Course paper
ADVERTISING AS A MEDIUM OF GENDER-BIASED COMMUNICATION
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Cultural Preconditions of Gender Stereotypes in Communication
1.1 Intercultural perspective on gender and communication
1.2 Proxemics and gender
2. Manifestation of Gender Bias in Mass Communication
2.1 Gender Stereotyping in TV Advertisements
2.2 Gender role stereotyping in radio advertisements
3. Language Issues in Advertising
3.1 Gender and language usage
3.2 Differences in language usage and worldview
3.3 Voiceover characteristics
3.4 Word choice
3.5 Use of ArgumentsConclusion
References
Gender issues in communication have attracted attention of many researchers. There has been considerable interest in the possible contributions of the mass media to the origins and maintenance of gender roles (Courtney & Whipple, 1974; Culley & Bennett, 1976; Dominick & Rausch, 1972; Furnham, Abramsky & Gunter, 1997; Furnham & Skae, 1996; Kolbe & Langefeld, 1993; O'Donnell & O'Donnell, 1978). Studiesusing educational books (Lobban, 1975), picture books (Weitzman, Eiffer, Hokada, & Ross, 1972), and comic strips (Potkay & Potkay, 1984) have shown that men and women are portrayed in stereotypic fashion, suggesting that the media are by and large consistent in their gender role stereotyping,[1] which underlies the importance of the present research.
The purpose of this research is to reveal gender stereotyping in advertising. Grounding on the accessible sources survey, the paper offers an overview of the significant role that mass communication plays in contemporary gender issues. At a closer look, the communication perspective allows us to examine gender communication as a form of intercultural communication. It can be assumed then that, having gained a considerable part of the communication process, mass media are subject to gender stereotypes, which is examined on TV and radio advertising. Focusing on these two types of media is dictated by their primary impact channel — auditory, which makes TV and radio advertisements more difficult to be ignored by the audience than similar messages in the printed types of mass media. The analysis considers both social and linguistic issues, aiming at detecting some general features of how gender bias is manifested in advertisements.
The paper consists of the introduction, three chapters, conclusion, reference list (sources directly quoted) and the list of works consulted (sources used during the research but not referred to in the text of this paper).
1. Cultural Preconditions of Gender Stereotypes in Communication
1.1 Intercultural perspective on gender and communication
Cross-gender communication is seen by many scholars (such as Porter, Samovar,[2] and Penington[3]) as a form of intercultural communication. The constituents of intercultural communication are points at which significant differences may occur in communication patterns, habits, and traditions across cultures.
Communicative practices not only reflect notions about gender, but they also create cultural concepts of gender. Message sources privileged by society as legitimate knowledge generators create a web of socially compelling discourses. Thus, religious, mythic, philosophic, and scientific discourses teach us, among other things, about society's values and rules related to gender. It is no accident, then, that American stereotypes focus on the active male and the supporting female, or that Plato defined women as "lesser men," or that Aristotle described women as "a deformity, a misbegotten male," or that St. Thomas Aquinas argued that god should not have created women, or that craniologists of the nineteenth century argued that women's smaller heads justified their subordinate position in society (thus initiating all the "pretty little head" rhetoric about women), or that Freud believed women had "little sense of justice," and so on.[4]
In addition, mass mediated messages offer the most contemporary, powerful, technologically and rhetorically sophisticated stereotypes for shaping cultural reality. The beauty, diet, and advertising industries are the most obvious, best researched examples of contemporary, self-conscious myth-makers who control cultural concepts (and acceptable images) of gender (of what it takes and means to be male or female, masculine or feminine).[5] The opportunities for generating (and receiving) mass mediated messages is staggering. So too is the opportunity for abuse.
Communication is of central concern when addressing gender issues. Rhetorical messages in large part determine what we consider knowledge, what knowledge we privilege, and what values we espouse. Furthermore, the role of culture in communication practices directs us to an intercultural perspective on gender and communication.
1.2 Proxemics and gender
"Space is a primary means by which a culture designates who is important, who has privilege."[6] Differences in the amount of space given to and taken by women and men reflect societal gender roles. So, women are less likely than men to have their own private space within the family home. And, in the workplace, employees in the traditionally female role, secretary, generally have a smaller space than the employee in the traditionally male role, executive. Responses to invasion of space also differ between men and women. While men may respond aggressively, women tend to yield space rather than challenge the intruder. These are but a few examples of the ways in which differences in communication between the genders fit categories of primary elements in intercultural communication. The point is that these differences can create problems in communication. Julia Wood devotes a whole chapter of her book Gendered Lives to the ways in which these problems are manifest in the educational system. We might assume too that the same problems are likely to visit the university library as well. An abridged list of the concerns Woods discusses includes issues familiar to us all: lack of female role models, curricular content which misrepresents white men as standard and renders women invisible, biased communication in the classroom (in both student-faculty and student-counsellor communication women are not taken seriously).(Wood, pp. 206-229.)
As it follows from the above said, gender stereotypes occur in communication patterns, habits, and traditions across cultures, proving that gender communication is a form of intercultural communication.
