The Hindu : National : Study sees no change in people's views about women

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Thursday, Oct 26, 2006
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Study sees no change in people's views about women

Antara Das

KOLKATA: Perceptions about women seem to be one of the few things constant in this fast changing world. Or so it appears from a study conducted by researchers at the School of Women's Studies (SWS), Jadavpur University, which analysed the representation of women in the media and how it is changing with time.

"We looked at both the increasing visibility of women in the media and the terms of that visibility," said Samita Sen, Director, SWS. "We discovered that although there is an apparent change, the basic roles and presumptions about women's worlds remain the same," she said.

Wide spectrum

The study, part of an international project to probe the role of women and the media in the era of globalisation, saw researchers interacting with different groups of people including students, housewives and non-governmental organisations. The media was categorised into print, including magazines and newspapers, and electronic, which would include television news, games and serials.

"The depiction of women in television serials showed a distinct binary between the good woman and the vamp," said Prof Sen. "The regional channels and the Bengali serials, however, had greater diversity while the so called K soaps mainly concentrated on interiorised, Hindu upper caste women," she said.

A narrowing down of diversity in women's representation was also noticed in some of the newspapers analysed during the survey. "While some of the newspapers had done away with pages devoted exclusively for women, there was an increasing preoccupation with celebrities and glamorous women," Prof. Sen said.

Nodal agency

The Institute of Development studies is the nodal agency for the study which is being undertaken in Lucknow, Bhubaneswar and Guwahati.

A final report will be prepared by collating the findings.

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