Gendered voices in children's television advertising

Abstract

ᮀ-Televised ads for toys directed to children were examined to address two research questions: (1) Do advertisers script language differently for females and males? and (2) How is gender used as a discourse code to link products to gender roles? In a sample from 1996, 1997, and 1999, ads A dvertising-on television, billboards, public transportation, the internet, in newspapers, magazines, and movie theatres-invades the consciousness of most everyone. Sponsors pay enormous amounts to place ads in those locations where the largest segment of the targeted audience is likely to see and hear them, and they rely on new, creative approaches both to instill and fuel the desire for more and more consumption. Although most ads target adult audiences, children make up an important audience. Children play with a vast array of toys and eat trendy foods and snacks-many of which are introduced to them through advertising. This non-adult market is the focus of this essay.In a consumer-oriented culture, advertisers must position the products they represent as enhancements to both happiness and desirable life styles. Image serves as the link between product

Gender representation in Filipino storybooks for children

“…Such as in television, children are targets of gender-based conditioning. This phenomenon is quite notable in advertisements which have been extensively observed to project strong gender attitudes and perceptions stereotyping towards American children (Johnson & Young, 2002). While learning technical, social concepts have long been prioritized in education, there has been mounting necessity for gender expression and fairness as focal areas of discussion.…”

“…The present study examines gender portrayal in bilingual children's literature written by Filipino authors. Using word count guided by the verb taxonomy of Johnson and Young (2002), 60 award winning and non-award winning books published between 2006 to 2017 were analyzed. Overall, the results reveal that the male characters continue to be assigned more active roles in the stories; however, they can also be assigned to roles that were traditionally given to female characters.…”

The State of the Art in Feminist Scholarship in Communication

“…Second, there are a number of outlets not surveyed here that regularly feature such work and are likely perceived as reaching the audience specifically concerned with such issues: for example, Sex Roles, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Among the journals we surveyed, Journal of Communication has published the largest number of quantitative studies of the communication of gender ideology published in the last 5 years (e.g., Andsager & Roe, 1999;Botta, 1999;Harrison & Frederickson, 2003;Holbert et al, 2003;Lind & Salo, 2002), although such research also appears in CSMC (e.g., Johnson & Young, 2002) and in Women's Studies and Communication (e.g., White, 2000).…”

“…Studies have examined television and video entertainment (Acosta-Alzuru, 2003;Andsager & Roe, 1999;Botta, 1999;Cohen & Ribak, 2003;Cuklanz, 1998;Hanke, 1998;Harrison & Frederickson, 2003;Holbert, Shah, & Kwak, 2003;Ott & Aoki, 2001;Powell & Abels, 2002;Rockler, 1999;Striphas, 2003;Vavrus, 2000aVavrus, , 2002; film (Anderson & Accomando, 1999;Dalton & Fatzinger, 2003;Frentz & Rushing, 2002;Harris, 2000;Ono & Buescher, 2001;Picart, 1998;Rockler, 2001;Swan, 1999); advertising (Artz, Munger, & Purdy, 1999;Cassidy, 2001;Hawkins & Hane, 2001;Johnson & Young, 2002;Sullivan, 1998;White & Kinnick, 2000); magazines (Corbett, 2001;Garner, Sterk, & Adams, 1998;Mandziuk, 2001;Smith, 2000); news (Bing, 1999;Consalvo, 1998;Danner & Walsh, 1999;Dow, 1999;Halevi, 2003;Halkias, 1998;Kinnick, 1998;Lind & Salo, 2002;Luthra, 1999;Parry-Giles, 2000;…”

“…Other specific foci explored by researchers include the relationship of television and video images to adolescents' body images (Botta, 1999;Harrison & Frederickson, 2003), the relationship between prime-time drama and situation comedy and viewers' attitudes toward women's rights (Holbert et al, 2003), the portrayal of women in computer ads (White & Kinnick, 2000), gendered language patterns in advertisements directed at young children (Johnson & Young, 2002), gender bias in newspaper profiles of Olympic athletes (Kinnick, 1998), and the representation of feminists and feminism television news and public affairs programming (Lind & Salo, 2002). These examples of quantitative work in the communication of gender ideology include both studies directed exclusively toward analyzing media content and those directed toward analyzing the effect of media content on viewers.…”