It states that mass media in general heavily influence women's identities in our culture. The research discusses the relationship between the representation that television presents to women of themselves, and their own self-images. It also examines how women's self-conceptions correspond to television images, whether women identify with the female characters they see on television and whether women use television images in forming their own self-images. The research compares two social classes basicly, the working class women ant the middle-class women.
The most helpful reference book is the Milestones in mass communication research: Media effects. It documents the development and current status of research trends in mass communication and their effects on society. It is a chronicle of scientific study in the field from the 1920's to the present. The book reviews the thirteen major research projects that now provide a core focus for the study of mass communication. It deals also with topics like, the effects of movies on children, the media in political campaign, television in the lives of children or television and social behaviour.
The most relevant and useful source was the data collection and studies of the Hungarian AGB group. Informations included in this data collection are based on a professional research, which was done in 5000 households. .
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Methodology.
This empirical research is based on questionnaires (The questionnaire can be found in the appendix, at the end of the research.) and interviews with 30 people, and of course on some other sources, which can be found in the bibliography. The questionnaire contains open questions ( it means that the person can answer to a question with his/her own words or sentences ) as well as closed questions. ( multiple choice questions, yes/no questions, attitude scales, ranking scales etc.