Media and Women: A Perspective of Development Analysed Through Game Theory

Over the years, media have been bringing forward various suggestive ideologies, principles and methodologies in the 360º societal development of women by means of ‘true’ reporting. And, media's relationship with women has grown leaps and bounds. The media in India have also witnessed evolutionary changes in the last few decades. In totality, the Indian ‘darshak’ have seen different facets of the ‘Bharatiya Nari’. The Indian audience have also seen countless instances of the media and women helping each other for gaining a forward movement towards a positive environment. However, there are also instances of inadequacy in positive representation of women in the popular media which is crucial for achieving the desired goal of development. Media are being blamed for merchandising women's youth, beauty and sexuality as commodity while others have disputed the argument that media sexism affects the way women are viewed and treated thereby affecting their development. Accordingly, the issue of portrayal and misrepresentation of women in media has been studied. And, rather than condemning the media alone, many theories arose in attempts to explain the root cause of such media actions and gender exploitations. The game theory offers a different perspective that helps explain the actions of women and media towards each other. The subjective representation of women and their active participation in the popular media can also be analysed from the game theory point of view where the agents act according to the best possible strategy with every move having an incentive that helps achieve a certain goal and create a defence mechanism. This paper is an attempt to explore the role of popular media in stereotyping women vis-à-vis their empowerment with an aim to highlight the need to enable women to challenge the limiting media labels by recognising their potential in media from the game theory point of view.