WordPress.com



Gender Stereotypes in U.S. Primetime Television Commercials: A Statistical AnalysisPatrick Boardman / Kristin BrownDr. Y. Pasadeos – APR 550University of AlabamaGender Roles in Television Commercials: A Statistical AnalysisStatement of the ProblemThis research study addresses the issue of gender roles in American contemporary, primetime television advertising. ?Specifically, the research examined the ways in which advertising potentially reinforces gender stereotypes through its portrayal of the central characters in television commercials. Conceptually, stereotypes refer to a set of held beliefs generalized across a specific population. With regards to gender stereotypes, messages that rigidly link socially masculine traits with males and socially feminine traits with females are considered stereotypical. Operationally, stereotypes involve inequality in variables such as age, role, basis for credibility, argument type, etc. in gendered central characters in advertisements. Each variable is discussed at length in Appendix A of this study.Because an integral step in the advertising message creation process involves targeting, issues of gender-related appeals serve as targeting strategies and tactics. For example, if an advertisement for a product seeks to use an ego-gratification appeal to a male target audience, certain gender issues could become implicated such as sexual attractiveness and subservience. ?As a result, this issue bears significance to advertising in the sense that message creation can be informed by stereotype data. Because some researchers (Eisend, 2010) view advertising content as a mirror of cultural values, this study will also provide relevant data about the current state of gender relations in America.Background / Literature ReviewA great deal of research has been conducted to examine gender roles in advertising. Starting around the 1960s, researchers have studied how advertising portrays men and women, and studies have continued through several decades into the mid-2000s. As advertising impressions began to shift from radio to television, so too did the research; most of the recent research in advertisements' gender roles has dealt with television advertising exclusively. In a seminal 1975 article, McArthur and Resko presented an often-replicated coding scheme to measure gender stereotypes present in television advertising through content analysis. The 1975 study presented the idea that gender stereotyping in advertising might directly influence perceptions and behavior relating to sex-based differences in society, a notion that has since sparked debate. Researchers like McArthur and Resko (1975) maintain that advertising affects society, while others like Holbrook (1987) hold that advertising simply reacts to the values already held by society. Eisend (2010) calls this issue the mirror vs. mold argument.Another benchmark article from the body of research on gender stereotyping, published by Furnham and Mak in 1999, presents a series of studies across several continents. Ultimately, Furnham and Mak concluded that gender stereotyping has existed relatively uniformly across time and geographic region, and that women are underrepresented and tend to be visually portrayed (as opposed to having narrative voice). Indeed, the general body of research on the topic of gender stereotyping in advertising at least affirms its existence, though there exists some disagreement about the direction in which prevalence of gender stereotyping is heading. In 2010, Eisend conducted a meta-analysis which aggregated over 60 different primary studies (dating from 1975 to 2007) that examined gender stereotypes in an effort to draw holistic conclusions from the existing body of scientific evidence. Eisend found that some studies suggest that gender stereotyping is on the decline, while others suggest that it is on the rise. Because our proposed research examined only American television advertisements, it is useful to report on major research that deals strictly with United States advertisements. In terms of research that exclusively measures gender roles in advertising within the United States since the McArthur and Resko (1975) study, two major papers have been published. The first, conducted by Bretl and Cantor, (1988) concluded that the gender of primary characters in American advertisements has approached a more uniform distribution – but women were still underrepresented. Among other observations, Bretl and Cantor also concluded that women were still presented as being unemployed with higher frequency, occupying domestic roles (as opposed to professional), though more men were also being presented in this fashion. The second American-centric advertisement gender role study was published in 2003 by Ganahl, Prinsen and Netzley. Ganahl et. al’s study served as an update to Bretl and Cantor’s article, hoping to measure what changes had taken place over the 10-year period between 1988 and 1998. The researchers found that underrepresentation