All the News That's Fit to See? The Sexualization of Television News Journalists as a Promotional Strategy

SUMMARY This formative investigation employed framing theory to content analyze the nature and extent of sexually appealing newscasters primarily on cable news programs. Overall, 62% of segments contained journalists with “high” sex appeal, and these were predominately female. Specifically, these journalists were physically attractive, suggestively dressed (e.g., open blouses, tight-fitting skirts), and filmed in ways that accentuated these features. Female newscasters on Univision's Primer Impacto, who double as models on its website, always exhibited “high” sex appeal compared to 93% of newscasters on MSNBC, 49% on Fox News, and 39% on CNN.

[1]  M. Cunningham.  Measuring the physical in physical attractiveness: quasi-experiments on the sociobiology of female facial beauty , 1986 .

[2]  Robert M. Entman,et al.  Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm , 1993 .

[3]  Susan Sprecher,et al.  The importance to males and females of physical attractiveness, earning potential, and expressiveness in initial attraction , 1989 .

[4]  Susan K. Green,et al.  Winners, Losers, and Choosers , 1984 .

[5]  Kirstie M. Farrar,et al.  Sexual messages during prime-time programming , 2003 .

[6]  L. M. Ward.  Does Television Exposure Affect Emerging Adults' Attitudes and Assumptions About Sexual Relationships? Correlational and Experimental Confirmation , 2002 .

[7]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Framing as a theory of media effects , 1999 .

[8]  Michael Nitz,et al.  Chapter Eleven: Framing of Newspaper News Stories During a Presidential Campaign Cycle: The Case of Bush-Gore in Election 2000 , 2004 .

[9]  Women and minorities on network television news: An examination of correspondents and newsmakers , 1990 .

[10]  P. Vorderer,et al.  Media entertainment: The psychology of its appeal. , 2000 .

[11]  David Tewksbury,et al.  The Interaction of News and Advocate Frames: Manipulating Audience Perceptions of a Local Public Policy Issue , 2000 .

[12]  J. Turow.  Media industries : the production of news and entertainment , 1984 .

[13]  Peter Vorderer,et al.  Personality and Entertainment Preferences , 2000 .

[14]  L. Taylor.  All for Him: Articles About Sex in American Lad Magazines , 2005 .

[15]  Michael S. Latour.  Female nudity in print advertising: An analysis of gender differences in arousal and Ad response , 1990 .

[16]  P. Vorderer,et al.  Sex on Entertainment Television , 2000 .

[17]  B. Gunter.  Media Sex: What Are the Issues? , 2001 .

[18]  J. Newhagen.  The Role of Meaning Construction in the Process of Persuasion for Viewers of Television Images , 2002 .

[19]  Carolyn A. Lin.  Uses of Sex Appeals in Prime-Time Television Commercials , 1998 .

[20]  S. Iyengar.  Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. , 1991 .

[21]  William P. Eveland.  The Impact of News and Entertainment Media on Perceptions of Social Reality , 2002 .

[22]  Artemio Ramirez.  Sexually-Oriented Appeals on the Internet: An Exploratory Analysis of Popular Mainstream Websites , 2005 .

[23]  Shay Sayre,et al.  Entertainment and society: audiences, trends and impacts. , 2003 .

[24]  Doris A. Graber,et al.  The Infotainment Quotient in Routine Television News: A Director's Perspective , 1994 .

[25]  D. Archer,et al.  Face-ism: Five studies of sex differences in facial prominence. , 1983 .

[26]  R. Kraft,et al.  The influence of camera angle on comprehension and retention of pictorial events , 1987, Memory & cognition.

[27]  W. Gamson,et al.  Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach , 1989, American Journal of Sociology.

[28]  Barry A. Hollander.  The New News and the 1992 Presidential Campaign: Perceived vs. Actual Political Knowledge , 1995 .

[29]  P. Neijens,et al.  The Infotainment of Politics , 1998 .

[30]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Think about it This Way: Attribute Agenda-Setting Function of the Press and the public's Evaluation of a Local Issue , 2002 .

[31]  E. Walster,et al.  Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behavior. , 1966, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  Peter Vorderer,et al.  The Aesthetics of Media Fare , 2000 .

[33]  Paul D'Angelo,et al.  News Framing as a Multiparadigmatic Research Program: A Response to Entman , 2002 .

[34]  M. Kieran.  Media Ethics: A Philosophical Approach , 1997 .

[35]  Gary A. Copeland,et al.  Face‐ism and primetime television , 1989 .

[36]  Tom Reichert,et al.  Defining Sexually Oriented Appeals in Advertising: a Grounded Theory Investigation , 2000 .

[37]  Tom Reichert,et al.  An Update on Sex in Magazine Advertising: 1983 to 2003 , 2004 .

[38]  D. Shaw,et al.  Judging people in the news — unconsciously: Effect of camera angle and bodily activity , 1973 .

[39]  C. Atkin,et al.  Sexual Intimacy on Commercial TV during Prime Time , 1980 .

[40]  B. Zelizer.  Popular Communication in the Contemporary Age , 2001 .

[41]  August E. Grant,et al.  Framing public life : perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world , 2001 .

[42]  Thomas Meyer,et al.  Media Democracy: How the Media Colonize Politics , 2002 .

[43]  Jacob J. Wakshlag,et al.  The effect of camera angle on source credibility and attraction , 1977 .

[44]  W. Joseph,et al.  The Credibility of Physically Attractive Communicators: A Review , 1982 .

[45]  August E. Grant,et al.  Prologue—Framing Public Life: A Bridging Model for Media Research , 2001 .

[46]  Richard Jackson Harris,et al.  Effects of Sex in the Media , 2002 .

[47]  Gaye Tuchman.  Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality , 1978 .

[48]  Leonard N. Reid,et al.  Taking it Off: Are Models in Magazine Ads Wearing Less? , 1988 .

[49]  Peter Vorderer,et al.  The Coming of Media Entertainment , 2000 .

[50]  Heloisa Buarque de Almeida,et al.  Telenovela and Gender in Brazil [i] , 2003 .

[51]  Michael A. Belch,et al.  The Effects of Sexual and Non-Sexual Advertising Appeals and Information Level on Cognitive Processing and Communication Effectiveness , 1990 .

[52]  Lee Wilkins.  Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time , 2005 .

[53]  Paul Messaris,et al.  Visual ""literacy"": Image, Mind, And Reality , 1994 .

[54]  Lana F. Rakow,et al.  Woman as Sign in Television News , 1991 .

[55]  Douglas M. McLeod,et al.  RESURVEYING THE BOUNDARIES OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTS , 2002 .

[56]  Timothy Barney.  Celebrity, Spectacle, and the Conspiracy Culture of Election 2000 , 2001 .

[57]  D Byrne,et al.  The effects of physical attractiveness, sex, and attitude similarity on interpersonal attraction. , 1968, Journal of personality.

[58]  L. Gorman,et al.  Media and Society in the Twentieth Century , 2002 .

[59]  Tom Reichert,et al.  The Effects of Sexual Social Marketing Appeals on Cognitive Processing and Persuasion , 2001 .

[60]  Azy Barak,et al.  Sex, Guys, and Cyberspace , 1999 .

[61]  Robert K. Tiemens.  Some relationships of camera angle to communicator credibility , 1970 .

[62]  Tom Reichert.  Sex in Advertising Research: A Review of Content, Effects, and Functions of Sexual Information in Consumer Advertising , 2002, Annual review of sex research.