“As a man working in and with the mass media for much of my life, it struck me how much the media provides a backdrop for our lives. No, not only provides a backdrop, it comes to the foreground and makes an imprint on us as people and shapes us. We try to live up to media images; we are influenced by mediated role models, and we are described, categorised and defined by media. Our identities are not so much an internal construction but projected representations that we try to fit into – or resist. This photo symbolises how media representations shape us and frame our lives.”
Participant – Jim McNamara, 2004
“Jim has spent his career in Australian media industry and his doctorate on the portrayal of men in the media has exposed many interesting potholes on our path to gender equality. One of which is why such words as conman and gunman and manhunt have not been included in the fight for gender equality in language of political correctness. The media fight between Hearst and Wells over the film Citizen Kane had an incredible impact on both men’s lives, but Hearst’s quote, “you can crush a man with journalism” says it all.”
Photographer – Belinda Mason, 2004