Context/background
Advertising invades the consciousness of almost everyone, sponsors pay to place adverts in certain locations
Childrens' viewing of adverts prepares them for their roles as capitalist consumers
Conventional sex roles underlie many many adverts, Welch found that girls talk more in adverts if the advert is mainly targeted at girls
Aim
To determine whether advertisers scripted tv adverts differently for females and males in school, linking toys to gender stereotypical roles
Method
sample
Samples of kids' tv shows were recorded, the same was repeated again 2 years later, 15 half an hour long programmes in first sample, 24 half an hour long programmes in the second sample, the total number of adverts was 478
Range of ads per programmed = 8.2-8.9
Advert categories
Food and drink 216
Toys 188
Educational 21
Recreation 19
Film promotion 20
Other 14
478
Procedure
Content analysis = examines content and creates categories, suitable for their aim, and then counts an example from categories every time it happens, giving quant. data
Discourse analysis = critically analyses vocabulary, tone and other speech features to interpret meaning
Large % of adverts were for toys, so the toy category was deeper analysed and categorised into 3 groups-
1. ads for boys with boys in them
2. ads for girls with girls in them
3. ads for both with either both or no gender in them
Identified gender in voice-overs and gender exaggeration
Analysed speaking roles of M&F, and "power" in male ads, how many times it was said
Verb element categories=
1- action verbs
2- competition/destruction verbs
3- power/control verbs
4- limited activity verbs
5- feeding/nurturing verbs
Results
188 toy ads, more boy orientated, few gender neutral adverts
1996 1997 1999 total
boy 30 24 48 102
girl 19 28 16 63
both 14 5 4 23
63 57 68 188
Naming of toys = reinforced gender stereotypes
Boy ads were determined by action figures/computer games
Girl ads = dolls and animals
Adults = majority of ads were male voice in male and mixed, but female in girl adverts
Gender exaggeration = 80% of adverts, except in mixed
No feeding verbs absent from boy ads but present in 66 female ads, competition verbs = 12x more in boy adverts,
limited activity = more in girl ads
little variation in action verbs
boys had more power than girls in adverts
"power" was used in 1/5 of boy adverts and only once in a girls ad
Conclusion
Gender stereotypes underlie adverts
Reasons for this may be a reliance on historically successful marketing strategies/profitability in gender-specific consumer behaviour
Evaluation
Hard to approach the area with no preconceived ideas, also gender exaggeration is very subjective to judge, minimal ethical issues because there was no human p's
Strategies to reduce impact of adverts aimed at children
Fsa (food standards agency) = promotion of food to kids dominated by pre-sugared cereals, soft drinks, snacks and fast food
Media literacy
Young kids perceive tv adverts differently from older children and adults, Pine and Nash found that many kids below 7 lack understanding of persuasive intent, so they do not know when they are being manipulated or lied to by adults
This skill doesn't develop until about 12-13, Linn found
media literacy - critical awareness of mass media and adverts, including ability to analyse and evaluate different media sources
Media Smart and Be Adwise
Media smart = a non-profit programme for 6-11 year olds, to improve media literacy
Be Adwise = resources produced by media smart to teach young people to think critically about adverts in real life