Abstract
Critics worldwide denounce objectification in advertising and blame media imperialism for disseminating overt, Westernized sexuality. Yet, advertising practitioners believe that sex sells and images can overcome cultural barriers. Few researchers have explored sexuality in advertising across multiple countries or the factors that may contribute to content. We examined the degrees of sexuality in advertising within Cosmopolitan magazine across seven countries (Brazil, China, France, India, South Korea, Thailand, the United States). Even within a transnational Western magazine, degrees of sexuality differ. Presence of Western models, sexual freedom values, and a less authoritarian political culture contribute to greater sexuality in magazine advertising. By considering multiple factors in advertisements within a global magazine, we go beyond description to illuminate differences in the portrayal of women and sexuality cross-culturally.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arima, A. N. (2003). Gender stereotypes in Japanese television advertisements. Sex Roles, 49, 81–90.
Biswas, A., Olson, J. E., & Carlet, V. (1992). A comparison of print advertisements from the United States and France. Journal of Advertising, 21(4), 73–82.
Boddewyn, J. J. (1989). Sexism and decency in advertising: Government regulation and industry self-regulation in 47 Countries. New York: International Advertising Association.
Boddewyn, J. J. (1991). Controlling sex and decency in advertising around the world. Journal of Advertising, 20(4), 25–35.
Boddewyn, J. J., & Kunz, H. (1991). Sex and decency issues in advertising: Generational and international dimensions. Business Horizons, 34(5), 13–20.
Bounds, W. (1998, November 18). Cosmopolitan is to get even sexier image. Wall Street Journal, p. B16.
Bovee, C., & Arens, W. (1997). Contemporary advertising (6th ed.). Chicago: Irwin.
Buttle, F. (1989). Sex-role stereotyping in advertising: Social and public policy issues. Quarterly Review of Marketing, 14(4), 9–14.
Carr, D. (2002, May 26). Romance, in Cosmo's world, is translated in many ways. New York Times, p. 1.
Cheng, H. (1997). Holding up half of the sky? A socio-cultural comparison of gender-role portrayals in Chinese and U.S. advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 16, 259–319.
Courtney, A., & Whipple, T. (1983). Sex stereotyping in advertising. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Davis, S. (1999). Representation of Caucasians in Korean print advertisements. Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.
de Mooij, M. (1998). Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Douglas, S. (1994). Where the girls are. New York: Times Books.
Ehrenreich, B., Hess, E., & Jacobs, G. (1986). Re-making love: The feminization of sex. New York: Doubleday.
Featherstone, M., Lash, S., & Robertson, R. (Eds.). (1995). Global modernities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fetto, J. (2001). Where's the lovin'? American Demographics, 23(2), 10–11.
Ford, J. B., LaTour, M. S., Honeycutt, E. D. Jr., & Joseph, M. (1994). Female role portrayals in international advertising: Should advertisers standardize in the Pacific Rim? American Business Review, 12(2), 1–10.
Frith, K. T., Cheng, H., & Shaw, P. (2004). Race and beauty: A comparison of Asian and Western models in women's magazine advertisements. Sex Roles, 50, 53–61.
Frith, K. T., Cheng, H., & Shaw, P. (2005). The construction of beauty: A cross-cultural analysis of women's magazine advertising. Journal of Communication, 55, 56–70.
Frith, K. T., & Mueller, B. (2003). Advertising and societies. New York: Peter Lang.
Galloni, A. (2001, October 25). Clampdown on “porno-chic” ads is pushed by French authorities. Wall Street Journal, p. B4.
Ganahl, D. J., Prinsen, T. J., & Netzley, S. B. (2003). A content analysis of prime time commercials: A contextual framework of gender representation. Sex Roles, 49, 545–551.
Gilly, M. C. (1988). Sex roles in advertising: A comparison of television advertisements in Australia, Mexico and the United States. Journal of Marketing, 52, 75–85.
Goffman, E. (1979). Gender advertisements. New York: Harper and Row.
Gould, S. (2003). Toward a theory of advertising lovemaps in marketing communications: Overdetermination, postmodern thought and the advertising hermeneutic circle. In T. Reichert & J. Lambiase (Eds.), Sex in Advertising: Perspectives on the erotic appeal (pp. 151–172). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hofstede, G. (1998). Masculinity and femininity: The taboo dimension of national cultures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Maculinity/femininity. In G. Hofstede (Ed.), Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed., pp. 279–350). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Inglehart, R., Basanez, M., & Moreno, A. (1998). Human values and beliefs a cross-cultural sourcebook. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
International Chamber of Commerce. (1997). ICC International code of advertising practice. Retrieved March 7, 2005, from http://www.iccwbo.org/home/statements_rules/rules/1997/advercod.asp.
Kahan, R. (1992). America in a visual century. Journalism Quarterly, 69, 262–265.
Kang, M. E. (1997). The portrayal of women's images in magazine advertisements: Goffman's gender analysis revisited. Sex Roles, 37, 979–996.
Karan, K. (2003, May). Advertising and the visual portrayal of the modern Indian “stereotypes.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, San Diego, CA.
Kilbourne, J. (2003). Advertising and disconnection. In T. Reichert & J. Lambiase (Eds.), Sex in advertising: Perspectives on the erotic appeal (pp. 173–180). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kirsch, A. T. (1985). Buddhist sex roles/culture of gender revisited. American Ethnologist, 12, 302–320.
Krippendorff, K. (2004). Reliability in content analysis: Some common misconceptions and recommendations. Human Communication Research, 30, 411–433.