Proceeding from the above analysis, it is of interest to assess the extent to which the mass media have responded to cultural trends in the society. It can be assumed that, having gained a considerable part of the communication process, mass media are subject to gender stereotypes. There has been considerable recent interest in the possible contributions of the mass media to the origins and maintenance of gender roles[7]. Studies using educational books[8], picture books[9], and comic strips[10] have shown that men and women are portrayed in stereotypic fashion suggesting that the media are by and large consistent in their gender role stereotyping.[11]
In this context it is interesting to examine if and how stereotypes are reflected in TV and radio advertising. The choice of these two types of media for more detailed analysis can be explained by their nature. Namely, as long as their primary impact on the audience is made through the auditory channel, the advertisements included into TV and radio programs are more difficult to be skipped by the listeners and/or viewers than similar advertising in the printed types of mass media.
advertising gender communication
Studies in this area show that TV advertisements aimed at men differ from those aimed at women. This is reflected not only in targeting a particular product at a particular audience. In doing so, we can observe, firstly, using specific day parts (daytime, evening primetime and weekend afternoon sports) as a framework for the supposed target audience (women, family and men respectively). Secondly, and this is a more serious issue, the advertisements aimed at one sex tend to portray gender differently from the advertisements aimed at the other sex.[12]
There is now fairly widespread conceptual agreement and empirical support for the view that television can and does profoundly influence the viewers' intellectual development, change their attitudes, encourage attitudes and behaviours, and spread some stereotypes.[13]
It is as a socializing agent that television is particularly powerful. Because viewing television involves the observation of others' behaviour and its reinforcement contingencies, television is considered to be a major vehicle through which the viewers learn about behaviours, particularly gender-appropriate behaviours, and about the relative desirability of performing those behaviours.[14]
McArthur and Resko[15] found that overall men appeared more often than women in television advertisements and that men and women differed in terms of credibility (men being authorities and women users), role (women portrayed in terms of their relationship to others and men in a role independent of others), location (men shown in occupational settings and women in the home), persuasive arguments (men gave more `scientific' arguments than women), rewards (women were shown obtaining approval of family and males, while obtained men social and career advancement) and product type (men were authorities on products used primarily by women).
Despite improvements since the seventies in the status of female characters, the TV commercials of the early eighties still revealed stereotypical gender roles. Male characters for example, were still more likely to be portrayed as employed outside the home while women were typically found working in the home. Males were also given greater credibility than were females. Male and female adult characters were also still clearly associated with activities traditionally associated with their gender (i.e. men were associated with mowing the lawn, while women were associated with doing the dishes). Finally, they discovered that ninety percent of commercials had male narrators, and that this was true even in the case of commercials for stereotypically female products. Also, there was a clearly gendered association of loud music and dark settings with male characters. This is of importance, as the narrator is considered the voice of authority. By selecting predominantly male narrators, advertisers are identifying males as the most deserving of respect. They are working from the assumption that viewers are more likely to believe what they are told by a male voice. Finally, male characters were most often shown alone, participating in stereotypically male behaviour.[16]
Manstead and McCulloch[17] assessed the situation in Great Britain using 170 television commercials so legitimate comparisons could be made. The overall results were unambiguous and comparable to those of the American study, but the portrayal of men and women on television showed British advertisements at the time to be more gender role stereotyped.
More recent studies have been done, specifically on television advertisements, in Australia[18], Kenya[19], as well as America[20], Canada[21], Italy[22] and Great Britain[23]. Replications over time have shown surprisingly few differences. The researchers regarded six features: the product advertised, gender of the voice-over announcer, gender of the on-camera product representative, setting, age, and occupation of the characters.
The results of studies indicate that men and women appearing in television commercials were portrayed in not independent ways. The nature of these associations were systematic and in line with traditional gender-role stereotypes. These findings reveal that television commercials manifest traditional gender role stereotypes.[24]
The male figures' typical credibility basis as an authority of the advertised product complements previous findings.
Men were most likely to be portrayed as interviewers, narrators, or celebrities in occupational settings or in unspecified locations, while women were most likely dependent on others. However the difference between the two (males and females) was not as great as expected concerning the professional role.
Location is still a significant predictor of gender stereotyping. Females are more often portrayed at home while males are more frequently portrayed during leisure/outdoor.
Age is often one of the best indicators of sex-role stereotyping. Although studies define "young," "middle-age," and "old" on slightly different scales, a prevalent picture is indicated: females are consistently shown as younger than males. Most studies show that central figures are dominated by middle-aged males and young females. The depiction of female figures as young is a typical feature of advertisements from Australia and United States[25]. This implies that advertisers consider it important for women to be portrayed as youthful and consequently attractive, whereas this is not as important for men. Instead male figures are depicted as being older - most male figures are middle aged - which may enhance this commonly presented image as authoritative experts.
The content category "reward types" showed many gender role effects. There is a significant association between gender of product user and reward type. The general pattern is that males are shown to be associated with pleasurable rewards, while females are more portrayed as rewarded with social approval and/or self-enhancement.
Women were more likely to appear in adverts for body products and most likely to be associated with food products.
Less work appears to have been done on gender roles on radio.[26]
A study by Furnham and Schofield[27] compared the extent of gender role stereotyping in commercials on British radio with that of the content of commercials on television content. They found that in radio advertisements men were more often portrayed as authorities on products and women as users of products; men were more likely to be portrayed as narrators or celebrities than women; and women were more likely to be portrayed in the home than man. Furnham and Schofield concluded that, compared with advertisements on British television, British radio advertisements were gender role stereotyped on fewer dimensions. Hurtz & Durkin[28] replicated the study using 100 Western Australian radio advertisements. They found that males were more often central characters; more often in authority roles. Females were most often portrayed in dependent roles and in their home, while they were portrayed as customers or girlfriends in the workplace.
The research was concentrated on the following parameters.
Credibility. Central figures were, categorized as "user" when they were depicted primarily as users of the advertised product, while those who were depicted primarily as sources of information concerning the product were categorized as "authority." Central figures depicted as neither use nor authorities were categorized as "other."
Role. Central figures were classified according to one of the following apparent roles: "dependent," meaning primarily financially dependent (spouse, home-maker, girlfriend), "narrator/celebrity," "professional," or "other" (including "worker").
Location. Central figures were categorized according to the location in which they were depicted, either: "home," "occupational setting," or "other."