Consuming Media, Making Men: Using Collective Memory Work To Understand Leisure and the Construction of Masculinity

Abstract

Parents, educators, researchers and policymakers have sought to identify the root causes of male youth violence by looking at media's influence on young people. Grounded in social constructionism, this study uses collective memory work to explore that relationship. The findings are presented in terms of two levels of analysis: individual/micro messages and societal/macro messages and revealed that through media consumption, men actively constructed and maintained impressions of masculinity based on notions of heroism, violence, and ‘macho’ images. This process gave participants an opportunity to both solidify and challenge their own thinking in relation to what it means to be a man and is a first step toward demonstrating some of the “problems” associated with leisure contexts, media consumption and hegemonic masculinity.