a degree, and
I wish to further prove it.
 Hypothesis 2. Media stereotypes will cause those viewing it to change themselves,
mentally or physically.
 Null Hypothesis 2. Media stereotypes will not cause any changes in one’s mental
thoughts or physical appearance.
Media portrays what is beautiful, what’s considered in-and-out in the current popular
stream. So, why would it not impact how one’s watching? It would obviously end up causing
the viewer to change their image based on what’s in, and change their views on what’s
considered smart. What was in yesterday is out tomorrow, and the media knows how abuse
that.
 Hypothesis 3. Media influences how satisfied people are with themselves.
 Null Hypothesis 3. Media does not have any influence on how satisfied people are with
themselves.
Media is a source that shows you what’s in and out, as also shown in Hypothesis 2.
Therefore, one’s self-image would be deterred because of how media portrays what the ‘perfect
body’ or ‘ideal life’ is. That could cause one’s opinion of themselves to vary.

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 Hypothesis 4. Media will stop one from doing something, or wanting to achieve
something.
 Null Hypothesis 4. Media will not stop anyone from doing something, or wanting to
achieve something.
When you see someone on a social network achieve something, say an art award, and then
you compare yourselves to them, and view them as better, you will get discouraged and
sometimes give up. This applies to media in general, say a TV show where some character gets
something while another didn’t, and you relate to that secondary character.
 Hypothesis 5. Media creates an image that the male image is stronger than the female
image, meaning there is sexism in our cultural media.
 Null Hypothesis 5. Media does not create an image that the male image is stronger than
the female image, meaning there is no sexism in our cultural media.
Many of the research papers from earlier brought a sense of male dominance, and that it’s a
media-depicted social norm. Where the male is the dominant one who brings money, while the
female is the stay at home mom who takes care of everything with a smaller job.
 Hypothesis 6. Many are peer-pressured into following social norms set by media.
 Null Hypothesis 6. Many do not fall into peer-pressure and thus, do not follow social
norms set by media.
It’s easy to be influenced by social norms set by media, but it’s even easier to follow into
peer-pressure due to media influence. Therefore, it’s easy to assume what one see’s on TV, for
example, will end up continuing what they saw, and thus, transferring it to another.

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 Hypothesis 7. Those who watch/read media sources, will be influenced negatively
more than positively.
 Null Hypothesis 7. Those who watch/read media sources, will not be influenced
negatively more than positively.
Similar to some of my other hypothesis, I feel there is going to be a general negative
correlation over media use. There will always be hate, jealously, and other self-harming
thoughts. Even if it’s mental, and at the worst physical.
Methodology
The data that had been gathered for Media vs. Gender was received through surveys.
These surveys were from the student body of COM4900 at Baruch College, and a selected
student body by the class’s professor, Professor Wilkins. The selected student body was through
his own additional resources. Additionally, to the student body and the professor’s resources,
Facebook, Twitter and one-on-one messages to my friends. Besides the information on the
survey additional information was also received for knowledge, from sources such as the Baruch
Library Database, personal studies, and articles throughout the web.

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Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha
Based on
Standardized Items
N of Items
.753 .806 8
As you can see from the Cronbach’s Alpha, there was a .753 in terms of reliability during scaling
it, out of those 8 questions that were pulled out. Out of that .753, this can prove that the survey is
quite reliable from those questions that were pulled, and thus can be researched further without a
sense of falsehood.
In terms of controlling the internal and external reliability, to show how accurate my
information can be, was that for one, I had taken the CITI course in research ethics, allowing me
to conduct this research first and foremost. Following that, those surveyed were asked to accept
the terms and conditions set by me, in which if they have any inclination to lie and or provide a
false answer, it would be best to not take the survey in the first place. Those I had asked on
Facebook, Twitter and from one-on-one messaging were those I had trusted, and those who had
no issues providing me with their honest answers. Those who answered under Professor Wilkins
are a body of people who were chosen under the professor himself, and would be obligated to not
insert false-answers. Finally, those that deviated from actual answers, which was only one out of
58 surveyed, was removed.
I had tried to ask my questions as straightforward as possible, to keep from having any
second thoughts or perhaps allow bias toward them. Any questions that could have had bias, or
weren’t too straightforward were put onto a Likert scale, which there were only two

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circumstances where that had to be done. In terms for what measures were used, there was
descriptive and inferential statistics involved.
In terms of descriptive statistics, which are numbers that summarize and describe data,
there were measures of central tendency, the mean, median and mode to figure out certain
applications and variables for certain hypothesis. As for inferential statistics, which is trying to
infer from the sample data we had to make judgments, just like above with the Cronbach’s alpha,
there was Pearson’s coefficient test, the chi square which was emphasized heavily, and the T-
test. The lambda test was also used to measure certain aspects of my research.
What gender are you?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Male 23 40.4 50.0 50.0
Female 23 40.4 50.0 100.0
Total 46 80.7 100.0
Missing System 11 19.3
Total 57 100.0
Those who took my survey, as mentioned above for slightly more detail on who did, was
a total of 58 respondents. However, of those 58 one of them was a joke response, which was
quickly removed. Since gender plays a vital role in my research, there was a total of 23 males
who has answered, which made of 50% of the survey results, and 23 females which made
another 50%. There were 11 missing, so this is going off a valid percentage, which is great in
terms of this research. Having an equal number of males and females allows for a more accurate
response as the research continues.

