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Fifty Years of Advertising Images: Some Changing Perspectives on Role Portrayals Along with Enduring Consistencies

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Abstract

Content analysis is used to evaluate portrayals of women and men in United States magazine advertisements over a 50-year period, 1950 through 2000. We examine 7,912 portrayals of people in 3,212 advertisements from the time period and analyze changes in those advertisements relative to transitions in feminism and cultural trends. Magazines from representative categories provided the sample data. Over the period studied, magazine advertising showed a trend toward objective role portrayals of women fairly equal to men. This trend perhaps resulted from feminist’s positioning women in the public as well as the private sphere. Women were still subordinated to men in more subtle aspects of advertisements, measured by Goffman’s (1979) cultural positioning framework. Sexual exploitation of both sexes was noticed.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the valuable assistance of Linda Summers-Hoskins during the early stages of this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Management Department, College of Business and Public Administration, Eastern Washington University, 316 Kingston Hall, Cheney, WA, 99004, USA

    John Mager

  2. School of Business Administration, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA, 99258, USA

    James G. Helgeson

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  1. John Mager
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Correspondence to James G. Helgeson.

Appendix

Appendix

Summary of Code Scheme Used in Study

Throughout the code scheme, females and males were coded separately.

  1. I.

    General Counting Categories:

The specific variables were the number of (1) people, (2) children, (3) elderly, (4) suggestive poses, (5) people represented by only body parts, and (6) perpetrators and victims of physical or sexual violence (multiple variables here).

  1. II.

    Goffman’s Categories:

For each of the Goffman categories, the first decision was a yes/no decision as to whether the variable was present or not.

  1. A.

    Ritualistic vs. Utilitarian Touch. Ritualistic touching shows fingers and hands tracing outlines of objects, cradling or caressing things, or “just barely touching.” The face is sometimes used instead of the hands. Includes self touching, as if body is delicate and precious. Also shows hands resting in a delicate, graceful manner. Utilitarian touching shows grasping, holding or manipulating something, using the hands in a functional way.

The specific variables were the number of people using (1) ritualistic and (2) utilitarian touching.

  1. B.

    Function Ranking. These ads show a male and female in collaboration. A hierarchy of functions can be shown within an occupational frame or in any activity. Someone performs the “executive role” providing guidance, instruction, or even feeding another. Some people are pictured outside the domain of the traditional authority and competence for their gender so are pictured as ludicrous, childlike, or unserious.

The specific variables were the number of people (1) performing the “executive” role or instructing, (2) receiving instruction and help, and (3) pictured in a traditional female or male domain and looking either competent or ludicrous/unrealistic (multiple variables here).

  1. C.

    Ritualization of Subordination. Lowering oneself physically suggests deference. Holding the body erect and the head high suggests unashamedness, superiority, and disdain. Elevation, or high physical place, may symbolize high social place. Recumbent positions on beds and floors signal subordination (and sometimes sexual availability). Poses such as “obvious knee bends” show an unreadiness to respond. Head and body cants can be read as an acceptance of subordination, submissiveness, or appeasement. Body clowning presents the person as unserious and childlike.

The specific variables were the number of people shown (1) in images of deference, (2) with throat exposed, (3) in images of superiority, (4) in physically low places, (5) with “obvious knee bend,” (6) in canting postures, (7) in body clowning or “puckish” style, and (8a.) providing support and guidance or (8b.) receiving support and guidance.

  1. D.

    Licensed Withdrawal. Persons pictured engaged in actions that remove them psychologically from situation at large, leaving them unoriented in and to it, dependent on the protectiveness and goodwill of others around. Persons might be pictured looking in on a social situation from a distance or from behind a one-way panel (a “participation shield”) and be little seen or not addressed.

The specific variables were the number of people shown (1) “flooding out” or “losing control,” (2) with fingers to mouth, (3) anxiously biting or sucking finger or lips, (4) in finger-to-finger position, (5) mentally drifting, looking into space, ‘dreamy’, luxuriating, (6) looking at a situation from behind something (object, hair etc.), and (7) snuggling up.

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Mager, J., Helgeson, J.G. Fifty Years of Advertising Images: Some Changing Perspectives on Role Portrayals Along with Enduring Consistencies. Sex Roles 64, 238–252 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9782-6

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