Media representation of gender: An analysis of Women as single mothers in Pakistani TV
dramas
Abstract
The media has always been a source of inspiration for the society. There are many
television programs with the ability to influence people and shape their beliefs, including talk
shows, morning shows, interviews, dramas, short films, and even ads. Through the prism of
gender inequality and women's projection, this study analyses Pakistani dramas, paying
particular attention to the role of single mothers portrayed. To better understand how negative
roles contribute to gender inequality, the study focuses on the discourse used to portray
significant female characters as single mothers in Pakistani dramas. Because of its ability to
disseminate oppressive ideology and social norms, the media has long been a target of feminist
critique. Media Representation Theory is influential in studying the portrayal of women as single
mothers in Pakistani dramas. The present study is qualitative as it implies Critical discourse
analysis technique. Critical discourse analysis (CDA), a research paradigm, examines
"ideological manipulations, power relations, and hegemony" (Rahimi & Sahragard, 2007).The
three-dimensional Fairclough model is applied to the data collected in this study to provide
answers to the research questions. This study uses a comparative study methodology based on
content analysis and qualitative research. Hsieh, Shannon, and Patton (2005) and Patton (2002)
define qualitative content analysis as a research method that aims to uncover underlying
importance and consistency through theme detection and codification. The representation of
women as single mothers was observed in this research in Pakistani society context. A sample of
3 popular Pakistani dramas is taken and the portrayal of single mother is observed.
Keywords: Pakistani dramas, single mothers, feminist analysis, gender representation.
Introduction
The media has always been a source of inspiration for the society. There are many
television programs with the ability to influence people and shape their beliefs, including talk
shows, morning shows, interviews, dramas, short films, and even ads. The way that certain
groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or themes are portrayed in the media from a certain
ideological or value position is known as a media representation. Instead of simply viewing
media representations as mirrors or reflections of "reality," we might say that they actually "re-
present" or even "create" a new reality. Television dramas and programs with a household theme
are altering all social structures, from lower-class to upper-class lifestyles, and as a result, they
are enhancing viewer attitudes. For those who aspire to it, the conventional roles that men and
women are portrayed in frequently in numerous social circumstances serve as a model.
Television media, which frequently represents the online world, is one of the outlets that
shapes our lives. Women are typically the target audience, making them the most driven
(Lehmann, 2006). Young people who are emotionally developing are particularly vulnerable to
media influence. Young viewers may occasionally be inspired to imitate celebrities on television
(Muzna, 2012).
According to Hudkinson (2011), the media's portrayal of political or moral bias may
contribute to the public's predominance of these ideas, and the quality of the media's content may
affect its inventiveness or access to information. Not only is it a source of information and
pleasure, but it also reflects society and culture. Contemporary media's social patterns are being
redefined and incorporated into current social contexts. Language and nonlinguistic words are
majorly modified through the media due to global politics, modernization, and individualization.
The merger of international content drives the creation of sophisticated and concrete lifestyle
social designs.
Drama is a unique media genre that combines social, academic, religious, and ethical
themes to produce content that aspires to educate and transform society. Dramas with captivating
subject matter show the audience that there are solutions to adversity by highlighting evident
societal problems. These dramas have important psychological impacts as well. Pakistani theatre
has been a tremendous source of entertainment and the preservation of cultural values. It has
been an effective means of disseminating ethical, cultural, and religious concepts. As a result,
people love following the characters' choices in a drama regarding behavior, way of life, and
language. Drama is the best indoor entertainment. The impact is greater on the female audience
than the male audience.
Despite rising rates, the overall message from several sources is that divorce is becoming
less taboo (Kamaruddin, 2005). This tendency is shown by young people, who are frequently
less traditional in their marriage choices, at previously unheard-of rates (Cunningham &
Thornton, 2006). As an audiovisual medium, television has much potential to make a significant
impact on its viewers. Its use of persuasion sets it apart from most newspapers and publications.
Additionally, it is more entertaining to watch. As a result, more effort is needed by people to
educate themselves about it. Pakistan brought television to the world as an artistic medium rather
than an informational one (Naveed, 2011).
Currently, the media serves as our primary information source and a factor in how we
perceive things. Unknowingly or unintentionally, we have started to acquire from media
representations the idea that we should live our lives following a particular system and how we
ought to behave in specific circumstances. In a similar vein, watching TV shows significantly
influences how a person behaves around other people. One can start to harbor prejudicial
thoughts toward a certain group based on the information provided by the media. How media
portray our parents greatly impacts how we see them, how we relate to them, and how much
respect we have for them.
Background
In Pakistani culture, there has always been a vibrant vigor dedicated to excluding specific
groups through rhetorical maneuverings, such as the inclusion or omission of certain news and
representations of women in the media. Isanovi (2006) contends that the growth of mass media
and cutting-edge information technology is robbing women of their dignity in projection and
representation. Because most dramatists are males, their good or negative roles rarely represent
reality when women are portrayed. Still, they are instead always compared to those men, and
"the content of the media distorts women's place in the social sphere," according to Tuchman
(1979).
