The media play an important function in influencing women's self concepts and self esteem. Unfortunately, the media have not kept pace with fundamental changes that have occurred in gender roles in American society. Selectivity, distortion, and marginalization still characterize the presentation of women's issues in the press. Stereotypical images abound in the advertising media. As a result of such irresponsible journalism, women are often saddled with negative perceptions of themselves.
Although the press is entrusted with reporting current events in an unbiased fashion, coverage of women's issues, particularly feminism, leaves much to be desired. For example, women are largely excluded as news commentators, unless the topic of discussion happens to be related to gender. Women commentators are ubiquitous on news talk shows such as Nightline or Crossfire when the subject is Hillary Clinton, abortion, or breast implants. When traditional "male" topics such as the war in Bosnia or budget hearings are aired, women are either conspicuously absent or are represented by "token" women panelists. Rarely, if ever, does the public witness a television talk show panel discussion on the closure of military bases, for instance, that is made up predominantly of female members. Consequently, the image that is projected to women is that females are needed only for discussion of those rare subjects in which men are not well-versed.
Issues related to women of color are largely ignored in the media, unless these issues possess sensational aspects that would make them of interest to the public at large. Race, not gender, is the element of sensation that spurs media coverage of certain events: "The mainstream media prefer to center stories on deviance rather than on achievements or victimization among people of color and to explain such deviance in terms of race rather than other, more complicated factors" (Rhode, 1995, p. 689). For th...