The past decades has exposed the idea of gender identity and relations as a product of media representations. A process of encoding and decoding (Stuart Hall 1973) that has created distorted and misunderstood concepts and meanings. From the Feminist standpoint, this has resulted to the discrimination and oppression of women. This course stems from women studies courses that aims to explore the idea of “media making woman” and seeks ways for “woman making media.” This includes studying the process and production of meaning in two phases. A Critical Phase looks into how media was making woman (demythologization & demystification of woman roles) and there is the Constructive Phase (feminist alternative theories) that looks into principles and praxis for woman making media (Mananzan, 1988). It is an interdisciplinary course drawing on sociology, media studies, feminist theory and feminist approaches to media. In order to animate this, the course will investigate both Philippine and global media sources like television, print advertising, magazines, photography, video, film, painting, autobiography, documentary and the web. The course will also examine emerging feminist media theory in the hope of bringing about developmental woman media praxis.
A. Media making woman: CRITICAL PHASE
1. WHAT woman images media created
a. Epistemological Critique:
· Reality: social construction of reality (Berger)
- Power & Language
· Representing reality:
- Media as ‘imaginary world’ that appeals to ‘social fantasies’
- The Male Gaze
- Distortion: Presupposition, Representation, Generalization
b. ‘Ritual’ view on communication: anthropology & sociology of religion
2. HOW media created woman images
a. Ideological Critique
· Capitalism & Patriarchy
b. Sociological Critique:
· Gender: Learning & Teaching Gender(passing on)
- SOCIALIZATION: Learning, Modeling, Identifying, Self-socialization
3. EFFECTS of media making woman.
a. Subjectivity and Objectivity: Role making & Role taking
- Functionalist: as determinant reality
- Objectified woman
b. Stereotypes: Sexism
- Stereotypes women answer to
c. Pornography: Oppression & Violence
· Violence against women
d. Hegemony: Internalization
· Triple exploitation of women
4. Deconstruction: Demythologizing & Demystification
a. Feminist Epistemology
b. Herstory
B. Woman Making Media: CONSTRUCTIVE PHASE
1. Feminist Consciousness
2. Feminist Phenomenology:
3. Telling Herstory: Personal is political
4. Feminist Media Theories
