ArticlePDF Available

Gender Role Portrayals in Japanese Advertising: A Magazine Content Analysis

Authors:

Abstract and Figures

The authors report a content analysis that assessed gender role portrayals in advertisements from highest circulation Japanese magazines. They found that, although some indigenous gender stereotyping was evident, several traits previously associated with Japanese women (devoted, obliging, rattle-brained, superstitious, thorough) were associated with men. Also, men were not linked with certain stereotypical male traits (autocratic, blustery, forgiving, generous, severe). Other findings included women being shown in a positive way as often as men. In terms of common international stereotypes, women were not associated with low priced products or portrayed as being more deferential than men. However, women still were portrayed as more concerned with appearance and as younger than men, were not depicted as product authorities, and were shown more often in sexist than in nonsexist depictions.
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
... For some years, the studies regarding attitude towards the role portrayal of women in advertisements are being given special attention (DeYoung & Crane, 1992;Dominick & Rauch, 1972;Ford, Voli, Honeycutt Jr, & Casey, 1998;Lin, 2008;Lundstrom & Sciglimpaglia, 1977;Lysonski, 1983;Royo-Vela, Aldás-Manzano, Küster-Boluda, & Vila-Lopez, 2007;Soley & Kurzbard, 1986;Wolin, 2003). ...
... The study of Ford and LaTour (1993) also confirmed the findings. In order to check whether the depiction of women in advertisements by the advertisers is genuine and exact, content analysis of the advertisements is done by lots of researchers over the past few decades (Courtney & Lockeretz, 1971;Ford et al. 1998;Royo-Vela et al., 2007;Sexton & Haberman, 1974;Wagner & Banos, 1973). Female stereotyping regarding their role in advertising remained in the society for later years (LaTour, Pitts, & Snook-Luther, 1990;Loudon & Delia Bitta, 1988;Roberts & Koggan, 1975;Royo-Vela et al., 2007;Soley & Reid, 1988). ...
... Female stereotyping regarding their role in advertising remained in the society for later years (LaTour, Pitts, & Snook-Luther, 1990;Loudon & Delia Bitta, 1988;Roberts & Koggan, 1975;Royo-Vela et al., 2007;Soley & Reid, 1988). Ford et al. (1998) found in their Japanese study that women were stereotypically portrayed in ads as being more related with physical attractiveness than men, as being younger than men, and as product users and presenters more often than men, and less frequently portrayed as product authorities than men. They also found women in decorative and in home settings rather than in occupational and sporting settings. ...
Article
Full-text available
Among various factors which help in shaping the attitude of consumers, religion too play a very vital role. This research aims to inquire differences in attitudes of females towards women's role portrayal in advertisements on the basis of religion. Responses were taken by distributing a questionnaire to a convenience sample of 241 College students of Northern India which includes females affiliated to Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. Data were analyzed using descriptive, factor analysis, reliability, ANOVA and Post Hoc test. The findings confirmed that there is a significant difference in the attitude of consumers on the basis of religion.
... 8, 34.6, and 32.8, respectively. These results align with findings in previous studies on media (Edström, 2018;Ford et al., 1998;Furnham and Paltzer, 2010;Matthes et al., 2016). When combined with results on gender, this suggests that migrants tend to be depicted as men and older than the actual population. ...
... Age. Our results confirm previous studies on the visual portrayal of women in media, indicating that women tend to be depicted as younger than men (Edström, 2018;Ford et al., 1998;Furnham and Paltzer, 2010;Matthes et al., 2016). However, we have examined the data employed to train and evaluate the model to determine possible biases. ...
Article
Full-text available
The visual portrayal of social groups in media reinforces stereotypes and narratives, potentially leading to discriminatory actions and policies. That is particularly true for underrepresented or stigmatized groups such as migrants and is a phenomenon that varies per country. Therefore, studying the representation of migrants requires analyzing considerable amounts of visual data from different locations. This work addresses that challenge with an interdisciplinary approach characterizing the visual portrayal of migrants using Deep Learning techniques and analyzing results through the lenses of migration and gender studies. Images associated with migrants found on the internet through a search engine and from ten countries are processed to quantify and analyze the demographic and emotional information of the people portrayed. An intersectional approach is employed regarding gender, age, physical features, and emotions. The general group “migrants” is compared with the specific groups “refugees” and “expats”. Results suggest that portrayals predominantly focus on asylum seekers and associate them with poverty and risks for host societies. Moreover, the demographics in the portrayals do not match the official statistics. For expats, an over-representation of “white” and an under-representation of “asian” faces were found, while for migrants and refugees, depictions align with the demographics of low-skilled migrants. Furthermore, results evidence the power struggle underlying the “expat vs. migrant” dichotomy and its inherent colonial nature. The emotions displayed are predominantly negative and align with emotional and gender stereotypes literature. Positive emotions are more associated with women than men, and with expats than refugees and migrants. Previous results regarding the under-representation of migrant women in media are confirmed. Also, women are portrayed as younger than men, and expat women are the youngest. Children appear more in pictures associated with refugees and migrants than with expats. Likewise, migrants are often depicted as crowds, but when that is not the case, migrant and refugee women appear in larger groups than men. A higher proportion of images associated with expats do not contain people. All these effects, however, differ per location. Finally, we suggest future directions and analyze possible limitations of automatic visual content analysis using existing Deep Learning models.
