Images of Indian Women in the Media

Academic discourse, debate and research has been plentiful in feminist media theory and women in media research in recent years. Media has been described as "technologies of gender, accommodating, modifying, reconstructing and producing, disciplining and contrary renditions of sexual difference" [van Zoonen, Feminist Media Studies, Sage Publication 1994]. My project, based on India, deals with the representation of women in both the visual and printed media and the questions which can be posed thereon. Media 'texts', as they have been called, such as advertisements, television programmes, films, magazines, etc. provide an area of observation to see how such technologies function and provide meaning. These throw light, for further analysis, on questions such as the tensions caused by the a struggle between tradition and modernity; the alternative, and at times, conflicting meanings encoded in such texts; the symbols of reality and fantasy in such models of communication; questions of gender, ethnic identity, sexuality and power in the construction of Indian femininity; etc. In my recent fieldwork in India, I spent time collecting empirical data for such research. This encompasses several kinds of research material from sources as diverse as the leading advertising agencies (mainly headquartered in Bombay); the three largest-selling women's magazines in English; episodes of talkshows, serials, soap operas and sitcoms, particularly those aired by the privately owned television channels, and data from market research agencies.
Several theoretical approaches are possible to deal with such data. One can concentrate on the 'reception' side, i.e. the interpretation, acceptance/non-acceptance of such portrayals, the position of the intended (even non-intended) audience in relation to such texts, etc. Another would be to concentrate on the 'production' side, i.e. the study of the media product itself. For the latter approach, Liesbet van Zoonen, in her authoritative and exhaustive overview of feminist studies on media, suggests two basic approaches to the study of media output : content analysis and semiotics. In an integrated analysis, one can complement the other.

The 'New Woman'
Research on such discourses of gender and media, while plentiful in the West, are limited in the Indian context. In recent years in India (1987 and repeated in 1993), the market research agency 'Pathfinders:India' carried out two detailed polls. Called the SNAP polls (the Study of the Nation's Attitudes and Psychographics), they covered 10,000 urban Indian housewives in 36 towns across classes and zones. The numbers of the "contemporary housewife", defined as "generally better educated, with a higher proportion of working women...a more active lifestyle...more into all types of media..." showed an increase from 19.2% in 1987 to 22.1% in 1993. This "purchase-prone attitudinal cluster" (particularly in relation to high value durables and personal products) registered a jump from 49.3% in 1987 to 53.6% in 1993 - a 4.3% increase. Advertising in India too shows this trend. It is however interesting to note a dichotomy. Advertisements portray a woman who is more in control, knows her mind, yet negotiates her newly emerging position within the context of her household and family life. This so-called 'New Woman' in advertising reflects two concurrent trends. While reflecting India's changing climate of economic liberalization and a consequent aspirational attitude towards a better lifestyle, it also reflects the fact that such changes get incorporated within the system without replacing them entirely.
Media, as an area of enquiry, is a site where complex negotiations, at many levels, occur. Depending on one's tools of analysis, method and approach, the results obtained shed light on different aspects. An "interpretative research strategy" relies more on qualitative data collection and analysis, and using a different theoretical approach, arrives at different results than quantitative data analysis. This is a well-respected and popular approach, taking into account as it does, the consumer and the audience and their perceptions and observations, while building up a theoretical framework surrounding this work. Content analysis and semiotic analysis, apart from helping to collate quantitative data for various purposes like policy making and decisions, also help in decoding representations, and allow the researcher to explore all levels of signification.