Digital Media and Gender In Australia. The City and State where it is located

Digital Media and Gender In Australia
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The City and State where it is located
The Date of Submission
Digital media is a source of information that contains a transformative power in society. While social media was projected as an equalizing power that permits everybody to access information, the digital media divide prevents more individuals from being presented online. In Australia, social media are prone to gender inequality, a significant issue given the connection between digital media use and employment. In 2014, the Australian government declared that discrimination against women had become a national disaster. Despite extensive social media advances in the eminence of women since 1980s, comprising growing awareness against gender violence, its occurrence remains alarming. Understanding gender inequality in digital media is a stimulating mission due to the need for data sources that can give large-scale capacities in Australia. Nevertheless, the debate concerning the extent of how digital media address the issue of gender inequality continues. Many scholars focus on symbolic communication accounts of how gender is presented in digital media. The paper will focus on how digital media has worsened gender inequality in Australia.
Gender inequality remains to be the main barrier to the recognition of rights and access to chances for women in Australia. Structural and organized gendered disparities highlight the inequality position of women in Australia. (North, 2010. Pg. 170), gender disparity interacts with other structures of power and inequality, leading to numerous and interconnecting practices of inequality and difficulty for marginalized women. Australian Bureau of Statistics indicates that half of the women in Australia have been discriminated physically, and a third of the women have been harassed sexually. Other statistics indicate that two women are murdered by a close partner in Australia every week, and domestic violence is the major factor.
Historically, digital media has failed to reduce gender violence, usually splashed because it fails to address the fundamental causes of gender inequality. For example, most social media platforms suggest that men need to be mentally tough, which standardized male aggression. Also, Australian men earn more than women in even all industries, but the gender pay crack is narrowing at a very sluggish pace. North, (2013 pg. 330), suggests that workplace Gender Equality organization examined the pay inconsistencies among men and women workers and found that on the average male is required to be paid 20 per cent more in total payment than women.
Of the several influences on how men and female are viewed, media are the most universal and most powerful in Australia. According to (Park, 2012. Pg. 93), in our daily life, media advocate their messages into our awareness at every turn. All media platforms communicate images of the sexes, most of which spread idealistic, stereotypical and limited insights. Various themes describe how digital media represent gender in Australia. Firstly, women are underrepresented, which incorrectly suggests that men are the social standard and women are insignificant or invisible. Second, male and female are represented in a stereotypical manner that echoes and sustain socially recognized opinions of gender. Lastly, representations of relationships among male and female stress on traditional responsibilities and regulate violence against women.
Underrepresentation of Women
A significant way in which media misrepresent reality in Australia is in the underrepresenting female. Whether it is a major-time television or youth’s program where men outnumber women, or newscasts, where female make up 18 per cent of anchors and the stories concerning men are included ten times than ones concerning female. According to media descriptions, males are more in number compared to women. Besides, many women are attractive, passive, and mainly concerned with relationships and getting children. On the other hand, fewer women work hard, which is possibly why they are hard-boiled and undesirable. On this case, more powerful, determined men occupy themselves in media, business deals, and saving dependent women who they frequently assault sexually.
Also, underrepresented is the only developing group of Australians people. Older people are not only underrepresented in media but also are denoted imprecisely in distinction to demographic authenticities. Media consistency show less older female compared to male, apparently because the country's culture adores youth and attractiveness in women. In addition, elderly people are often described as sick, dependent and distorted representations of older women in media made others think that they are unimportant in the country's population. The shortage of women in media is due to the inadequacy of women in charge of media. About 6 per cent of television news anchors, executives are women (Gifford, S.M. and Wilding, R., 2013 pg. 600). Paradoxically, while a third of journalism graduates are female, they represent only 3 per cent of those in commercial management of magazines. It is perhaps not accidental that fewer females are behind the scenes of an organization that so reliably represents women negatively.
Stereotypical Portrayals of Women and Men
Generally, digital media continue to represent both male and female in a stereotyped manner that reduces an individual's insights into human possibilities. Usually, men are described as active, influential, sexually hostile and mostly uninvolved in human relations. Women characters dedicate their primary energies in enhancing their looks and taking care of the family. Because digital media permeate our lives, the ways they distort genders may misrepresent how individuals see themselves and what they see as usual and desirable for males and females. Als...