PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

The research was aimed at analysing gender portrayal in TV drama in Pakistan over a period of five decades from its very inception in the late 1960’s till 2017. The research explored what types of gender stereotypes were being propagated in the prime time drama serials on the State owned TV channel, PTV which was the only platform available for most part of this duration. The methodology adopted for the research was quantitative in nature and involved a content analysis of the most popular Urdu serials aired between 1968 and 2017. The research focused on the three main characters in each drama and the total sample comprised 72 characters. These characters were analysed in a total of 4834 scenes to observe the display of gender stereotypes. The findings indicated that although overall both the genders were displaying their gender specific stereotypes yet some stereotypes such as bravery and aggressiveness were not being displayed by males and passivity, victimization and fearfulness were not being displayed by females. Later the 50 year time period was sub-divided into five decades to observe whether there had been a change over the years keeping in view the massive changes which had taken place in society. Findings indicated that although there were differences in gender depiction between the five decades for both the genders yet the changes were not linear which pointed to the role of other factors such as government policies which could have contributed to the increasing and decreasing stereotyping over the years.

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