Introduction to Mass Media. U.S. Mass Media and Image Culture: the Stakes of Gender

Introduction to Mass Media. U.S. Mass Media and Image Culture: The Stakes of Gender, Race/Ethnicity and Ethics

American Studies sophomores, Spring 2017

Instructor: Dana Mihăilescu

This course means to familiarize students with how U.S. mass media (press, radio, television, digital media, etc.) have used racial/ethnic and gender images throughout time. The course explores the various ways in which U.S. mass media have strategically constructedracial/ethnic and gender images or have attempted to create alternative ethical spaces to correct some mishaps of representations by delving into the specifics of different temporal / cultural periods and types of media. The course finally aims to foster students’ ability to identify strategies of manipulation and ethical reconfiguration of racial/ethnic and gender images and to develop their critical thinking on issues of image representation in mass media.

1. Introduction.

2. Key Moments in U.S. Media Development

[Party Press Era; Mass Press Era (Penny Press); Modern Journalism (Summary Lead, Inverted Pyramid; Yellow Journalism; Story-telling Journalism, Information Model Journalism; Muckraking); New Journalism; Post-2000 Embedded Reporting; Film; Radio Programs; Television Formats; Digital Media]

3. Cornerstones of Media Development throughout Time, Specifics of VariousMass Media Types (written press, radio, television, digital media), and Critical Methodologies (Production and Political Economy, Textual Analysis, Audience Reception).

Lippman, William. Excerpts from Public Opinion (1922) [see course-pack]

Hall, Stuart. “Encoding, decoding.” The Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 1994. 90-103.

Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. “Networks of Remediation.” Remediation. Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MASS: MIT Press, 1999. 64-84.

Kellner, Douglas. “Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture.” Gender, Race, and Class in Media. A Critical Reader. Eds. Gail Dines and Jean M. Hunez. L.A.: Sage, 2011. 7-18.

4. Visuality and Ethics in Mass Media: The Role of Images as Norm Setters, Functional and Conjectural Knowledge Methodologies

Foss, Sonja K. “A Rhetorical Schema for the Evaluation of Visual Imagery.” Communication Studies 45 (Fall-Winter 1994): 213-224.

Kuhn, Annette. “Photography and Cultural Memory: A Methodological Explanation.” Visual Studies 22.3 (December 2007): 283-292.

Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. “Digital Photography.” Remediation. Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MASS: MIT Press, 1999. 104-113.

5. Mass Media and Women’s Images throughout Time: Turn-of-the-Century to 1960s Configurations (Woman as Domestic Provider and Consumer)

Ppt. on turn-of-the-century women’s images in U.S. mainstream and minority magazines

Case studies:

Alice BarberStephens’ The American Woman Series -- 6 photos in the 1897 issues of Ladies’ Home Journal [mainstream configurations of women’s image] in C. Kitch 21, 23, 25, 27, 30, 33

Moses, Adolph. “The Position of Woman in America.” American Jewess1.1 (1895): 15-21. [minority configurations of women’s images]

Mironesco, Monique. “Disconnection: Advertising and Editorial Content in the Housewives League Magazine.” Atenea XXXI (December 2011): 145-156.

6. Mass Media and Women’s Images throughout Time: Turn-of-the Century to 1960s Configurations (Woman as Domestic Provider and Consumer, cont.)

Ppt. on 1890’s True Domestic Woman and 1900s Gibson, Fisher, Christy Girls asall American girl-pals [Gibson Girl, Fisher Girl, Christy Girl, Flapper]

Harding Davis, Richard and Charles Dana Gibson. “The Origin of a Type of the American Girl.” The Quarterly Illustrator 3:9 (January-March 1895): 3-8.

Images of 1910s Phillips’ sexually dangerous schemer 65, 66; Wartime patriotic images – woman as Militant Victory or Protecting Angel 108, 109; 1920’s Flapper – Held’s party girl 124-125, 1930’s Family Woman–New Mother Figure 134]

Kitch, Carolyn. “The Modern American Family.”The Girl on the Magazine Cover. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. 136-159.

Videos:Living Pages (1935). archive.org ( A Date With Your Family. Prod. Simmel-Meservey. 1950. archive.org;Brighter Day In Your Kitchen. 1955. archive.org; Boys Beware. Prod. Sid Davis. 1961.Consuming Women (Women as Consumers). Prod. Handy (Jam) Organization. 1967. archive.org (

7.Mass Media and Women’s Images throughout Time: Post-1960s Configurations (Women as Slim Objects vs. Women as Agents of Change; The Stakes of Women’s Blogs and Digital Posting)

Graydon, Shari. “How the Media Keeps Us Hung Up on Body Image.” Herizons (Summer 2008): 17-19.

