This 10 page paper begins with the assumption that the reporting on war reinforces the traditional views of masculinity. The paper begins by defining masculinity and the different manifestations of masculine characteristics, looking at both functionalist approaches and the more modern concepts of masculinity. The way these manifest in the media are explained with examples for the Gulf Wars and the War in Iraq. The paper then explains a methodology for a more in-depth study making use of content analysis to assess the extent of the assumption. The bibliography cites 15 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: TS14_TEmasculin.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
at war, there are many images, however these tend to confirm with the societies stereotypes, women as the weaker subordinate victims and mean as the aggressive participants. There are many
examples of this, form the way in which victims in the broadcasts and news articles have been focused on children to the images of male dominance. Even female military personnel
are portrayed as subordinate or weak, for example, the recent example of Jessica Lynch, the US female solder captured by the Iraqis during the 2003 Iraq war. The image presented
may have been subject to manipulation, but it presented Jessica as a damsel in distress rescued by heroes, and with medical claims that she was raped, indicating the male dominance
of the Iraqi soldier over her (Rogers et al, 2003). This story is a good example, as it indicates the way in which male images are reinforced with the reporting
of war. Had Jessica been a man it is unlikely there would have been a book deal and a film due to be made of her story (Poniewozik, 2003).
The media has a role to play in this propagation of the masculine image, In the reporting there is a bias towards the existing stereotype, and the purpose of
this paper will be to demonstrate this bias and retrenchment of the masculine image and assess to what extent this is true. 2. Methodology The paper will need to
be written in two main sections. Firstly there is the need to undertake a literature review to define masculinity, and determine how models around this have developed. By defining and
exploring masculine models these may then be adapted to the war scenario, focusing on the gulf war and the war in Iraq. The development of these ideas will provide the