Contributions to the Content Analysis of Gender Roles: An Introduction to a Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue on gender-related content analysis is the second of two parts (see Rudy et al. 2010b). The current special issue is more diverse than was the first in the number of countries that are represented and in the variety of media genres and content types that are included. The primary aim of this paper is to outline some of the contributions of the individual papers in this second special issue. Some of these advancements and innovations include (a) examining underresearched measures, countries, time spans, sexual orientations, and individual media programs; (b) addressing both international and intranational differences in gender-role portrayals; (c) comparing multiple content formats within the same media unit; (d) updating past findings to take into consideration the current media landscape; (e) employing established measures in novel ways and novel contexts; (f) uncovering limitations in established intercultural measures and media-effects theories; (g) suggesting variables that could predict additional differences in gender-role portrayals; (h) adopting virtually identical methods and measures across distinct content categories in order to facilitate comparisons; (i) conducting multiple tests of a given hypothesis; (j) examining, from multiple perspectives, the implications of racial differences in gender portrayals; and (k) examining the implications of underrepresentation of women and the perspectives that women hold. In addition to the original content-analytical research presented in this special issue, two reviews, one methodological and the other analytical, offer recommendations of procedures and perspectives to be implemented in future research.

“She” and “He” in News Media Messages: Pronoun Use Reflects Gender Biases in Semantic Contexts

“…On the other hand, (Koivula 1999) studied gender biases in one of the most gender-equal countries in the world (Sweden), and she also found a strong male dominance, although in a stereotypical male topic, sports news. This means that no matter the country or type of story, female underrepresentation is clearly documented (Collins 2011;Rudy et al 2010Rudy et al , 2011.…”

International Faces: An Analysis of Self-Inflicted Face-ism in Online Profile Pictures

“…A consistent conclusion is that women are typically underrepresented in media portrayals and those roles portrayed are typically stereotypical (Collins, 2011;Rudy, Popova, & Linz, 2011).…”

Selling Gender: Associations of Box Art Representation of Female Characters With Sales for Teen- and Mature-rated Video Games

“…As recommended by Rudy et al (2011) coders included both a woman and a man. The coders were trained for about 20 minutes each in the coding method.…”

“…Of the quantitative studies of the representation of female characters in video games, most have used content analysis to examine gender roles, as recommended by Rudy, Popova and Linz (2010, 2011) in their introduction to two special issues of Sex Roles . These have produced consistent results, showing that women are underrepresented relative to men and are more likely to be depicted in sexualized and passive roles, as described below.…”