Representation of Working Mother in Social Media
Ruvira Arindita

University of Al Azhar Indonesia

Abstract

How media represents a mother have shaped the society standard about good mother which in turn shapes the way women regards their worth as mother. The idea of good mother and gender roles is closely related. Gender roles have placed women to be in charge in domestic sphere and men in public sphere. And so is what happened with mothers. Working mothers are welcome, but their true place is in domestic area. From its tagline researcher noticed that Bukalapak Mother Day advertisement has the spirit to promote that the love of working mother is no less than stay at home mother. Researcher is interested to analyze this advertisement by using Roland Barthes semiotics method through qualitative approach and using Stuart Hall Representation theory. The interesting finding from this research is, this advertisement apparently still favors the idea that working mother is less lovable than stay at home mother. It was shown from most of the scenes that the child seems to favor his nanny better than his own mother. Meanwhile, working mother who is great at domestic work (nanny figure) is still being favored nonetheless by her child back at village.

Keywords: motherhood,gender roles, representation theory, social media, semiotics

Topic: Communication Studies