Vol. 35, No. 2, Spring 2007

APA: Analysis of Published Research Shows
Sexualized Images Harmful to Girls, Women

A report of the American Psychological Association (APA) released in February found evidence that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls’ self-image and healthy development.

The APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls studied published research on the content and effects of television, music videos, music lyrics, magazines, movies, video games and the Internet.  The Task Force also examined recent advertising campaigns and merchandising of products aimed toward girls. Full text of the Executive Summary, Report and tips on “What Parents Can Do” are available at: http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html

Sex Sells Only Sometimes; Study Says
Sexual Content Can Block Retention of Ads

People are less able to recall the brand of products advertised during television programs with a lot of sexual content, than they are if the commercial is placed in program that has no sexual content.

This was the key message that came from research by Ellie Parker and Adrian Furnham of the University College London, published in the February 2007 edition of Applied Cognitive Psychology.

A second, less surprising, finding was that men were more likely to recall the brand of products whose commercials contained sexual images, than they did if the ads were non-sexual. Women, on the other hand, were actively put off by sexual content in TV commercials.

Nothing Pretty About Models
Faking Death, Pozner Says

In a blog posting March 22, 2007, Women in Media & News Executive Director Jennifer Pozner sharply criticized a popular television fashion and style program for dancing with death in declaring what’s attractive and what’s not.

“Ain’t nothin’ hotter than a dead girl. That’s the take-away message from this week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, in which Tyra I-care-so-much-about-my-girls’ Banks & co. created the most brazen bit of ad-industry misogyny ever to grace the reality TV genre: an entire episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty. …The ‘beautiful corpses’ episode of Top Model (a series that traffics in bottom-feeder humiliation, objectification and degradation of women in the name of fashion, fun and beauty for the deep profit of integrated marketers such as Cover Girl and Seventeen magazine) serves as sharp reminder that what millions of reality TV viewers believe is harmless fluff… is anything but.” Read more by Pozner on this topic at http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/?p=462

Project for Excellence in Journalism:
Anna and the Astronaut Dominate News

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, Washington, DC,(www.journalism.org) produces a weekly news index that provides valuable information about what, and what kind, of stories get the most attention during the week. PEJ’s News Coverage Index is a study of the news agenda of 48 different outlets from five sectors of the media. It is designed to provide news consumers, journalists and researchers with hard data about what stories and topics the media are covering, the trajectories of major stories and differences among news platforms.

It’s rare that a woman, or women, dominate PEJ’s news index. But for one week in February, two women – model Anna Nicole Smith and astronaut Lisa Nowak – were all over the airwaves, print media, and the Internet. The PEJ report demonstrated that females combined with a whiff of scandal and sex can cause a firestorm of interest among even mainstream news organizations. More at www.journalism.org.

Feldt Blasts Supreme Court, Journalists
For Mainstreaming Anti-Choice Rhetoric

Gloria Feldt, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, blames journalists’ careless substitution of the language and rhetoric of the abortion debate – “partial birth abortion” -- for correct medical terminology for the April 18 Supreme Court decision outlawing a certain abortion procedure, intact dilation and extraction.

“As I reported in my 2004 book The War on Choice, an AP managing editor admitted when challenged that ‘partial birth abortion’ was emotionally loaded, but said they continued to use it because it was instantly recognizable. Another major daily newspaper editor admitted it wasn't correct but said it was easier to use than alternatives.”

Read her entire essay at www.alternet.org/mediaculture/50788/

MRTW Subscriber Protests Sexism,
Ageism in AARP Magazine

Longtime MRTW subscriber Joan Tobin copied us on her recent letter to Erik D. Olsen, president of the American Association of Retired Persons, which publishes what it trumpets as “the world’s largest-circulation magazine.” Her complaint: the magazine’s “Look Younger Now – Erase 10 Years (or More)” feature in the March-April 2007 issue, which Tobin says, from its cover line, could be addressing both men and women, but which is shown by the photographs on the contents page to be all about women. Not a male face among them.

Research in Depth: Winning Coverage --News Media Portrayals of the Women’s Movement, 1969-2004

Research in Depth: Commercializing Asian Women: Images in Media

Plus News Briefs, People and Book Reviews

Media Report to Women has hard copies of back issues dating to its founding in 1972. Indispensable for research!