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Out of those, there were 41 who went to a high school, college, or graduate school, and
this made up 89.1%. However, 5 of them did not attend any form of education and this made up
a 10.9% amount.
Since my research does revolve around media as well, we needed to find the descriptive
amounts for the amount a person would watch TV, read, go on social network, listen to music
(which can have ad’s if using a radio-like-service) or play games.
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
How often do you watch TV
in a given day?
46 1 4 1.78 .664
How often do you read any
form of text, such as online
articles,or a book in a given
day?
45 1 7 5.87 1.753
How often do you go on
social networks such as
Facebook,Google+,
Twitter?
45 2 7 6.51 1.014
On a typical day, abouthow
many hours do you spend
listening to music?
45 1 5 2.64 .957
Do you play video games
(Consoles,PC,mobile,
browser..)?
45 1 2 1.31 .468
Valid N (listwise) 45
This chart shows us, 1 being the least amount of never, 2 being less than once a month, 3
being once a month, 4 being 2-3 times a month, 5 being once a week, 6 being 2-3 times a week,
and finally 7 at daily. These are for the ones that are called between 1 and 7. Those scaled between
1 and 5 are, 1 being none, 2 being 1-3 hours, 3 being 3-6 hours, and 4 being 6 – 9 hours, and a 5th

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option which was only chosen for music, which is 9+ hours. For television, the 5th option has not
been picked and in which case only shows 1-4. Finally, the 1-2 option was a yes/no question,
therefore you see video games saying yes or no.
 Television had an average of 1.78, which means there was roughly 3 hours watched daily.
 Books, articles and the sort was at least once a week at 5.87.
 Social media had the highest at 2-3 times a week on average, and closing on a daily value
at 6.51%.
 Listening to music had a mean of 2.64, which is 3-6 hours.
 Finally, there was more yes’s for playing video games than those who didn’t at 1.31.
Throughout the results, please keep these statistics in mind, being the gender and the amount of
media intake for those who answered surveys.
Results
My main thesis throughout this paper, was to see how gender is impacted by media, and
by that, how media impacted the social norms and stereotypes onto the average media consumer.
Starting with my first hypothesis;
 Hypothesis 1. Those who intake media are subjected to any media stereotypes.
 Null Hypothesis 1. Those who intake media are not subjected to any media stereotypes.
Chi-Square Tests
Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-
sided)
Exact Sig. (2-
sided)
Exact Sig. (1-
sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 3.300a
1 .069
Continuity Correctionb
2.292 1 .130
Likelihood Ratio 3.344 1 .067

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Fisher's Exact Test .129 .065
Linear-by-Linear Association 3.225 1 .073
N of Valid Cases 44
Upon creating a chi-square for the initial hypothesis of there being media stereotypes for
those who simply view media, was incorrect as I was always above a .05 acceptance rate. While
it’s not too far off, the correlations are generally just too far off to be proven correct. Therefore,
for my hypothesis on if those who just intake media being subjected to media stereotypes, was
false, and therefore, my Null Hypothesis is correct.
 Hypothesis 2. Media stereotypes will cause those viewing it to change themselves,
mentally or physically.
 Null Hypothesis 2. Media stereotypes will not cause any changes in one’s mental
thoughts or physical appearance.
This one came as a rather big surprise. While I had conducted a lambda test for this one, the
cross tabs alone gave a rather big result. In terms of males, 7 had said yes to this question, while
15 said no. In terms of females, 13 said yes, and 9 said no. This shows gender inequality where
media can affect one gender more so than the other, in such, females in general have a harder
time with mental and physical media portrayal.
As for the lambda test; for the sake of space I shortened the question to “Were there ever”.
Using the asymptotic standard of error, we can see the null hypothesis is correct.

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Directional Measures
Value Asymp. Std.
Errora
Approx.
Tb
Approx.
Sig.
Nominal by
Nominal
Lambda
Symmetric .238 .176 1.233 .217
What gender are you?
Dependent
.273 .173 1.370 .171
Were there ever .200 .210 .860 .390
Goodman and Kruskal
tau
What gender are you?
Dependent
.075 .079 .073c
Were there ever .075 .079 .073c
 Hypothesis 3. Media influences how satisfied people are with themselves.
 Null Hypothesis 3. Media does not have any influence on how satisfied people are with
themselves.
Doing another crosstabulation my hypothesis is indeed correct, and media does influence how
people are with themselves. The question was, “Have there been moments where you were
unhappy with your self-image, or who you were generally?” Simple enough, to where we can see
how happy they are with themselves, given the choices of yes, multiple times, yes, once or twice,
or no, they had no issues at all. In terms of males, similar to hypothesis 2, we have 4 for multiple
times, and 5 for once or twice. However, most sided with no, at 13.
Females however, had more. For yes, multiple times, we have 5. Only one more than that of the
males. And for once or twice, we have 9. Which is 4 more than that of males. Which is a drastic
number for this survey amount. Additionally, we have 6 for no, which is drastically low
compared to males. Therefore, we can see that, just by these simple numbers, media can
influence how satisfied people are with themselves.