persisted for women, with no discernible strides being made in the area of primary character’s gender. Ganahl et. al also compared the data from advertisements to actual U.S. census data, noting that variables such as female character age were not representative of the actual population. This additional step of comparing advertising data to census data lends extra insight into American society, and is therefore a useful step our research emulated.Purpose of Proposed ResearchThe purpose of the conducted research was two-fold. First, it provided updates to American advertising gender role data. The last major study of American gender roles, though published in 2003, cut off its sample in 1998, around 13 years from the time of this study. Because Eisend (2010) suggests that stereotypes in advertising mirror societal norms, we should expect any changes in American society to have impact on advertising data. With the advent of the Internet and other cultural shifts, society has ostensibly changed enough to impact the data. Secondly, previous studies that measured stereotypical gender roles in advertising used individual characters as a unit of analysis. This provides a great deal of data about who is performing which action with what effect in commercials, but do not provide a great deal of data about these actions relative to a member of the opposite gender. For this reason, an additional dimension was introduced in our research in the form of a category known as the male-female dyad. If both men and women were present in a single commercial, several coding elements were employed in order to ascertain the power relationship of the dyad. The unit of analysis remained central characters, but if a dyad was present, relative relations were explored. Research Questions and HypothesesRQ1: When men and women interact within modern American television commercials, which gender (if any) has a higher frequency of positions of power?RQ2: When compared to actual U.S. census data, are stereotypical-sensitive variables such as age and role more disparate in favor of any gender?H1: In advertisements in which a man-woman dyad is featured, women will occupy the submissive role more frequently than men.H2: In terms of representation when compared to population distribution, professional women will be underrepresented and their mean age will be skewed.MethodThe unit of analysis studied during this research was individual characters in primetime television advertisements, defined operationally in an attached appendix. The most central observation for our study was sex of the central character. Once the central character’s sex was identified, other crucial observations about how the character was portrayed were analyzed. The age, basis for credibility, and role of the central character were noted, as they were all important pieces in identifying the intended persona of the portrayed character. The location of the advertisement was also noted, as it could set the tone for character depiction, i.e. a woman or man at home during the day versus a woman at a workplace during the day. Identifying whether the advertisement’s arguments (if any) are factual or opinionated, as well as any possible rewards obtained from the advertisement’s product, also held important implications for gender role stereotypes (e.g. if arguments presented by women are mostly opinionated, rather than factual). Lastly, the type of product was analyzed to check for association with any particular gender, another possible symptom of gender stereotypes. All of the categories explained above lead to a final determinate question: whether it was men, women, or neither that were depicted as dominant/powerful in relation to one another.The research frame for this study included all advertisements aired on the seven major channels (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, TBS, ESPN, HGTV) during prime time network hours (7-10 CST) over a given research period (2 weeks). Within the research frame, a sample was taken by forming constructed weeks. Two constructed weeks consisted of one-hour blocks from each network, on alternating nights (i.e., Monday: 7:00 ABC, Tuesday: 9:00 CBS) Since not all commercials/advertisements have only one central character, our coding sheet allotted up to two central characters to be thoroughly analyzed, a prominent male and prominent female. If the two characters shared equal significance in the commercial advertisement, the two characters were coded by order of appearance, etc. After the two constructed weeks were completed, all data was tabulated and analyzed in various ways. Our main focus was to compare data findings and discover whether or not prime time television advertisements reinforced gender stereotypes through any number of selected variables. FindingsIn preparation for this study, we selected two important research questions and hypotheses that addressed them. Several of the tests performed on our data sought to confirm or disprove our hypotheses, and the remainder probed