The Representation of Wdding News in Taiwan:Critical Thinking about Romantic Love, Capitalist Ideology and Gender Politics

This research explores the representation of weddings news in mass media in Taiwan. Focusing on the gender/sexual politics, the researcher examines how wedding events are reported on mass media. In terms of textual analysis, the researcher discusses the gap between the wedding news representation and the social reality. Additionally, the implied ideology is examined. Hopefully, the result could be transformed into  teaching materials for the graduate course of sociology of gender.

Wedding as an event affects and is affected by a combination of external and internal constraints and expectations. In modern Taiwanese society, weddings are big money, and most people want to get in on the act. Thus it may be said that wedding consumption is related to emotion as well as interpersonal relations. The researcher is interested with how wedding is reported on mass media and how these representations will affect people's cognition and attitude.

Heterosexual relations and gender stereotype roles  in the wedding events have been dicpicted in certain ways. These images also convey illusion of romantic love ideology.  Popular culture plays a key role in naturalizing the capitalist as well as the gendered pattern. The present research attempts to analyzed the wedding news to explore the implied gender ideology. 

We are living in an age often portrayed as being dominated by consumer capitalism and the products of capitalist popular culture. It is important to acknowledge the influence of the mass media in shaping people’s identities and daily lives. Combining gender analysis with sociological inquiry, the researcher believes that the study on the representation of wedding news could provide some insights for the teaching practice of critical media literacy, gender equity education and relationship education in universities.