The multiplicity of women's role portrayals in magazine advertisements

Abstract

<p>The purpose of this study is to advance the understanding of how women are portrayed in magazine advertisements by employing interval measurements to the standard content analysis techniques and providing a comparison between the advertisements and actual trends of the female population in the United States. Although this study is a content analysis, the different constructs measured by unipolar, seven-point scales provided a more detailed account of the depiction of women in advertising. The account of the depiction was more detailed because stereotypes are often used as a basis for classification, yet stereotypes fail to measure less dominant features of character portrayal. Significant findings reveal a change in the direction advertising has been moving. Other role portrayal studies have used content analysis as a method for examining the depiction of women in advertising, but these studies failed to create a method for measuring several aspects within an advertisement. This study not only analyzed the most dominant characteristic of the portrayals of women in each advertisement; several characteristics of the advertisement were measured in an attempt to reflect more accurate stereotypes.</p>