for any other interesting, issue-relevant anomalies.Our first hypothesis (H1) predicted that, in those commercials containing a male-female dyad, males would occupy the position of power more often than women. Below is a table containing the data used to test the claim:Table 1: Frequencies of power positions in male-female dyadsObserved* (Set O1)Expected (Set E1)Power:Power:Equal/Unclear64 (missing)Equal/UnclearN/AWomen20Women50Men30Men50Null hypotheses:O1 does not differ significantly from E1Reject or Retain:Retain*Data distilled from variable ‘DyadPower,’ where n=287 and ‘No Dyad’ = 173, leaving an n of 114Though the collected data shows a small disparity in favor of men, the data could not be shown to be significantly different. Ultimately, this goes against the claim in the hypothesis. Possible reasons for this result (as well as implications resulting from the test) can be found in the discussions and conclusions section of this study.The second hypothesis (H2) predicted that data gleaned from television commercials would differ from actual population data in the United States, thus exposing a disparity between reality and ad content. In order to test this hypothesis, we gathered two distinct distributions from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census – ‘workforce gender breakdown’ and ‘age,’ respectively.In a cross-tabulation of ages and gender, we found that several significant differences (where df = 2, sig = .001). Namely, more women than men were portrayed as being young, and more men than women were portrayed as old. This data, along with a comparison to actual U.S. census percentages can be found in Table 2, below.Table 2: Crosstab: Age x GenderMenWomenObserved* (O1)Expected** (E1)Observed (O2)Expected (E2)Young32 (23.7)(48.9)40 (43.0)(45.7)Middle-aged86 (63.7)(33.0)51 (54.8)(33.3)Old17 (12.6)(11.4)2 (2.2)(14.6)IndeterminateXN/AXN/ANull hypotheses:O1,2 does not differ significantly from E1,2Reject or Retain:Reject*Data distilled from variables ‘Age’ and ‘Gender’ | **Value taken from 2010 U.S. Census | X – Value omitted for purposes of this testIn terms of census data, our research found that ad content fails to match the actual population data with regards to age. The one age category in which the greatest disparity exists is ‘Old (65+),’ wherein males are accurately represented, whereas women are vastly underrepresented.Another method for testing H2 against actual population data can be found in Table 3. The workforce gender breakdown test we conducted compared male workforce with female workforce both in reality and the ad world. The results can be seen below:Table 3: Workforce and GenderObserved* (Set O1)Expected (Set E1)Employed:Men49 (70)Men74290 (53.1)Women21 (30)Women65579 (46.9)Null hypotheses:O1 does not differ significantly from E1Reject or Retain:RejectData distilled from ‘role’ variable, where role value was either ‘professional’ or ‘worker (blue collar)’Our data shows a distinct disparity between men and women in the workforce – one in which ads portray a great deal more men than women as holding jobs. Because this data cannot be found in actual population data, our hypothesis holds. For a visual representation of the disparity, check Appendix C of this study.In addition to answering our research questions, this study yielded several interesting issue-relevant points. First, in terms of ‘bases for credibility,’ men are significantly more likely to hold a position of product/service authority; women are significantly more likely to be occupy either a decorative (negligible) or product-user credibility. Next, we found women to be significantly more likely to be the central character in commercials containing an unscientific/emotional argument. Finally, we found that men are more likely to be the central character of ads featuring scientific/factual arguments. Visual representations of these findings can be found in Appendix C of this study.Discussions and ConclusionsThe specific questions that drove our research included understanding gender roles and positions of power in gender pairs within modern American television commercials. We wanted to compare stereotypical-sensitive variables such as age and role in commercials to actual U.S. census data to find if modern television commercials are more disparate in favor of any gender. Finally, we wanted to reflect on advertising’s role on current gender relations in America by updating conclusions drawn by existing research. Our findings ultimately supported many of the claims existing in research, as well as confirmed one of our original hypotheses. Ultimately, one hypothesis failed to materialize. However unexpected, we are still able to comment on the failed hypothesis’ implications in the larger context of the advertising industry.Because our data shows a discrepancy between ad content and actual population information, several stereotypically sensitive implications arise. First, advertisers showing less?‘young’,?more?‘middle-aged’,?and less?