Media Representation: The Role of Media In Establishing and Perpetuating Gender Stereotypes (A Study of Television Films on Gilan Local Network)

Khandan Choubari, Zahra; Masoumirad, Reza; Yaqoubi Choubari, Ali

doi:10.22034/scm.2026.564998.1983

Media Representation: The Role of Media In Establishing and Perpetuating Gender Stereotypes (A Study of Television Films on Gilan Local Network)

Document Type : researcher

Authors

Zahra Khandan Choubari ¹

Reza Masoumirad ²

Ali Yaqoubi Choubari ³

¹ M.S in Sociology. University of Guilan

² گیلان(نویسنده مسئول) Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan (Corresponding Author).

³ Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Social Sciences, University of Guilan.

10.22034/scm.2026.564998.1983

Abstract

The media is one of the ways of representing and constructing the world for the audience, which if they repeat it over time and in different forms, they can turn that representation into a stereotype. The purpose of this research is to investigate the way of gender representation in television movies, for which qualitative content analysis method was used. The community under investigation is four TV movies produced by the local network of Guilan with the names "Flame in the Wind", "The Prize", "Sun after the Rain" and "Roja". These four movies were among the most popular movies of the local network of Guilan, which were selected by the purposeful sampling method. The findings of the research, which were analyzed from the theoretical point of view of Connell and Tuchman, showed that all the four films under review represented gender stereotypes to different degrees. The film "The Sun After the Rain" and "Flame in the Wind" represent most of the traditional, hegemonic representations. The film "The Prize" is a combination of tradition and innovation in the representation of gender. And the movie "Roja" also tried to portray the existing resistances against gender stereotypes. These works are often evaluated as reproducing and stabilizing gender stereotypes, but nevertheless, in some works, changing trends in gender identities are depicted.

Keywords

gender stereotypes

masculinity and femininity

representation

television

Subjects