Images of Women in the Media

By Shoma Munshi

Academic discourse, debate, and research have been plentiful in feminist media theory and women in media research in recent years. Media has been described as "technologies of gender, accomodating, modifying, reconstructing and producing, disciplining and contrary renditions of sexual difference" (Van Zoonen, 'Feminist Media Studies', Sage, London and New Delhi, 1994 : 41). Media 'texts' as they are called, such as advertisements, television programmes, films, magazines, etc., provide an area of observation to see how such technologies function and provide meaning. These help in throwing light, as a starting point for further analysis, on issues such as the tensions in 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, ethnicity, sexuality and power in the construction of femininity, etc.

Objectives of the Conference
Drawing upon such polysemic media 'texts', this conference invites participants to discuss new methodological and theoretical approaches to deal with such data and address the sort of questions outlined above, and any others which will help form a linking point for discussions (discussed later in this article). The following two methodologies have been been current in such research so far. One has been the concentration on the 'reception' or 'consumption' side - the interpretation, acceptance/non-acceptance of such portrayals, the position of the intended (and non-intended) audiences and consumers in relation to such texts, ethnographic studies of consumption, interpretation, resistance, etc. This becomes inevitable when one recognizes the multiplicity of meanings in media texts and the multiplicity of ways that audiences make meaning of such texts. Another has been to concentrate on the 'production' side - the study of the media product itself, either by content analysis or semiotic analysis. In an interpretative research strategy the one can complement the other. Apart from these ways, the conference welcomes new approaches towards the examination of any type of media output.
Two related points for a broader linking of discussions need mentioning here. One, feminist scholarship has inevitably tended to make gender (as expressed in questions dealing mainly with femininity) an important component of research. However, this has led to a backlash, since by defnition, gender needs to focus both on women as well as men, on questions of femininity as well as masculinity. Thus, without strictly adhering to the title of the conference, papers dealing with theory, notions of masculinity and male sexuality in the construction of gender discourses, etc would also be welcome for discussion.
Two, geographical boundaries are not demarcated for the purposes of this conference; nor are strict areas of specialization. Hence papers will draw on empirical data from countries like Indonesia, Nepal, India, England, etc. What is of importance is to examine how different theoretical frameworks and approaches are applicable to the examination of such issues.
Last, but not least, the title of the conference, 'Images of Women in Media' is a deliberate choice. The word 'images' brings to mind 'representation'. Representation is of crucial political and cultural importance. By focusing on media, the conference will look at how far women are able to articulate their own perspectives and demands. How do women represent and re-present themslves through media? Representation also finds immediate reference to many of the important questions regarding culture and politics on the academic agenda. Cultural self-expression (through mass media) is a way of campaigning for political leverage. Not only does it lobby for social and legal changes beneficial to women, it also challenges cultural preoccupations concerning femininity and gender. The aim of the conference is that discussion and debate on such issues will lead to a broad cultural critique and raise further questions for future research.

Conference Programme

Monday 6 November 1995
Morning Session
9.00 - 9.15 Welcome Address
Professor W.A.L. Stokhof (Director, IIAS)

Chair and Discussant: Dr Ann Gray (Department of Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, U.K.)

9.15 - 10.00
Dr Genevieve Sellier (Université de Paris III, France): Evil Women in French Post-War Cinema, 1945-1955
10.00 - 10.45
Dr Purnima Mankekar (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, U.S.A.): 'Women-Oriented' Television Serials and the Reconstitution of Indian Womanhood 10.45 - 11.30 Ms. Lorraine Gamman, M.A. (Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design, London, U.K.): Female Fetishism and Visual Culture
11.30 - 11.45 Tea/Coffee
11.45 - 12.30
Dr Shoma Munshi (The International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands): Caring for You But Caring for Me, Too: Indian Advertising in the 1990's Constructs the 'New Woman' 12.30 - 14.00 Lunch
Afternoon Session
Chair and Discussant: Professor Patricia Uberoi (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, India)

14.00 - 14.45
Professor Nicholas B. Dirks (University of Michigan, U.S.A.): The Home and the Nation: Consuming Culture and Politics in (re) 'Roja'
14.45 - 15.30
Drs Marianne Oort (Kern Institute, Leiden University, The Netherlands): Myth as Medium: A Survey of the Status of Indian Women as Reflected by Functions attributed to Female Divinities
15.30 - 15.45 Tea/Coffee
15.45 - 16.30
Dr Krishna Sen (Centre for Research in Culture and Communication, Murdoch University, Australia): Women, Work and Advertising: Indonesia in the 1990's

Tuesday 7 November 1995
Morning Session
Chair and Discussant: Dr Ien Ang
9.00 - 9.45
Professor Patricia Uberoi (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, India): An 'arranged love marriage?': Dilemmas of Romance in Popular Indian Women's Magazines
9.45 - 10.30
Dr Suzanne Brenner (Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, U.S.A., and [for 1995-'96] School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A.): The Feminization of Modernity: Images of Women in the Popular Indonesian Print Media
10.30 - 11.15
Ms. Melinda Mash (Middlesex University, U.K.): Feminist Research: Text from a Context, Pretext
11.15 - 11.30 Tea/Coffee
11.30 - 12.15
Dr Gargi Bhattacharyya (Department of Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, U.K.): Tall & Tan & Young & Lovely - Evocations of Girls' Skin 12.15 - 13.00
Dr Monique Zaini-Lajoubert (Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique [CNRS], Paris, France): Women and Politics in Modern Indonesian and Malay Literatures with special reference to the novel Senator Adila by the woman writer Khadijah Hashim
13.00 - 14.30 Lunch Afternoon Session
Chair and Discussant: Dr Krishna Sen (Centre for Research in Culture and Communication, Murdoch University, Australia)
14.30 - 15.15
Dr Joke Hermes (Department of Communication, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands): Researching an Impossible Object: Men as Women's Magazine Readers
15.15 - 16.00
Dr Mark Liechty (Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, U.S.A.): "This Kind of *Love* I don't like too much": Women's Identity, Pornography and Consumer Sexuality in Kathmandu
16.00 - 16.15 Tea/Coffee
16.15 - 17.00
Perry Johansson (Institute of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University, Sweden): Selling the New Chinese Woman: From Hedonism to Return of Tradition in Women's Magazine Advertising

Wednesday 8 November 1995
Morning Session
Chair and Discussant: Professor Nicholas B. Dirks (University of Michigan, U.S.A.)
9.00 - 9.45
Dr Ann Gray (Department of Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, U.K.): Will the 'Real Viewer' Please Stand Up?: Questions of Method
9.45 - 10.30
Dr Ien Ang (Centre for Research in Culture and Communication, Murdoch University, Australia): Global Media/Local Meaning
10.30-10.45 Tea/Coffee
10.45 - 12.00
Summing Up and General Discussion with all the Chairs and Discussants of the Conference