‘old’?people in their work fail to accurately represent the audiences they reach. Because older men are fairly represented and older women underrepresented, a subtext of ‘graceful male aging vs. shameful female aging’ is implicit. However, the data we gathered is imperfect. If this test were to be done again, narrowed windows for age would be given to ensure the data is more accurately measured. By having to include census data statistics for ages 1-35 in the ‘young’ category, the percentage of ‘young’ population didn’t measure precisely what we might have wished it to. As to the ‘visual woman’ issue reported in the literature review section of this study, our data reinforces much of the existing research. We were able to determine that modern American ads contained more women as product users and decorative roles. More men were in authority roles, thus possessing narrative voice. In the larger context of the advertising / PR world, this finding might speak to a need for professionals to rethink product messaging and copywriting in order to more accurately balance bases for credibility. We originally hypothesized modern advertisements with men/women dyads would show women occupying the submissive role more frequently than men. Our tests led us to reject this hypothesis. Though unexpected, several factors might help explain this result. First, the overall trend in advertising seems to be moving away from rigid dyadic interactions. Instead, many ads opt to use a format with a flurry of scenes containing many central characters (or else a narrator, limiting the central character to a single gender). Viewing this trend through Eisend’s Mirror argument, we could conclude that gender issues are becoming more absent from the collective consciousness of society. This is not to say that the problems are necessarily solved, only that they are largely dismissed. Alternatively, because our sample size was not exhaustively larger, the retained null hypothesis could be due to an inadequate size. It should be noted that more men had power in the dyad relationships within our sample, albeit too small to conclude with 95% confidence. If this test were to be run again, more men/women dyad commercials would need to be coded and analyzed to get a larger sample size. This could determine if this was the problem found in our research. Our research found several other stereotypically sensitive issues within ad content. Because men are more likely to deliver factual arguments and women more likely to deliver opinion-based arguments, stereotypes about the ‘emotional woman vs. logical man’ are reinforced. Additionally, because ad content fails to accurately depict the more-or-less equal gender distribution in the workforce, the ‘domestic woman vs. working man’ stereotype is perpetuated. Again, if Eisend’s mirror argument is to be taken seriously, the perpetuation of these stereotypes can have real implications for gender relations in America. For example, women are still paid less than men for equivalent work – a fact that might be mitigated by the widespread portrayal of workingwomen. Advertisers, then, can be said to have an ethical responsibility for furthering gender politics.Many of the results that concluded differently than we expected are likely due to flaws in our research method. A limitation noticed that was not a part of this original study is the gender role portrayal of men and women when they are not part of a men/women dyad commercial advertisement, i.e. women cooking in the kitchen, men drinking beer with male friends after work, etc. Many stereotypical gender roles in single gender commercials were noticed throughout the research, which may have produced further significant findings about gender roles portrayed in primetime television commercials with the introduction of more variables (actions taken, attitudes held, etc.). Though our method included a specific unit of analysis, randomly generated constructed weeks, and a significantly large sample size, our scope still allowed for imperfections. In addition, this study did not measure advertisements from every possible channel at every possible time frame (i.e. commercials airing on cable networks outside of primetime). A final significant limitation for our research included the tone of commercials, i.e. if they were intended to be statistically unrepresentative in order to use humor or fear tactics.This research can be very valuable to advertising and public relations professionals, as knowing what accurate percentages of roles dealing with gender and age exist in society compared to what is depicted in commercials could determine whether consumers trust advertisements. For example, finding areas with significant difference of disparity and altering them could create more trust and factuality, as well as success, i.e. having more women give ‘factual/scientific’ arguments in commercials and having men portrayed as product users more often, namely in items used by both men and women. Changes in society should be mirrored by advertising