... The conception of gender stereotypes in advertising is one of the most frequently researched topics in ad analysis. Consequently, a number of studies have looked at how gender roles are portrayed in advertisements across time and nations (Khairullah, 2009;Das, 2000;Ford et al., 1998;Furnham & Farragher, 2000;Furnham & Voli, 1989;Milner & Collins, 1998;Milner & Higgs, 2004;Zhou & Chen, 1997). Perhaps there is a "cultural gap" between how gender roles are portrayed in advertising in different countries (Khairullah, 2009;Cooper-Chen, 1995;O'Toole, 1982). ...
Article
Full-text available
Collective memory as a process implies that social groups' collective memory in society, changes and develops over time. The paper adopts a phenomenological study using Yadin Dudai’s ‘collective memory as a process’, in the interest of assessing how shifting collective memory (process) of gender roles in society influences the depiction of gender roles in Indian television commercials. Further, it goes on to explain how such advertisements can also impact society's collective memory of gender roles. The study investigates the issue of whether or not there has been a shift in how gender roles are portrayed in commercials in association with the collective memory (process) of society. Studying this change in the portrayal of gender roles in television advertising does indeed have broader implications as to how society perceives gender roles, emphasizing the significance of this study. The research findings show that there has been a noticeable change in how women are portrayed in television commercials as sporting champions, motorists, successful politicians, and business personnel in relation to the changing collective memory of society. The study ultimately determines that the influence of commercials on modifying society's collective memory of gender roles and the influence of collective memory on the evolution of gender role depictions in commercials are reciprocal in nature.
... According to the results of these studies, advertisements have consistently confined women to traditional mother-, home-or beauty/sex-oriented roles that are not representative of women"s diversity. In particular, female role stereotyping in advertising is nearly a universal phenomenon images of women in magazine advertisements remain generally weak, childish, dependent, domestic and subordinate (Ford et al., 1998;Kang, 1997) or sex-object (Sullivan and O'Connor, 1988). Goffman (1987) introduced frame analysis in advertisement to explain how people frame their realities (same as "developing perceptions") based on their experiences with mass media. ...
Article
A stereotype is a generalization that people share over certain objects, and stereotyping is a way for the media to convey images in a certain way. Studies regarding stereotypes or stereotyping have focused on minorities, in the mainstream media. In addition, studies have found the public’s perceptions over certain ethnic groups or people are heavily influenced by media contents. This study also focuses on the stereotypical portrayal, created by the Japanese media over certain ethnic groups, especially, white models, male or female. Keywords: stereotypes, stereotyping, gender role, frame
... Charles R. Taylor villanova university While gender portrayals in advertising have been a common subject of advertising research for many decades (see, e.g., Whipple and Courtney 1985;Ford et al. 1998;and Tuncay Zayer and Coleman 2015), research on gender issues remains a hot topic. Recently, research is looking at gender issues more broadly, including portrayals of women, men, and LGBT consumers. ...
... Thus, the relationship between Aad of women and purchase intention of the products related to women have been emphasized in literature, despite the criticism leveled again the negative reactions of portrayal of women in advertisements (Han, 2003;Harper and Tiggemann, 2008;Kilbourne et al., 1985;Kumari and Shivani, 2015;Lakoff and Scherr, 1984;Thompson et al., 1999). As some researchers pointed out that there is a need to study the women in fashion magazines in different cultures (Ford et al., 1998;Patterson et al., 2008), we undertake the study in Indian context. This research makes five significant contributions to the literature on advertising. ...
