Emotions in the Media
The media applies certain tenets of society structures and practices in providing content that augurs well with the audience. In line with this trend, the gender aspect in media is particularly well catered for if emotion attachment that the female gender has traditionally been associated is captured in the effective communication. Emotions constitute the main concept of the human psyche that is bivalent in terms of positive and negative responses to thought and action that determine motivation. In terms of gender differentiation, males and females respond differently to emotions based on their interpretation of feelings of events occurring around them. As an illustration, what is spoken about us may elicit deep reactions based on the nature of the generated feeling which could be positive or negative.
In this discourse, it is demonstrated that the female attributes affect the outcomes of the operations of the media due to the identity with which it is associated. Identity of the newsmakers based on their gender appears to be dragged into an emotional passion where gender attributes appear powerful in the outcome of the communication. Contrary to common beliefs, the identity of genders does influence the outcomes of the communication as outlined in this discourse. The Media ranks among the most influential emotion eliciting platform of the modern society, which closely follows developments in socioeconomic and political fronts of the society in a fairy ambitious commitment. To this end, the entire debate on the magnitude of emotions elicited by the media particularly regarding gender issues can be summed up using the apparent setting of factors. Thesis statement: the media evokes certain emotional reactions from the audience based on the cultural constructions, general social ethics and the innate language attributes between the genders.
Cultural construction of emotions characterizes perceptions of emotional reaction in the human society in a certain predetermined way. According to most cultural norms across the human communities, a different reaction to a particular social event is expected due to differences in cultural differentiation (Lim, Lu and Mezzich, 1995, p478). Cultural roots can be explored with respect to finding different cultural approaches to particular social issues within different communities. One observable feature in the different approaches adopted by the different cultures with regard to emotions is the expression and communication of emotions which is generally varied. By highlighting the impact of the emotional association that the people assign to the specified emotional issues, it is possible to also to determine the most appropriate way of communicating with the entire group on a topic that elicits emotional reaction.
As an illustration, the media becomes bound to respect the cultural adoption of emotions in certain topics that touch on the norms of the community. To this end, the material channeled through the medium must be aligned to meet the expectations of the cultural practices of the community. Displaying messages that compromise on the cultural integrity of an audience community can severely damage the success of the intended communication. As an illustration, cultural norms relating to the role of a given gender must not appear to defy acceptable norms of the people. Emotional content is reported to be very different across the human communities as demonstrated in the cultural studies of facial expressions from different people (Ambady and Elfenbein, 2003, p160).
Despite the apparent variations in expression of human emotions due to cultural diversity of the human race, there are certain instances of emotional attributes that coincide with humanity, a common feature across the diverse cultures. Humans are social animals and respond to certain stimuli in certain natural ways as determined by their human nature. In terms of the determination of emotional responses, there are expectations that entire human community will react in a similar way. For instance, general social ethics observed across the human culture are significantly similar among the communities irrespective of their cultural identities or exposure to different environmental factors of lifestyles. Gender differences are not expected to be manifest inn terms of human dignity, even if communities exhibit a particular emotional characterization. This defines the impact of emotional content in media material all over the world making it one of the most influential tools that can be relied to highlight issues of human dignity across the different types of audiences (Koskoff and Opler, 2002, p1538). In line to homogeneity of the human dignity remains a common feature of gender campaigns led by the media and other influential activism.
In communication, women find it easy to communicate through emotions than their male counterparts. Apparently, women can handle emotional topics in terms of effective communication such as in the media better than men. When gender topics touching on women are communicated in the news today, there is a likelihood that the attention drawn is higher than when concerning men. Current affairs issues with the most following today could perhaps attract a larger following than it is with men. These general observations can be extrapolated from the fact that there is a link between better emotional communication and female emotional characteristics than in men. According to Goldshmidt and Weller (2000, p118), language development in females attains deeper emotional conversation attributes that affect the success of the portrayed message.
Due to the emotional tag that the female gender has managed to acquire in the world of communications, it has been demonstrated that emotional attachment always gains positive results in communication. Whereas men language can be said to be assertive and dominating in the nature of a conversation, women are said to be emotional and influential in their tone. In terms of moving the masses in emotional issues, women are therefore likely to be influential than it is with men. Likewise, gender issues are likely to be given the benefit positive discrimination that arises from the emotional expression achieved by the genders. Conversations between the genders can therefore be assessed from the emotional perspective to reveal the differential attributes exhibited by the two.
In conclusion, considerations of emotional aspects of media topics can deliver vital insights on the way the human race is conditioned to deal with information with emotional content. To this end, the media can gain advantageous positions in dealing with the actual delivery of its material with which it intends to transform the human population. Emotions are very vital in communication delivery just as they are in reception of information relayed, since humans are social beings that follow inner cues of desirability and undesirability. In light of these considerations, it is clear that gender orientation to sensitive emotional content can play an important role as dictated by the applicable culture, universal social ethics as well as innate capacity of individuals to communicate emotionally.
References
Ambady, N. & Elfenbein, H. A. (2003) Universals and Cultural Differences in Recognizing Emotions, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(5) pp. 159-164
Goldshmidt, O. T. & Weller, L. (2000) Talking Emotions: Gender Differences in a Variety of Conversational Contexts, Symbolic Interaction, 23(2) pp. 117-134.
Koskoff, H. & Opler, L. A. (2002) The Culture of Emotions: A Cultural Competence and Diversity Training Program, Multimedia Reviews, 53(2) pp.1537-1538
Lim, R., Lu, F. G. & Mezzich, J. E. (1995) Issues in the Assessment and Diagnosis of Culturally Diverse Individuals, In Oldham, J. & Riba, M. (Eds.), Review of Psychiatry vol. 14, pp. 477-510.