Without the media, vital in shaping public opinion and creating social reality, there would
be no news or entertainment. Since journalism is frequently a discursive reconstruction of reality,
as Carvalho (2008) noted, it can be argued that the media can re-construct social realities through
discourse. Discourse refers to spoken or written communication. The phrase "media discourse"
refers to all written or spoken content about the media. Media discourse is also used to create and
shape social realities and ideas. The "mental framework" of a person, which consists of
"languages, concepts, categories, and imagery systems of representation," is their ideology (Hall,
1986, p. 29).
Men and women are now seen as equals and crucial members of society. Women will
never have equal representation, though. Men are frequently depicted as heroes, while women
are routinely denigrated. The dramatics mostly highlight the rising divorce rate and how simple it
is to get a divorce today, even if a person has done nothing wrong. Even though it is clear that
women have made significant progress in society, having daughters is still seen negatively. They
blame their divorce and separation on having a daughter. Even when the women themselves
haven't done anything wrong, women's rights are frequently represented to be infringed upon and
mistreated in plays. One instance is the portrayal of professing the desire for love marriage as a
serious crime. Through the prism of gender inequality and women's projection, this study
analyses Pakistani dramas, paying particular attention to the role of single mothers portrayed. To
better understand how negative roles contribute to gender inequality, the study focuses on the
discourse used to portray significant female characters as single mothers in Pakistani dramas.
Literature Review
Male dominancy has long been valued highly in Pakistani culture. Women are treated as
second-class citizens in Pakistani society and are subordinate to men. There are both overt and
covert manifestations of patriarchal social development. Men, in part, dominate the nation's
culture due to the country's Islamic beliefs and practices. Islam treats men and women equally,
yet their roles and responsibilities are different due to biological differences between the sexes
(Huda et al., 2015).
The "Perfect" lady image, according to research by Ayesha (2018), reinforces both
negative and positive gender stereotypes in Pakistani television programs. The mindsets of both
men and women in Pakistan have reportedly been significantly influenced by television shows
produced in the country. These plays have an impact on the patriarchal order. There are many
different characters in different roles in Pakistani dramas. The supporting ensemble is portrayed
as a bunch of outspoken, opinionated, self-reliant people, in contrast to the protagonist, who is
portrayed as a housebound recluse. Because of these characteristics, society sees them as
imperfect female role models.
In dramatic works, violence against women is frequently emphasized. Even when they
are the aggressors, women are portrayed as victims of violence in both the media and Pakistani
dramas. Some patriarchal societies believe that women's difficulties are private and should not be
discussed by the government, the media, or any other organization. Males are advised to prevent
their wives and sisters from finding a job because they are never shown to be employed outside
the home and are always portrayed as weak housewives. As shown on television, women in
Pakistani dramas continually lack agency. The HUM TV and GEO TV serials, following Shabir
(2013), faithfully represent Pakistani culture. The study looked into how frequently cultural
allusions appeared in Pakistani television shows. HUM dramas tend to have more pronounced
traditionalist and cultural elements.
Based on the research by Saleem (1994), "Analysis of the Social Impacts of the Dish
Antenna in Pakistan: Cultural imperialism he worked alone to lead the investigation for the
survey. She found that the majority of individuals are devoted Dish Antenna viewers. The
channel with the most viewers is ZEE TV. The vast majority of programs have Hindi and
English dubbing. The study found that most women are captivated by the outfits and haircuts
used by Indian and Western models. This greatly impacts the creation and content of PTV and
STN programming. Regarding how women are portrayed in the media as victims, Ahmad (2014)
said. Women's gender stereotypes predominate in TV dramas today and in the past. In news
reports, women are frequently shown as victims of violence, particularly in cases of sexual
harassment, rape, child marriage, house burning, dowry violence, and honor killings.
Theoretical framework
Because of its ability to disseminate oppressive ideology and social norms, the media has
long been a target of feminist critique. Media Representation Theory is influential in studying the
portrayal of women as single mothers in Pakistani dramas. The process by which representations
of people, places, things, events, cultural identities, and other abstract conceptions are formed in
any medium is known as representation in media theory (especially the mass media). Employing
words, text, images, and even moving imagery can convey this. Critical feminist media
representation theory can direct this change by exposing the patriarchal bias that pervades many
commercial media. Hall (2003) looks into themes including audience response and media
communications. The authors of the study claim that in addition to a message's content, it is also
important to consider how it is expressed and any information that is omitted but should be. The
authors also discuss how content creators and broadcasters use media encoding to communicate
the intended meaning of their content to an audience. Still, they also note that consumers might
not necessarily interpret the information the same way. Each individual's interpretation will be
distinct and dependent on their prior understanding of the message, their own experiences, and
the socialization effects of their culture, religion, language, and ethnicity.