Article
Purpose This paper aims to investigate the relationship between general attitude toward advertising and consumers' purchase intention. The relationship between cognitive attitude, intrusiveness attitude, evaluative judgments, affective response and general attitude toward ad was examined. Furthermore, reliability as a moderator in the relationship between cognitive attitude, intrusiveness attitude, evaluative judgments, and affective response and the general attitude toward ad were studied. Design/methodology/approach Data from women consumers who subscribe to fashion magazines in India were collected and analyzed using a structured survey instrument. Women were selected because the products were related to women, including facial and body-care products, women sportswear, shampoos, lipstick, handbags, etc. Unit of analysis in this research is “observations,” and in all, 400 data points were analyzed, and to test hypothesized relationships, hierarchical regression and logistic regression were employed. Findings A conceptual model is developed and tested where (1) cognitive attitude toward ad, intrusiveness, evaluative judgments and affective responses are related to general attitude toward ad, and (2) general attitude toward ad is related to purchase intention. The hierarchical regression results show that (1) reliability moderates the relationship between cognitive attitude, intrusiveness, affective responses and general attitude toward ad. The logistic regression results support the positive relationship between general attitude toward ad and purchase intention. Research limitations/implications Since the present research is based on self-report measures, the limitations of social desirability bias and common method bias are inherent. Second, this research focuses only on women consumers and products purchased by women. The research has implications for literature on advertising, especially women-related products. Practical implications This study contributes to practicing managers who are interested in promoting the women-related products. This study highlights the importance of general attitude toward ad as a precursor for consumers purchase intention. The study provides justification for enormous amounts of money invested in fashion advertising because of their effects on consumer behavior. Originality/value This study provides new insights about the effects reliability on general attitude toward ad and consumers' purchase intention. The conceptual model developed in this study adds novelty by considering reliability as a moderator, in addition to the direct relationships which have been studied by earlier researchers.
... Esta técnica está destinada a "formular, a partir de ciertos datos, inferencias reproducibles y válidas que puedan aplicarse a su contexto" (Kripendorff, 1990, p. 28). Investigaciones previas corroboran su eficacia para analizar la publicidad de acuerdo con la representación de género, etnia o tipo de producto anunciado (Annala & Vinnari, 2019;Nasreddine et al., 2019;Mattasi & Silva, 2016;Ramos & Navas, 2015;Mastro & Stern, 2003;Folta et al., 2006;Ford et al., 1998). ...
Article
Full-text available
Este artículo analiza las estrategias persuasivas empleadas en la publicidad de alimentos en la televisión en España, según su nivel de procesamiento, para conocer las características de los mensajes, los personajes y los recursos audiovisuales. Se analizó el contenido de los anuncios emitidos en las dos cadenas de televisión con más audiencia (Antena3 y Telecinco) durante cuatro días de octubre de 2020. Se analizó un total de 128 horas, de las que se obtuvo un corpus de 111 anuncios. Los resultados arrojan una sobrerrepresentación de anuncios de alimentos ultraprocesados en comparación con los alimentos no procesados. Los primeros emplean más estrategias persuasivas, apelan a la ruta periférica de procesamiento, recurren a más protagonistas de género femenino hipersexualizadas, a personajes famosos y a una mayor cantidad de animaciones, grafismos y efectos de sonido. Se puede afirmar que la promoción de una alimentación saludable presenta debilidades, pues existe una infrarrepresentación de alimentos no procesados en los medios, sumándose al empleo de menos estrategias persuasivas que llamen la atención de la audiencia. Estos resultados permiten recomendar que las autoridades inviertan más esfuerzos en medidas eficientes y contundentes en favor de la alimentación saludable.
... Algunas investigaciones argumentan que la representación de normas de género y de estereotipos en la publicidad ha ido disminuyendo y, en cambio, están surgiendo representaciones más diversas y flexibles (Berkery et al., 2013;Ford et al., 1998;Mager y Helgeson 2011;Wolin, 2003). Por ejemplo, Wolin (2003), después de realizar una síntesis de tres décadas de publicidad relacionada a la representación de género, ha sugerido que el uso de estereotipos de género ha disminuido, dando entrada a representaciones más realistas. ...