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 Hypothesis 4. Media will stop one from doing something, or wanting to achieve
something.
 Null Hypothesis 4. Media will not stop anyone from doing something, or wanting to
achieve something.
My initial thought was that media would restrict someone from doing something, simply
because they felt they wouldn’t be on par with someone they either saw through a media source,
or a friend or something of the sort, and thus, would quit and not achieve what they originally
wanted to do. However, despite my hypothesis, this falls into the Null Hypothesis. Having a
majority of males and females say no as opposed to yes, ended up causing this to scale over to
the Null. 6 males and 4 females had written that they are affected by media, in terms of achieving
something, and 16 males and 18 females had written they are not affected by media in terms of
achieving something. Using a one-sample t-test, where the t is 27.739, and df is 43 we have that
there is a difference as well of 1.773 with a 95% confidence at 1.64 lower, and 1.90 upper.
One-Sample Test
Test Value = 0
t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean
Difference
95% Confidence Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
Have you ever stopped
yourselffrom doing
something,or wanting to
achieve something due to
media...
27.739 43 .000 1.773 1.64 1.90

21. Media vs. Gender
20
 Hypothesis 5. Media creates an image that the male image is stronger than the female
image, meaning there is sexism in our cultural media.
 Null Hypothesis 5. Media does not create an image that the male image is stronger than
the female image, meaning there is no sexism in our cultural media.
When asked if they believed that one gender had superiority in media over the other, on the
survey to fulfill this hypothesis, males voted equally on yes-males have more superiority, but are
also equally represented compared to females. While 5 voted that females had superiority, and 3
had no opinion on the matter. As for females, similar to male, 6 believed male had superiority,
but also were both equal, and 5 voted to the fact that females had superiority, and 3 also had no
opinion on the matter.
Generally, this one comes to a majority stalemate where out of the 44 results, 13 say male have
superiority, and 12 say females have superiority, but 13 say they are equally represented.
Therefore, the male superiority would be countered by those that see it as equally represented,
and it’s only one off the female superiority in media.
Therefore, I would vote neither this being a true, nor false statement as I don’t have enough to
see it being a factor of superiority, or not.
 Hypothesis 6. Many are peer-pressured into following social norms set by media.
 Null Hypothesis 6. Many do not fall into peer-pressure and thus, do not follow social
norms set by media.

22. Media vs. Gender
21
Have you ever felt the need to follow gender stereotypes set by media?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Yes 18 31.6 42.9 42.9
No 24 42.1 57.1 100.0
Total 42 73.7 100.0
Missing System 15 26.3
Total 57 100.0
For hypothesis 6, as thiswasbetweenthe male andfemale groups,andhow thiswasfocused
more around the groupswithinthose genders,andhow theyare affectedbygenderstereotypesin
mediaandthe needto followthe normssetbythem. Intermsof how manypeople fell intopeer
pressure,we have atotal of 42.9% sayingyes,and57.1% sayingno.Therefore,Iwouldhave todecline
my hypothesisandbringittowardthe null hypothesis.Itseemsgenderstereotypesaren’tsoheavily
influencedasone wouldexpectwithhow drasticallymediashovesmedianorms.Surprisinginthe least,
but it’snotthe biggestdifference withonlyhavingadifference of 6people choosingnoratherthanyes.
Thiswas a genderneutral question,sowhichgenderaskedwhichdoesn’taffectthe outcome too
heavily.
Finally,the lasthypothesis;
 Hypothesis 7. Those who watch/read media sources, will be influenced negatively
more than positively.
 Null Hypothesis 7. Those who watch/read media sources, will not be influenced
negatively more than positively.
This was a more open-ended response, since it wasn’t too easily measured into my survey, and
indeed a mistake of my own for not asking this question more specifically onto my survey,
however I have something similar enough. The results on this one, were also open ended. I gave

23. Media vs. Gender
22
those answering the survey, the ability to insert their own opinion on this one. Things such as
“You have to be flawless in society, therefore many get the wrong idea an could potentially harm
themselves in horrible diets, weight loss, and other situations where they get a negative affect
from media” and this is generally, the gist of what all the entries say.
As mentioned, this is open-ended, so the results were;
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid
50 87.7 87.7 87.7
Everyone else does 1 1.8 1.8 89.5
expected beauty standards from
society.
1 1.8 1.8 91.2
Looking like them means you're
attractive, and being attractive
can lead to more opportunities.
1 1.8 1.8 93.0
They are seen as Ideal and
normal.
1 1.8 1.8 94.7
Yes because all ofthe headlines
surrounding the women are
abouthow to look your bestand
have a hot body.
1 1.8 1.8 96.5
You are expected to look
flawless.
1 1.8 1.8 98.2
you have to be fit and certian
weightlimit.
1 1.8 1.8 100.0
Total 57 100.0 100.0