Media+Paper+Tiras

G4 Men There are many factors that play a role in shaping our society and media is definitely one of them. Media has some much control in our society that it is a little scary. Gender in media is a topic that is seen very often and has brought somewhat of a controversy. So recently I have been watching a specific station known as G4 the past few nights to see how gender is portrayed in different shows. From watching this new station the past few nights I have come to the conclusion that the G4 station is a man station. It is sort of like another form of Spike TV, but for the more intelligent man who still enjoy the things that a “typical” man likes. The station consists of shows where women are exploited yet there are shows that do reviews of video games. I think G4 is a prime example of how stereotypes have formed in the media, specifically on the relationship between men and women in the media. In media, I have realized that it is much tougher for women to be taken seriously than it is for men. To be a women in the media it takes so much more to rise to the top just because how media has portrayed women in the past. For instance, what I noticed for most of the shows on G4, if there was a female co-host on a show than usually all of them were more “attractive” women and had a different role on the show. On Attack of the Show the male co-host does a lot of the talking and when the female would say something, it would be as if it was written down for her because she would always say things that guys want to here. For example, she would either talk about women body parts or how to get her in bed but in a sarcastic way. It is funny because I noticed that when she said things that appealed to men, you would hear the sound of men cheering, and it is very easy to tell that there is only men cheering in the audience. If there is one station that I would compare the G4 station with, it would have to be Spike TV. Spike is like the ultimate man station on television. It has all the man favored shows like Manswers, Mythbusters, Pros vs. Joes, etc. It also hosts things like the Miss Hooter’s Competition, and many more types of shows and events that men prefer to watch. Although, I have realized that G4 is similar to Spike in a way, it is very obvious that they are different and that G4 was designed for a different type of man. G4 is more of a station that is made to entertain the more intelligent man or “nerdy” type of man. One show that appears a lot in the G4 lineup is “X-Play” which is pretty much a show that does video game reviews and game testers. I found that other than one of the co-hosts, I hardly ever saw a single female while watching that show. When they interviewed people about the video games being spotlighted, you would always see the stereo-typical “nerdy” looking guy. I’m not positive if the reason women hardly appeared on the show is because women just are not really into video games or if it goes back to the idea that men think that they are superior, even in silly things like video games. I mean most times if you were to walk into a random house and G4 was on the television, than there would probably be at least one man in front of that television. I am not saying that G4 is sexist or anything, I am just saying that it is pretty obvious that G4 came in with a specifically targeted audience and set their shows up so that the audience watching is pleased. I found that the range of audience age wise for G4 can be very widespread. There are of course the adult males who are into technology and video games, and there could be the 10 year old boy who loves hearing about the new video game releases. I mean for me, I would have loved to watch “X-Play” when I was younger because I use to love to play video games and nothing was more exciting than the release of a cool new video game. I just found it interesting that a show that was made more for older men can be very entertaining even to a young boy. Before I was assigned this paper I had never heard of the G4 station and it took me like ten minutes to find it on the television. It is not a station that many people hav heard of like TNT or TBS, so you don’t hear or see much gender conflict about G4 because it is just a little station that was made for men so you know what to expect. But I did notice that even though there are different types of men, mostly all of them have some things in common. Whether it is the type of guy that loves watching Espn, Spike TV, or G4, all of them like seeing women exposed in some sort of way in their shows, or just watching man-related topics as a form of entertainment. After discussing about this topic of gender in the media I have learned that shows like Spike and G4 are huge contributors to stereotypes of relationships between men and women in the media. It is almost as if that these stations that are for men use women as one of the key factors of entertainment for the viewers and that is all. You do not really hear the true voice of women in these stations, but more like the voice of women that men want to hear.