Article
Full-text available
Tomando como base el alto grado de influencia que tiene la publicidad en la configuración de las identidades de los hombres contemporáneos, así como en la construcción y reconstrucción del concepto de masculinidad, el presente estudio busca ampliar el debate en torno a la representación de los hombres en la publicidad impresa mediante técnicas de análisis de contenido cuantitativas, aplicadas a 137 anuncios aparecidos en doce ediciones del año 2019 de la revista Gentleman’s Quarterly España. El estudio ha revelado que en la representación de masculinidad ofrecida en la publicidad prima la comunicación de valores del yo – asociados con características narcisistas y egocéntricas – por encima de los valores colectivos y de solidaridad. Domina en el discurso publicitario la figura del metrosexual entendido como aquel que muestra un creciente interés en prácticas de aseo y de mejoramiento del aspecto físico que han estado históricamente ligadas a las mujeres. Por último, se ha encontrado que las revistas se muestran cada vez más propensas a mostrar expresiones diversas del género, aunque en porcentajes mínimos, recurriendo todavía a herramientas de comunicación típicas como el uso de imágenes idealizadas de hombres prototipo, el empleo de colores históricamente asociados a la masculinidad, y la creciente objetivación del cuerpo masculino a través de elementos gráficos como la mirada y el auto-contacto.
... Although gender stereotyping is evident, certain scholars have reported that several traits previously associated with women are associated with men as well. In addition, men are not linked to certain stereotypical male traits [12]. Under the context of general gender expression, the traits of strength, rationality, masculinity, and self-reliance exhibit a greater association with men than women; women manifest a more emotional, feminine, and loving nature [13]. ...
Article
This study explores the differences in visual perception of footwear based on gender by conducting semantic differential evaluations and classification tasks. Cluster and factor analyses were performed to analyze the similarities and factors in footwear styles, respectively. The cluster analysis results indicated that leather shoes and sneakers were the major styles clearly distinguished by the participants. Fancy leather shoes, described as “fancy and exaggerated” by men, and as “elegant and refined” by women, was the consensus style. Women emphasized on fashion and were more likely to perceive footwear integral to their outfit, whereas men valued the functionality of footwear and treated it as a tool. The factor analysis on footwear styles extracted four male factors: evaluation, attention, feature, and protection; and four female factors for: evaluation, charm, volume, and coverage. Women were more sensitive to the volume and weight of footwear, and were also more likely to sense its coverage.
Article
Consistent use of a valid measurement approach is essential for producing replicable research, along with the accumulation and integration of knowledge. Although gender is one of the most studied constructs in marketing, the literature remains muddled regarding a valid measurement of gender. In this work, we review the extant literature to outline the evolution of four main approaches toward conceptualizing and measuring gender. Further, we systematically review the common measures of gender in consumer research and delineate their inherent validity issues and impact on consumer welfare. Finally, we propose solutions for amending common gender measurement practices and directions for future research.
Article
Full-text available
In the last decade, both men and women in the United States, Denmark, Greece and New Zealand have become more critical of sexism in advertising, but less inclined towards product boycotts. Women are more critical than men, and the more critical are more boycott-inclined, but few are motivated to put their money where their mouth is, even after consciousness-raising.
Article
A previous article by the same authors traced the growth in advertising in China since the ending of the Cultural Revolution and reported the results of an analysis of advertising that appeared in Beijing during a selected week in October 1985. That paper did not, however, examine the style of these advertisements. This has now been done, using the categories suggested by Kotler, and the findings have been compared with an analysis of sixty-two campaigns run in Hong Kong. Differences between the approaches used in Hong Kong for international, as opposed to local, brands were analysed, and a comparison with some findings on US and Japanese appeals made.
Article
Does role portrayal affect how men and women perceive the companies' views toward discrimination-and is there any carry-over to products?
Article
The advertising industry in Canada began self-regulation of sex role stereotyping in 1981. This action was undertaken in response to public pressure and the threat of government regulation. The experiment has been a qualified success. The current self-regulatory system needs to be well advertised and equipped with a compulsion mechanism to be fully responsive to the public's concern about sex role portrayal.
Article
The content of Japanese versus U.S. magazine advertisements is assessed to determine relative levels of information content based on the type of magazine, the kind of information, the product represented in the advertisement and the size of the advertisement. It was found that Japanese magazine advertisements were generally more informative than U.S. ads, although the emphasis on specific content varies cross-culturally.
Article
The stated advertising policy of Ms. magazine precludes the acceptance of advertisements for products that are “harmful” or advertisements that are insulting to women. This study employs manifest and latent content analysis to assess the extent to which Ms. advertising, over the first 15 full years of its publication has carried out this policy. The findings suggest that a substantial proportion of Ms. advertising promotes products generally considered “harmful.” Also, while the portrayal of women as subordinate to men or as merely decorative has decreased over time, Ms. advertising has increasingly portrayed women as alluring sex objects. Possible reasons for the trends revealed here are discussed.