Paper Title
Women and Media

Abstract
Media intrudes into our consciousness in more ways than we realize, whether it is through the radio while commuting to work or the internet or the television in our leisure time. We know that it shapes our reaction to the outside world. This paper is a survey of 600 young males and females in Kuwait to study the extent of influence media has on their attitude towards women and whether media has a gender bias in their viewpoint. The media questionnaire used in the survey consisted of 25 questions, which sought to answer the current study hypotheses: (1) Youth, both males and females perceive women negatively due to the media; (3) Due to television, men and women view marriage negatively. (3) Gulf serials give a stereo typical, unrealistic image of women living in the Gulf region (4) Media coverage is biased on women’s issues. Questionnaire scale consisted of self-descriptive statement, to which participants responded on a 5-point scale ranging from 5=NA; 4=Rarely; 3=Sometimes; 2=Mostly; 1=Always. In this study both male and female respondents felt that the daily newspapers and radio were giving sufficient time to women’s issues. However, women respondents disagreed with the male respondents on the image of women in talk shows. They saw women on talk shows as more knowledgeable but were more critical about television drama, stating that it did not reflect reality. On the other hand, both men and women agreed that these serials and drama were influencing people’s views on marriage and could be a factor discouraging the young generation as broken homes and domestic violence were always sensationalized in Arabic drama, in general and Gulf drama in particular. Keywords - Kuwait, Women, Image, Television, Drama, Media