portrayals.ReferencesBretl, D. J., & Cantor, J. (1988). The portrayal of men and women in U.S. television commercials: a recent content analysis and trends over 15 years. Sex Roles, 18, 595–609.Eisend, M. (2010). A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising. Journal Of The Academy Of Marketing Science, 38(4), 418-440. doi:10.1007/s11747-009-0181-xFurnham, A., & Mak, T. (1999). Sex-role stereotyping in television commercials: a review and comparison of fourteen studies done on five continents over 25 Years. Sex Roles, 41, 413–437.Ganahl, D. J., Prinsen, T. J., & Netzley, S. B. (2003b). A content analysis of prime time commercials: a contextual framework of gender representation. Sex Roles, 49, 545–551.McArthur, L. Z., & Resko, B. G. (1975). The portrayal of men and women in American television commercials. Journal of Social Psychology, 97, 209–220.United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population by age, sex, and race. States Census (2010). Age and sex composition. A: Unit of Analysis and Coding VariablesUnit of AnalysisCentral figure(s) – Prominent actors in the commercial, because of featured speaking or prolonged screen time. Can be male or female. Each ad can contain up to one of each gender.Coding variablesThe following coding variables, with the exception of the last category (dyad relation) are adapted from McArthur and Resko’s 1975 piece.Age – Apparent age of central figure. Can be young (<35), middle aged (35-65), or old (>65).Basis for credibility – Refers to the relation of the central character to the product/service being advertised. Can either be a product user, decorative (unrelated), or else an authority (ostensibly a product giver or source). Role – Refers to the occupation of the central character within the context of the advertisement. Location – Refers to where the central character(s) is acting. Factual Arguments – Sort of argument or appeal given in favor of product/service being advertised. In this case, appeals to reason, uses facts, etc.Emotional Arguments-- Sort of argument or appeal given in favor of product/service being advertised . In this case, appeals to emotions, uses pathos or opinion, etc.Practical reward offered - Refers to portrayal of needs/wants being met by the product via the central character. In this case, rewards that save time, money, etc.Social reward offered - Refers to portrayal of needs/wants being met by the product via the central character. In this case, rewards that benefit opposite sex/family approval, career advancement, etc.Self reward offered - Refers to portrayal of needs/wants being met by the product via the central character. In this case, rewards that benefit the self: physical attractiveness, cleanliness, health, etc.Type of product – Refers to the sort of product/service being advertised. Dyad relation – Refers to the type of power relation present between two characters. Can be power/men (men make assertive claims, hold breadwinning role, etc.), vice versa, or equal/unclear.Appendix B: Coding SheetCoding SheetTelevision Network and Time Slot: ____________Advertisement #: _____Product/Brand: _______________Central Character 1: ____ M_____FAge:YoungMiddle-agedOldBasis for credibilityProduct UserDecorativeAuthorityOtherRoleSpouse Parent Professional Worker (Blue Collar)Real-life Celebrity Interviewer/Narrator Significant Other OtherLocationHomeStoreOccupation PlaceOtherArgument: Scientific/Factual/RationalYesNoArgument: Unscientific/Opin/EmotionalYesNoReward offered:Social EnhancementYesNoReward offered:Self-EnhancementYesNoReward offered:PracticalYesNoType of productAutomobile Baby: food/supplies Bank/insurance/legal Cell Phone Cable/Satellite Clothing Computer Delivery Service Education/jobs Financial Services Food/Drink Health: beauty Health: medical/fitness Home: cleaners/supplies Home: improvement Hospitality Internet/Software Jewelry Other Retail Pets Political PSAs Real estate Restaurants Stationary/office supplies Travel OtherDyad PresentYesNoIf Dyad: PowerEqual/UnclearPower/WomenPower/MenCentral Character 2: ____ M_____FAge:YoungMiddle-agedOldBasis for credibilityProduct UserDecorativeAuthorityOtherRoleSpouse Parent Professional Worker (Blue Collar)Real-life Celebrity Interviewer/Narrator Significant Other OtherLocationHomeStoreOccupation PlaceOtherArgument: Scientific/Factual/RationalYesNoArgument: Unscientific/Opin/EmotionalYesNoReward offered:Social EnhancementYesNoReward offered:Self-EnhancementYesNoReward offered:PracticalYesNoType of productAutomobile Baby: food/supplies Bank/insurance/legal Cell Phone Cable/Satellite Clothing Computer Delivery Service Education/jobs Financial Services Food/Drink Health: beauty Health: medical/fitness Home: cleaners/supplies Home: improvement Hospitality Internet/Software Jewelry Other Retail Pets Political PSAs Real estate Restaurants Stationary/office supplies Travel OtherDyad PresentYesNoIf Dyad: PowerEqual/UnclearPower/WomenPower/MenAppendix C: Figures ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download