Women and Media

Television, newspapers, magazines, radio and Internet are ubiquitous things in our media-based society. Media production is now one of the largest and most lucrative industrial sectors in the global economy. However, mass media today is not only just a medium that brings information and ideas to the society but represents the reality of the world that we live in. It is also known as a cultural producer that defines how people in a society should take and keep the particular values and meanings. Media as an institution is affected by its external environment such as shareholders, government agencies, and other media competitors. Thus, media, somehow, is used as an instrument to influence the public opinion.

Magazine as one of the most popular form of mass media is also seen as a form of popular culture. Understanding a popular culture in a society means to know a culture that is hold by the society. Teenagers as the central point of the popular culture is somehow play as the victims of a capitalism ideology especially for a girl. As a matter of fact, women/girl is usually seen as an object that is exploited for commercial purposes. Girls are often used as an object to attract customers to buy products and services. Girls are commoditized in many media practice such as advertising, product endorser, and as a model in many pop magazines. Unfortunately, this exploitation becomes something that acceptable for our society in common. This happens because capitalism has defined the cultures that is constructed and reproduce in our daily life. Girls/women, in feminism perspective, have been marginalized in a public sphere by capitalism ideology. This gender issue has been public issue in Indonesia since patriarchal is kept as a common value in society.

We should first understand that the commoditization of women that happens in magazine is related to the media itself as an institution that is influenced by its internal and external environment. Staffs in media organization such as journalist, editor and graphic designer are somehow used just like an instrument to reproduce an ideology through the media. Therefore, we've understood that media is just like a battlefield where meaning, realities, representation and values are negotiated and reproduced.