How is Gender Depicted In Magazine Ads?

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Recommended: Essays on gender portrayal in advertising

For my research project, I decided to examine gender in magazines, which led me to question, “How gender is depicted in magazine ads?” I feel that this topic is important as it gives us an insight into how advertisers use factors like gender and sexuality in order to target a certain audience. This is sociologically important as the ads could reveal more information about gender roles and the way in which the audience of the ads perceive gender.
Literature Review
In order to help substantiate my research, I turned to various academic sources by researching online databases. Liezille Jacobs and Tia Tyree (2013) researched alcohol advertisements and reviewed the ways in which they constructed sex, gender, and race (Jacobs and Tyree 2013, p.5793). They found that alcohol related content was far more prevalent in the South African magazines, with Cosmopolitan (SA) containing 139 alcohol advertisements and 66 editorials related to alcohol competitions or promotions, True Love had 83 alcohol advertisements and 45 editorials related to alcohol competitions or promotions (2013:5795). Comparatively, there were 56 editorials on alcohol in the U.S. version of Cosmopolitan (2013:5795). In addition, Jacobs and Tyree found that Essence magazine depicted Black men and Black women who were of the sporty and causal type while both versions of Cosmopolitan and True Love depicted White men and White women in a more sexual manner (2013:5796). Plus, they found that women more often than not had the role of a passive sex symbol in sexual advertisements (Jacobs and Tyree 2013, p. 5800). Jang-Sun Hwang, Juran Kim, Guihok Lee, Carolyn McMahan, and Roxanne Hovland used a similar approach to Jacobs and Tyree and found that U.S. advertisements were more lik...

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...In American and Korean Advertisements.” Sex Roles 53 (11/12): 887-899
Jacobs, Liezille and Tia Tyree. .“The Construction of Femininity Race, and Sexuality in Alcohol Advertisements in South African and American Women’s Magazines.” Gender & Behavior 11.2: 5788-5803.
Ki-Young, Lee and Sung-Hee Joo. “The Portrayal of Asian Americans In Magazine Ads: An Update.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 82 (3): 654-671
O’Connor, P.J. and Gary Sullivan. “Women’s Role Portrayals in Magazine Advertising: 1958-1963.” Sex Roles 18 (3/4): 181-188
Shaw, Ping and Yue Tan. “Race and Masculinity: A Comparison of Asian and Western Models in Men's Lifestyle Magazine Advertisements.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 91 (1): 118-138
Teftt, Bruce, Chris Tysiaczny, and Megan Vokey. “An Analysis of Hyper-Masculinity in Magazine Advertisements.” Sex Roles 68 (9/10): 562-576

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