The Bold Type: A TV series that shows how the media reflects and changes society

 

Bernarda Vasquez

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The question of whether media reflect or influence a society is not simple to answer, but it can be summarized with - it depends. This is because, in most cases, the answer includes both variables, but the level of influence of one over the other may change depending on each situation. The relationship between the media, be it news, films, social networks, with society, its culture, beliefs and behaviors - is bidirectional and is affected by several external factors. Following I will address the television program "The bold type" as context to analyze this relationship both on screen and in real life.

The American TV series “The Bold Type” is a comedy-drama show that follows the life of three women, who work in a global women's magazine "Scarlet" and their personal struggles, career development and romantic relationships. The main characters are: Jane, a writer, Kat, director of social media and Sutton, an assistant interested in becoming a fashion stylist. 

First I would like to focus on how the series reflects reality. Although The Bold Type is fictional, many of the stories are inspired by real events that have happened to Joanna Coles, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. Moreover, the series present women of approximately 26 years old that work in Scarlet magazine aimed at millennials and talks about topics of current interest. This is the same audience and strategy that the producers of this TV show used to reach their target audience, and how they succeeded by attracting mostly people between 20 and 40 years old. The technique used is of attraction by means of representation.

In the series many characteristics of the millennial generation can be seen. The characters are tech savvy, heavy users of social media and extremely connected, a good example is when they created the campaign to "free the nipple" to hold the same standards for men and women. In parallel, the viewers of the program were avid commentators on social networks after each episode and brought more traffic to related pages. At a professional level, millennials are characterized for being achieving and team-oriented, and we can see the passion of the main characters to escalate on their own fields of expertise as well as the struggles they must go through. Negative qualities of this generation are also portrayed, like the lack of compromise and self-absorption. The characters show this through their job changes and personal self-centered conversations. This allows viewers to see real life examples from a different perspective and incentivise analysis.

With regard to the topics published in Scarlet magazine as in the life of the characters, a joint relationship of reflection of society and media influence can be seen. The program talks about many topics of interest such as: gun ownership, media silencing, immigration, labor abuse, women's professional development, sexual identity, privileges by race / class / gender, among others. These themes have been already present in today’s conversations, in activist movements, in social networks. Nevertheless, the intention of the program was to give them more visualization and greater reach to new and larger audiences. This encourages the audience to feel represented and/or increase their curiosity and analysis on those matters. As a result, its message has been reproduced it other mediums and enticed online and offline conversations. This is an example of how, the relationship of the series, as a means of reflection of society, becomes an agent that influences people and can, as a result, lead to change.

However, it is not always easy to act as preached. While the show advocates representation and diversity, the production team showed the opposite, with an all-white writing team. And it wasn't until the second season, and after a wake-up call from the actors and viewers, that they added more BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people to the staff. This proves the multi directional communication between the media, its workers and the audience, and how they can influence each other and push for the better.

Finally, I would like to highlight the persuasion tools used in this program. In the storyline it can be seen  the presence of agenda setting, when one of the board directors opposes to expose a story of cruel conversion therapy, since one of his investors supports these causes. This shows how the media depends on money, and that sometimes they are limited either by the government, the editors, but also by their financiers and publicists. There is also the presence of framing and priming, which at first can be seen as a quality to bring several issues to light, but then it feels like a lot of progressive propaganda. This caused the show's popularity to drop and it was labeled as "preachy" and "brainwashing", which lead to ending its production in its fifth season.

To sum up, within the plot of The Bold Type, as the response of its followers, media can stimulate conversation and action. It can be appreciated that the relationship between the media and society is cyclical and mutual, they reflect and influence each other to motivate change, but in the end, the level of influence depends on each situation.