According to Shohat and Stam (2014), movies and fiction portray real-world concepts
about the cultural and social connections among people in a community or country. Audiences
may object when their culture or values are inaccurately portrayed. Stereotyping and distorted
representation are issues that are mostly caused by underrepresented groups' incapacity to have
an impact on how they are portrayed in the media. Shohat and Stam (2014) contend that a
thorough knowledge of media representation requires research into the creation and consumption
of mass media. For instance, Pakistan has a long-standing patriarchal and paternalistic history
around the concept of a nuclear family. The household's male head places the calls and makes
sure his female children are protected. Most Pakistani viewers would undoubtedly protest if a
drama serial depicted a family where the female head of household (typically the wife) possessed
considerable economic and decision-making duties because they have been taught for decades
that women should be subordinate to males. Thus, this study will use the representation theory of
Shohat and Stam to understand the gender representation in Pakistani dramas and how the role of
single mothers is portrayed and what effects it has on the perception of genders in Pakistani
society.
Methodology
The present study is qualitative as it implies Critical discourse analysis technique. Critical
discourse analysis (CDA), a research paradigm, examines "ideological manipulations, power
relations, and hegemony" (Rahimi & Sahragard, 2007).The three-dimensional Fairclough model
is applied to the data collected in this study to provide answers to the research questions. In
Language and Power, N. Fairclough advises readers to "examine how the indicators of
development that we supply are constrained by the configurations and capacities of the social
organizations inside of which we live" (Fairclough, 1989).
There are three phases to critical discourse analysis:
1. Description is the first step in analyzing the formal elements of the text. In
addition to examining utterance chunks and the preferred linguistic styles of
social actors, the researchers also examine the frequency of words and keywords.
2. By analyzing the text as a consequence of product development and a tool for
interpretation, stage two concentrates on the relationship between the text and the
interaction. At this point, discursive activity is also discussed, which covers the
presenter's text creation, the medium used to deliver the message, and its
interpretation.
3. We say the third stage is “concerned with the relationship between social
environment and interaction - social determination of the processes of production
and interpretation, and their social ramifications" (Fairclough, 1989, p. 26). This
step focuses on the social analysis of the text, determining whether or not a more
comprehensive social framework is required to comprehend the text in its entirety.
Linguistics Features
Language has many diverse aspects, including word choice, grammar, semantics,
pragmatics, and others. Sentence structure, noun group/phrase, vocabulary, punctuation,
figurative language, choices in language elements, and text structure are among the "properties
of language that promote meanings" (Sa'idah, 2018, p. 12). Specific matched language structures
or meanings are referred to as linguistic features. In the notation for extracting semantic
characteristics, the plus and minus symbols denote the presence or absence of various semantic
traits (Lipka, 2002). This analysis uncovers the subtle, anti-feminist semantic aspects present in
Pakistani dramas.
This study uses a comparative study methodology based on content analysis and
qualitative research. Hsieh, Shannon, and Patton (2005) and Patton (2002) define qualitative
content analysis as a research method that aims to uncover underlying importance and
consistency through theme detection and codification.
With either qualitative or quantitative data, content analysis is a technique that can be
applied in either an inductive or a deductive way. The analysis process has, however, only been
briefly summarised in several study books, and more information about it needs to be published.
Inductive content analysis is done when there is a little existing study on a phenomenon or when
that research is dispersed. A deductive approach might be helpful if the main goal was to
compare elements at considerable distances or to confirm an existing hypothesis in an
unanticipated situation. We wanted to develop a prototype that might be utilized to characterize
the phenomenon using text analysis conceptually. Planning, carrying out, and reporting are the
three components of interpretive and analytical operations. Both strategies share a similar
foundational stage. Through inductive content analysis, concepts are derived from data.
Deductive content analysis operationalizes an analytical framework using prior knowledge.
The representation of women as single mothers was observed in this research in Pakistani
society context. A sample of 3 popular Pakistani dramas is taken and the portrayal of single
mother is observed. ‘Pardes’ drama was telecasted on ARY Digital in 2021, ‘Fitoor’ drama on
GEO Entertainment, and ‘Habs’ drama on ARY Digital in 2022.
Drama Directions Single mother
representation
Pardes Pardes is a Pakistani drama Negative role of Bushra
serial directed by Marina Ansari is shown as a single
Khan and written by Sarwat mother and this drama has
Nazir. depicted the selfishness of the
mother to another level.
Fitoor Fitoor is a 2021 Pakistani A regressive mentality of the
television series, directed by mother is shown that is
Siraj-ul-Haque and written by enough to drive the audience
Zanjabeel Asim Shah. crazy.
Habs Aliya Makhdoom wrote the Saba Faisal as a single mother
script for Habs, a 2022 is an opportunist for whom
Pakistani television drama survival comes before
series that airs on Ary Digital everything else and her
and is produced by Six Sigma daughters’ happiness is
Plus. Mushaddiq Malik, secondary to her.
making his directorial debut,
also served as the show's
director.
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