Critically analyzing gender representations in the media

The paper explores how particular meanings are constructed through language to create a 'picture' of men and quite another one of women. The focus is on media texts and how particular representations of masculinity and femininity are constructed or encoded in news reports, and how these representations can be questioned or challenged by using systemic functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis. Using SFL an analysis of ideational meaning in the text is undertaken, to show how particular meanings are constructed through the scheme of Transitivity choices. Together with a CDA approach, such an analysis can reveal how ideological meanings are encoded in linguistic choices and show how gender identities are accomplished through language.