LaTour, M. S. (1990). Female nudity in print advertising: An analysis of gender differences in arousal and ad response. Psychology and Marketing, 7(1), 65–81.
LaTour, M. S., & Henthorne, T. L. (1993). Ethical judgements of sexual appeals in print advertising. Journal of Advertising, 23(3), 81–90.
Lin, C. A. (1998). Uses of sex appeals in prime-time television commercials. Sex Roles, 38, 461–475.
Lombard, M., Snyder-Duch, J., & Bracken, C. C. (2002). Content analysis in mass communication research: An assessment and reporting of intercoder reliability. Human Communication Research, 28, 587–604.
McCracken, E. M. (1993). Decoding women's magazines. New York: St. Martins.
Mueller, B. (2004). Dynamics of international advertising: Theoretical and practical perspectives. New York: Peter Lang.
Nelson, M. R., & Paek, H.-J. (2003, July). Exporting the “fun, fearless female”: Cosmopolitan magazine as a case study of a global media brand. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Kansas City, MO.
Ouellette, L. (1999). Inventing the Cosmo girl: Class identity and girl-style American dreams. Media, Culture and Society, 21, 359–383.
Paek, H.-J., & Pan, Z. (2004). Spreading the global consumerism? Mass media and consumerist values in China. Mass Communication and Society, 7, 491–515.
Perreault, W. D., & Leigh, L. E. (1989). Reliability of nominal data based on qualitative judgments. Journal of Marketing Research, 26, 135–148.
Peterson, R. A., & Kerin, R. A. (1977). The female role in advertisements: Some experimental evidence. Journal of Marketing, 41, 59–63.
Piron, F., & Young, M. (1996). Consumer advertising in Germany and the United States: A study of sexual explicitness and cross-gender contact. In L. A. Manrai & A. K. Manrai (Eds.), Global perspectives in cross-cultural and cross-national consumer research (pp. 9–22). New York: International Business.
Pollay, R. W. (1986). The distorted mirror: Reflections on the unintended consequences of advertising. Journal of Marketing, 50(2), 18–36.
Prendergast, G., & Huang, H. (2003). An Asian perspective of offensive advertising on the Web. International Journal of Advertising, 22(2), 12–23.
Reichert, T. (2003). What is sex in advertising? Perspectives from consumer behavior and social science research. In T. Reichert & J. Lambiase (Eds.), Sex in advertising: Perspectives on the erotic appeal (pp. 11–38). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reichert, T., & Carpenter, C. (2004). An update on sex in magazine advertising: 1983–2003. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(4), 823–837.
Reichert, T., & Lambiase, J. (2003). One phenomenon, multiple lenses: Bridging perspectives to examine sex in advertising. In T. Reichert & J. Lambiase (Eds.), Sex in advertising: Perspectives on the erotic appeal (pp. 1–8). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reichert, T., Lambiase, J., Morgan, S., Carstarphen, M., & Zavoina, S. (1999). Cheesecake and beefcake: No matter how you slice it, sexual explicitness in advertising continues to increase. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 76, 7–20.
Reichert, T., & Ramirez, A. (2000). Defining sexually oriented appeals in advertising: A grounded theory investigation. Advances in Consumer Research, 27, 267–273.
Reid, L. N., Salmon, C., & Soley, L. (1984). The nature of sexual content in television. In R. W. Belk, R. Peterson, G. S. Albaum, M. B. Holbrook, R. A. Kerin, N. F. Malhotra, & P. Wright (Eds.), Proceedings of the American Marketing Association (pp. 214–216), Lexington, KY.
Reilly, P. M. (1998, April 3). Cosmo to tone down language for version planned for China. Wall Street Journal, p. B7.
Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture. London: Sage.
Rust, R. T., & Cooil, B. (1994). Reliability measures for qualitative data: Theory and implications. Journal of Marketing Research, 31, 1–14.
Samli, C. A. (1995). International consumer behavior. Westport, CN: Quorum Books.
Scott, L. M. (1994). Images in advertising: The need for a theory of visual rhetoric. Journal of Consumer Research, 21, 252–273.
Sirakaya, E., & Sonmez, S. (2000). Gender images in state tourism brochures: An overlooked area in socially responsible tourism marketing. Journal of Travel Research, 38, 353–362.
Soley, L. C., & Kurzbard, G. (1986). Sex in advertising: A comparison of 1964 and 1984 magazine advertisements. Journal of Advertising, 15, 46–5.4
Soley, L. C., & Reid, L. N. (1988). Taking it off: Are models in magazine ads wearing less? Journalism Quarterly, 65, 960–966.
Steeves, L. H. (1993). Gender and mass communication in a global context. In P. J. Creedon (Ed.), Women in mass communication (pp. 32–60). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Tissier-Desbordes, E., & Manceau, D. (2002). Female nudity in advertising: What do French women think. In P. Maclaren & E. Tissier-Desbordes (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Gender, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour (pp. 85–104). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Tuncay, L., Nelson, M. R., & Kacen, J. J. (2004, June). What do we really know about sexism in advertising? Shedding new light on consumers' construal of sexism in advertising. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Consumer Research on Gender, Marketing, and Consumer Behavior, Madison, WI.
Warlaumont, H. G. (1993). Visual grammars of gender: The gaze and psychoanalytic theory in advertisements. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 77(1), 25–40.
Wimmer, R. D., & Dominick, J. R. (1994). Mass media research: An introduction (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Both authors contributed equally to the paper.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nelson, M.R., Paek, HJ. Cross-Cultural Differences in Sexual Advertising Content in a Transnational Women's Magazine. Sex Roles 53, 371–383 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-6760-5
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-6760-5