Articulo_4_EN_Doxa_29

Going deeper in the complexities of Mass Culture created more specific studies on the influence of television, like the suggestions of the Uses and Gratifications Theory where, as per Katz (1959-en wolf 1987:78), it is pointed out:

“What does media do to people, to the question, what to people do to media? The theory is that even a message from a very powerful media would not influence an individual who does not use it in his socio-cultural context”.

Simone de Beauvoir was also the precursor of the notion of “gender” by confirming in her book “The second sex” (2015: 371) that you are not born a woman, but you grow up to be one. According to Mayobre (2007), with this, it means that femininity is not coming from a given biological nature, but it is acquired from a complex process, which is to transform a feminine human into a woman or a masculine human into a man. According to this author, the concept of “gender” has been in use since the 50’s in sectors like medicine, biology or linguistic. In 1986, the historian Joan. W. Scott said that the steps of evolution in society travel through symbolic systems representing genders. A representation which includes 4 elements: “the symbols available from the culture”, the policies which explain the meanings of these symbols, the relationship in the build up of the gender, even though not in an exclusive way, and the subjective identity.

Since the 60’s, various studies have been carried out in order to determine how to build this subjective identity. Albert Bandura led the investigations on the Social Learning Theory and established that the social influence emerged from different sides: the media influence the behaviour of the public as much as their personal and public environment (1996:12).

For Gerbner and others (1978) followers of the cultivation theory, television (when there still was no internet) was the cause of creating the symbolic changes. Pindado (2006) considers that the youngster build their own ideas between real life and means of communications and the media are part of this experience. Tesouro and others (2013) prove in their investigations adolescence is a key step in the establishment of the identity. They follow Erickson when they confirm that establishment of personal identity comes along with life – 8 steps and it is during adolescence when the establishment of identity reach its summit.

A study by the Women Institute on the treatment and role of the women in TV series shown by national TV channels implies that TV, does more than deny the presence of the woman and what it can do is contribute to spread a series of gender stereotypes of women and men identity, based on this , the Institute is questioning how genders identities are made up in TV.

A study elaborated by Luzon, Ramajo, Figueras, Capdevilla, Gomez, Jimenez and Ferrer (2009: 153-154) concludes that:

When male and female teenagers are a direct cause of an action in the fictive histories on TV, we have noticed that teenagers tend to realise positive actions in favour of others (solidarity, generosity) However when the actions of the male teenagers are directed directly to other male teenagers, role as the subject of the action is clearly positive, giving priority to values like friendship, honour and comradeship.

To situate the point of this investigation, Umberto Eco launches in the 60s the study of the relation TV- audience from a psycho sociological side (1984:348). He adopts all kind of frames to study the codes of the image but leaves the women aside as noted by De LAURETIS (1990:60) Laura Mulvey is the first one to question the sexist stereotypes in the films