The Media Gaze

As Canadians, we take pride in our nation's official
commitment to fostering diversity. A close look at our media, however,
reveals that while they often pay lip service to diversity promotion,
they actually play a pivotal role in producing and reproducing the
values, structures, and priorities of a predominantly
"straight," white, male society. The Media Gaze
shines a light on the myriad ways that mainstream media -- newscasters,
advertisers, filmmakers, and television programmers -- work to appear
objective, even as they actively ignore or misrepresent the experiences
of those who fall outside their frame of reference.

Drawing on a variety of thought-provoking case studies, Fleras
explores the implications of the media's framing of women, young
men, the elderly, racialized and new Canadians, Aboriginal peoples, the
working class and poor, gays and lesbians, and religious minorities. A
timely and critically important audit of representational bias in
Canada's media industry, The Media Gaze also presents
readers with alternative ways of creating, understanding, and analyzing
mainstream media.

Augie Fleras is a professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo.