...Gender bias in advertising Advertising has a significant role in society of consumers. Nowadays it can be seen almost everywhere and it becomes more and more obsessive. Any goods or service that advertised has its own customer. To make the advertising work, it is important to show a certain image of a person or how it called “the reflection of the recipient”, for whom the advertising is made (Wolska). As a result a lot of gender stereotypes and biases can be observed. Though the difference between social status of men and women is smaller now than in past, mass media monumentalizes a lot of traditional stereotypes. Advertisements show women more often than men because it’s considered that purchases usually made by them (Wolska). They usually have a specific role like housewife, who tries to clean house properly or to make a nice dinner for her family. Another example is a beautiful and mystery woman who advertises some cosmetics or clothing etc. As for men, they usually imagined like self-confident businessmen or sportsman with great physical training etc. It is interesting fact, that both male and female products commercials usually interacts towards women in the same way as they often buy male products too for their husbands or children. So it is important to show such male stereotypes in commercial that could be acceptable for both men and women. At the same time, it is very rarely when commercial aimed toward women work in the same way on men (Edmonds). Is presence...
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...Language and Images in Fashion Advertising Reflect Societal Stereotypes/Expectations of Women? A regular American is exposed to over 3,000 ads every single day and will spend two years of his or her life watching television commercials. These commercials have the will to show food, cloths, beverages and the most important: beauty items in the most perfect way. These adverts show beautiful and flawless women exposing not only their desirable bodies and faces but also, their ideologies. Every time regular TV viewer watches television, magazines and even newspapers he is constantly in contact with this a massive and wild environment that has a clear effect in society. Sometimes the audiences do not realize the significance and the...
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...I am committed to excellence. Advertising Gender Stereotypes Gender Stereotyping in advertisements happen all around us. Whether it is a commercial, billboard or a magazine, advertisements are everywhere. Gender stereotypes happen at an early age that includes children. Children’s advertisements implant the very gender roles that are portrayed in today’s society. Creating specific gender products is also creating large profits for companies. When first thinking of gender stereotyping in advertisements one might think of the negative aspect first and not realize that there are positive ways to advertise to specific genders for purchasing products. By using these gender specific advertisements, companies can sell products more efficiently. Advertising to children at an early age can play a significant role in shaping the expected role for him/her in today’s society. There are many examples that can clearly outline gender stereotyping. In many instances someone might not catch it because it is so normal in today’s culture. Monica Brasted is a psychologist and observed her child when the two of them went to McDonalds one day. Monica’s little girl was upset because she didn’t get the toy she wanted. “When I asked her what was wrong she asked why the woman had given her a care bear when she wanted a transformer” (Brasted). This then brought up the question, why is a transformer toy considered a boy toy? The conclusion was gender stereotypes. According to Brasted, there is a...
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...A Comparison and Contrast of Gender Stereotypes in Advertising According to a study conducted in 2005 by Nielsen Media Research, the average American watches over four hours of television per day and 25% of that hour is comprised of advertising. This gives advertising companies a captive audience to include men, women, young, and old. Turn on the children’s channels and there are ads for juice boxes and the newest toy; turn on the sport network and there are advertisements for beer and beef jerky; turn on the entertainment channel and there will be advertisements for feminine products and shampoo that make claims to leave hair voluminous and shiny. While both men and women are subject to product advertising, it can be expected that the advertising companies use general gender stereotypes to line their pockets and sell products. Simply turn on the television for 20 minutes and you will likely find a plethora of advertisements that use gender stereotyping. Now, take for instance the following scenario, “Girl’s Night Out”, a common tradition for young women in their 20’s and 30’s. Get the girls together and hit the town on a Friday night; dawn a new pair of stilettos and a cute skirt and off to the bar for some cocktails! The women are grouped together; catching up on the latest gossip and here approaches the token tall, dark, and handsome man to steal away hearts. Sounds like the picture perfect evening out. Isn’t this what every 20 or 30-something, single woman’s dreams...
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...Running head: THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA IN SOCIALIZATION The Effects of Media in the Socialization of Children and Young Adults The Effects of Media in the Socialization of Children and Young Adults The media today are a powerful tool in modifying the behavior of children and young adults. This behavior can be seen as negative or positive depending on the situation. Children’s development is influenced by many factors but as Lund (2003) noted the significance of the mass media cannot be overstated: “The accumulated experience of media exposure contributes to the cultivation of a child’s values, beliefs, dreams, and expectations, which shape the adult identity a child will carry and modify through his or her life.” Studies investigating Social Learning Theory, done by Baker (2007, p.26) have consistently reported that children can model roles and behaviors seen on television. Media play a significant role in the socialization process, body image, and moral judgments in children and adolescents. Cartoons on television are some of the first factors of socialization in a child’s life. Although many adults feel that cartoons are obviously fantastical, unrealistic, and therefore harmless to children, the research evidence proves otherwise. “According to developmental literature, children before the age of ten years often have difficulty differentiating between reality and fantasy”(Baker...
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...its brand. The advertising message that Endirt is sending had a high level of recall but a high level of association with the brand and the brands message is partially responsible for a company’s success. Even though Endirt is successful, their message is regarded as offensive towards women and they received unsolicited letters, about one per week which were negative from women saying they will not buy the brand because of the ad message. Endirt’s target market is women and the fact is that women are the primary decision makers and buyers of the product. 2. What are the ethical issues? Advertising reflects society, so it will not be free of criticism. In this case the advertising is in bad taste and is perpetuating a stereotype. The ethical issues that arose in the case are the obligations that advertisers have in mass media, are the rights of women being infringed, should the campaign on the whole be stopped and if the ad was to change how it will affect the brands market share and the company. In the advertising arena, they are provided with a long, coded list of the do’s and the don’ts. Ethics guides the media to be objective, fair and accurate while presenting news, views and opinions. From the case, it appears that Bruce is in a violation of following that code of ethics. 3. Offer your opinion on what actions should be taken? Businesses are in the game to make money and advertising can go a long way towards selling a particular product. But advertising can often be...
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...Evaluation Essay on Gender in Advertising Gender differences and biases have been a part of the normal lives of humans ever since anyone can remember. Anthropological evidence has revealed that even the humans and the hominids of ancient times had separate roles for men and women in their societies, and this relates to the concepts of epistemology. There were certain things that women were forbidden to do and similarly men could not partake in some of the activities that were traditionally reserved for women. This has given birth to the gender role stereotypes that we find today. These differences have been passed on to our current times; although many differences occur now that have caused a lot of debate amongst the people as to their appropriateness and have made it possible for us to have a stereotyping threat by which we sometimes assign certain qualities to certain people without thinking. For example, many men are blamed for undermining women and stereotyping them for traditional roles, and this could be said to be the same for men; men are also stereotyped in many of their roles. This leads to social constructionism since the reality is not always depicted by what we see by our eyes. These ideas have also carried on in the world of advertising and the differences shown between the males and the females are apparent in many advertisements we see today. This can have some serious impacts on the society as people begin to stereotype the gender roles in reality. There has...
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...Stereotyping is a mental activity that is neither natural or necessary; however, due to laziness, upbringing or coincidental experiences (Lester, 1996, p.1), the stereotyping of individuals results in harmful generalisations that ultimately deny an individual's 'unique contribution to humanity' (Lester, 1996, p.1). When the mass media engage in stereotyping, misleading representations concerning members from diverse cultural groups are confirmed. In this essay, a broad range of texts will be used to examine the ways in which the mass media construct and reinforce social stereotypes around gender, ethnicity and age, as well as how the media shape one's imagination though direct images. It cannot be doubted that the media profoundly influence people's attitudes and outlooks. They convey a whole variety of information which individuals would not otherwise acquire. Newspapers, books, television, radio, films, recorded music and popular magazines (Giddens, 1989, p.79) bring individuals into close contact with experiences of which we 'would otherwise have little awareness' (Giddens, 1989, p. 79). There are very few societies, in current times, even among the more traditional cultures, which remain completely untouched by the mass media. Electronic communication is accessible even to those who are completely illiterate, or in isolated areas of the world. According to Juredini and Poole, gender usually refers to the 'behavioural and attitudinal characteristics' as well as roles that...
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...Introduction: Advertising & Gender The adverts are carefully crafted bundles of images, frequently designed to associate the product with feelings of pleasure stemming from fantasies and anxieties (Craig 1997). Advertising can also be defined as a paid for mass-media communication, and a means of managing and controlling the consumer markets at the least cost (Brierley 1995). It is clear that advertisers seem quite willing to manipulate these fantasies and exploit our gender identities to sell products. Gender is a social construct, a dichotomy that exists in all societies (Costa, 1994). It is used to describe the socially constructed differences between men and women, referring not only to individual identity and personality, but also at the symbolic level, to cultural ideals and stereotypes of masculinity and femininity and, at the structural level, to the sexual division of labour in institutions and organisations (Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences). The definition of gender encompasses a great deal. Temperament, abilities and skills, activities and behaviours, ideal types and accepted and unacceptable deviations from the ideal, sensuality and culture based essence of what it means to be male or female, are all part of the gender constructs of a given society. Therefore, marketers perform their activities differently when their targets are male than they do when the targets are female, and consumers’ responses often differ on the basis of gender. Sales...
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... 9/24/2012 Gender stereotypes in food advertisements Introduction I was online watching an episode of vampire diaries when an advertisement aired. The advertisement was about a man telling his mum that he was getting married. The mum naturally asked who he was getting married to, and the man shocked me with his response when he said that, “it’s not a girl, it’s bacon.” I was shocked because when he said he was getting married I didn’t expect it to be a food commercial. This advertisement got me thinking what message it was sending, and who it was targeting. It got me thinking how advertising influences our culture. We watch movies, TV show and read magazines that portray different gender stereotypes that get through us. As we consume these media, our behavior in society is constantly changing because of the impact they have has in our lives. Since we have been discussing the role of advertising in society, I decided to look at how gender stereotypes are used in food advertisements and how it affects us as consumers. This paper will look at how food advertisements portray: men, women and relationships. This paper will also analyze what accounts for these gender stereotypes. Men in food advertisements are usually portrayed as strong and cannot eat “women food”. The kinds of food that men are supposed to eat are fast foods like burgers and pizzas. One of the advertisements that...
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...Compare and Contrast Gender in Advertising Advertising is a multimillion-dollar industry that targets people of various ages and gender to aid in selling gather products. The images or visual and verbal sense of the messages vary considerably by targeting different people with images and messages, which may even lead to the use of stereotyping in order to reach to a wider array of audience. For example, adverts that are solely directed for the teenage audience persuade them that purchasing a specific product makes them “fit in” with other teenagers or their role models. A comparison of advertisements that are aims at men and women show that advertisers are still using the standard gender role to advertise for their products which is causing a lot of stereotyping and biases to be seen. In order to understand stereotypes and gender bias found in the advertisements, it is first imperative to understand what stereotyping is and how it is implemented into advertisements. Stereotyping is defined as a thought that can be adopted from specific types of individuals or ways of doing things, however, that certain belief may or may not be an accurate reflection of reality. Stereotyping fits in with other types of inter group attitudes. Stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice are comprehended to be related but are still different concepts. Stereotyping is though more as rational components of an individual since it is a reflection god expectations and beliefs about the characteristics...
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...assignment 1. What is diversity, and how different would media and advertising look if there were more diversity behind the scenes? Diversity defined is the state of being diverse; variety. Diversity in media would demonstrate variety in sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. According to the video “Miss Representation” the amount of white males that dominate staff in behind the scenes advertising is far greater than woman, especially women of color. Advertising and media would look different if there was more diversity behind the scenes because there would be a larger source of ideas from different backgrounds. Most likely, media would consist of less sexist views, and more of an equilibrium. 2. Who benefits/profits from the way women are represented in the media? Who loses? The only people who benefit and profits from the way women are represented in the media is the businesses part taking in this sexist advertising. The only reason why these companies are making money off of demoralizing content is because they have created a society and message that embodies the idea that sex sells. And in that, advertisers and media have to sell their products in the way that they know the best. In this case, really everyone looses. In the video we watched earlier this week about the lady who wrote the movies about sexist advertising she mentioned that not only does the media sub consciously teach women the harmful “ideas of beauty” the media also sub consciously teaches...
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...C H A P T E R 7 Gender and Advertising How Gender Shapes Meaning The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “It’s a girl.” —Shirley Chisholm Men are dogs and women are cats. Women are from Venus and men are from Mars. Writers, filmmakers, psychologists, and advertisers all have used the idea that men and women are different to develop stories, create conflict, and provide persuasive imagery. Not only do advertisers view men and women differently, but men and women also bring different perspectives to advertising. Thus, we can assume that men and women create dif-ferent meanings from the advertisements they see. Gender roles in our society have changed dramatically since the 1950s, and portrayals of men and women in advertising have been researched since nearly the same time. Researchers have consistently sought to evaluate these roles to examine whether advertising has kept up with societal changes. In this chapter, we examine the different ways men and women view advertising and mes-sages, as well as some of the ways that advertising portrays gender roles today. The last several decades have seen changes in the role of women in society, both as those who earn money and those who spend money. In 1940, women comprised about 20% of the workforce in the United States, while today that percentage reaches 50% (U.S. Department of Labor, 2000). In addition, the family structure in the United States has changed: smaller...
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...create a set of frames that perpetuate ideological hegemony. Ideology is a culmination of social beliefs and values that are upheld by members of society. Hegemony is the power or dominance that one social group holds over others (Lull, 1995). Ideological hegemony is a concept that describes an intertwined system of everyday realities that are created by dominant individuals. As a result, ideological hegemony can often go undetected by common members of society. For example, ideological hegemony can be detected in image advertisements. Gender stereotypes and dominant norms are often perpetuated in daily advertisements. Clothing advertisers often feature young women and men and exaggerate potential sexual relationships. This could indicate the importance of heterosexuality, and the importance of beauty in our society. Due to the amount of messages an individual sees on a daily basis, these common stereotypes are not as obvious to the American consumer. As active consumers, it is our responsibility to challenge the existing...
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...In modern society, advertising is used as a powerful tool to communicate a message. But it is more than simply selling a product. Advertisers not only just sell products, they sell ideals, values and normalcy. They also help to create or express consumers' identity, including gender (Van den Bulck, Van Hellemont 623). Gender roles are defined as the behavioural patterns indicating to others you are a male or a female. In other word, this is also linked to masculinity and femininity. In North America, advertising labels masculinity with traits such as dominance, assertiveness and independence. In contrast, we have femininity in which advertising labels as passive, beautiful and co-dependant. These two images advertisers try to paint normalize the stereotypes of different gender roles. Different companies use different strategies to sell products and encourage consumers to part with their hard earned money. Advertising reinforces particular gender norms. Through an analysis of a case study of anti-aging cream aimed towards women, this paper will argue that all advertising fundamentally plays on dominant ideologies to make people believe that in order to be “normal” or “successful”, they must buy product X. In particular, it will focus on how dominant norms surrounding masculinity and femininity are encouraged. These norms suggest what is considered an acceptable male and female appearance. It will also focus in particular on gender norms which female attractiveness is above all...
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