Cohen, Randy. “Should Photos Come with Warning Labels?.” New York Times 20 October 2009.

Leow, Rachel. “Reflections on Feminism, Blogging, and the Historical Profession.” Journal of Women’s History 22.4 (Winter 2010): 235-243.

Ho, Jennifer. “Being Held Accountable: On the Necessity of Intersectionality.” Journal of Women’s History 22.4 (Winter 2010): 190-196.

Videos:Killing Us Softly – Advertising and the Image of Women (2001) ( Girls and the Media (2009) (

8. U.S. Mass Media, Gender and Racial Images. General Overview (African Americans)

Johnson, Victoria E.“Racism and Television.”African Americans and Popular Culture. Vol. 1. Theater, Film, and Television. Ed. Todd Boyd. Wesport, CONN: Praeger, 2008. 165-184.

Hall, Stuart. “The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media.” Gender, Race, and Class in Media. A Critical Reader. Eds. Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011. 81-84.

Case studies: Episode from Amos and Andy; DMX video “What’s my name?”

9. U.S. Mass Media, Gender and Ethnic / Immigrant Images. Case Studies: Jewish Americans

Antler, Joyce. “Roseanne and The Nanny: The Jewish Mother as Postmodern Spectacle.” You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 169-192.

Episodes from Roseanne and The Nanny

10-11. Projects to present in class:

1) devise a possible blog you could launch as a group to address a social issue which is transnational / transatlantic in scope;

2) draw up interviews with a small group of respondents (5 to 10) from your family members / people of various generations, asking them about the impact of television or radio or digital media on their life, and the level of American media influence they have felt exposed to. Based upon this, present in class a comparative assessment chart / poster / ppt presentation on how various generations and / or various people have been influenced by various media and to what degree U.S. content has been part of that. (You should concentrate on the use of gendered / ethnic / racial images by U.S. television / media / films and their impact on people’s sense of self, presenting a chart / a poster / a ppt. presentation with images and testimonies taken from interviewing such people on the issue of the use of gendered / ethnic / racial images by U.S. television / media / films and their impact on people’s sense of self) or

3) make a poster / ppt presentation including media-related ethnic/gender images (from a sitcom / film, etc.) or images and texts from a journal issue and captions on these suggesting how you critically interpret them.

12. Reporting Tragedies in the U.S. Mass Media and Beyond: Photo Use in the Throes of Politics and Ethics (Vietnam - 9/11)

Ann E. Kaplan. “Vicarious Trauma and ‘Empty’ Empathy.” Trauma Culture. The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005.

Miller, Nancy K. “The Girl in the Photograph: The Visual Legacies of War.” Picturing Atrocity. Photography in Crisis. Eds. Geoffrey Batchen, Milk Gidley, Nancy K. Miller and Jay Posser. London: Reaktion Books, 2012. 147-154.

Video: Beneath the Veil. Women in Islam

13. Reporting Tragedies in the U.S. Mass Media and Beyond: In the Throes of Politics and Ethics (9/11)

Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire 11 September 2003.

Walsh, Lauren. “Ten Years Later: Re-Viewing 9/11’s Suppressed Images.” Nomadikon. August 2011.

Lynn, Spiegel. “Entertainment Wars: Television Culture after 9/11.” American Quarterly 56.2 (June 2004): 235-270.

Video: West Wing 9/11 episode

14. Final exam:Critical analysis of one media gender image. + You will beasked to explain one of the following: Sonja Foss’ functional methodology;Annette Kuhn’s conjectural knowledge methodology;Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s ideas about remediation and digital photography;Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding techniques and notions of racist ideologies and the media; Ann Kaplan’s notions of vicarious trauma and empty empathy and how they are used in the media.

Requirements and grade assessment:

Students are expected to constantly take part in class discussions and to read the texts on a weekly basis. They are to present one text on the reading list, draw up and present in class a media project (i.e. blog, chart based on interviews about media influence on people’s lives, or poster about gender images) and take one final written exam.

Grade breakdown:

Presentation +class participation: 1/3 of final grade

Final exam: 1/3 of final grade

Media project (ppt. presentation, poster, blog or chart): 1/3 of final grade