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Research paper on gender in the media

Research paper on gender in the media

Introduction

Media is an important part of the society in present culture and globalized economy. It provides the population with the information about the society, political roles and economic behavior of the globalized world. As per popular researchers, it helps to portray the images that are shaped to describe the views of the deepest values of the world. It mainly argues about the views to provide ideas about positive and negative aspects of the society to understand what is good or what is bad for the society. Another major positive aspect of media is that it educates the population and provides them with the knowledge base about the happenings all across the globe. It helps common people to get educated about how to behave and what to think and feel about the situations occurring around the globe. It acknowledges mass about the responsibilities and civic rights of common people. Whereas from earlier studies it is known that gender concept was strongly developed during the western feminism period that differentiated two genders by biological appearance and behavioral characteristics. The paper focuses on images of sexual portrayal in media advertising. This is a research paper on understanding the relationship between gender and media and to known the impact of sexual portrayal of women on media advertisement and communication through advertisement. It has been seen through research that the image of media advertising has changed since 1980s. Advertisers have started using female portrayals in the advertising to attract more viewers and make the advertisement communication more effective (Ross and Lester). It has been seen that the main attraction of the advertisement are the human bodies that were used to attract more viewers. It is important to study and understand why these types of strategies were used in the media advertisement to make the communication more effective. The ethical issues and responsibilities of the companies were also discussed in this research to analyze the supporting element of this type of activities.

The aim of the research is to understand the relationship of gender in the media. To fulfill the main objective of the research study has been made on the theories that support feminist activities in media advertisement and analysis of the theories have been made to know the impact of application of this type of activities in media communication. In an elaborate way it can be said that the main objective of this research is to study the advertisement features that uses women portrayed in attractive costumes in shows and advertisement in televisions, advertisement printed in newspaper and fashion magazines or in internet ads to attract more customers and increase the sales of the products and services. To understand the theories of use of gender in media, analysis of the theories has been made and impacts of the sexual portrayal on the society have been discussed in this research paper.

Research questions

Every research study revolves around some questions that must be answered to provide the outcomes and findings of the research. The questions that are discussed in this research study are as follows:

What is the relationship between sexuality, women and media advertisement?

What are the different approaches of media advertisement?
How is media advertisement effected by sexual portrayal of women?
How advertisement communication effect young and adult females?
What are the ethical considerations of sexual advertisement?
What does the educated consumer society thinks about this type of activities in media advertisement?
Relationship between Sexuality, Women and Media Advertisement
Difference between modern and traditional approach of media advertisement
Marcom or more commonly spelled Marcomm is an idea of marketing communication. It is a process of interacting with the customers by using different media for communication like, TV ads, newspapers, radios, magazines, telemarketing, internet marketing and other sources that helps to attract more customers for the company in ways of attracting more audience for the promotional activities. Marcoms involves certain practices that help in marketing communication for the products. Some of these practices are advertising, branding, graphic designing, direct marketing, packaging, promotion, sponsorship, publicity of the products, online marketing and sales activities. Now to understand the differences between the modern and traditional approaches of media advertising it is important to study both the aspects. The use of women in the modern approach of marketing is the most important difference that can be seen between these two approaches. In other words it can be said that in traditional method the importance was given on the products and some innovative ideas were used to make the communication more attractive. But in modern approach we can basically see that the uses of the feminist models are more seen to make the communication effective. It can be seen that the thoughts of the ads agencies has shifted from products to the use of women in the media advertisement. Media advertisements now a day mainly emphasizes on caressing of women body and women beauty that leads to change in the psychological behavior of the viewers.

Media advertisement effected by sexual portrayal of women

It can be seen that the advertisement market is highly affected by the portrayal of sexuality of women in the ads. Now a day marketing agencies mainly emphasizes on using feminist models in the ads to attract the viewers because of the properties to change the psychology of the viewers (Sakr). All modern ads are influenced by a common idea of using women as sex symbols for making the communication more attractive and gaining the attention of more viewers. In present days it is seen that scantily clad feminist models are used in advertisement that are shown in order to increase the sale of different types of products in all media sources. To attract male viewers, is the main motive of this type of ads. It also attracts the attention of female audiences by showing attractive dresses and jewelleries in the ads. This is done to experience sexual arouses in advertisement media. Through research it has been found that male audiences are attracted to the partially dressed models that increase the sales of the products. But this type of ideas also has some negative impact on the society. Though it shows the versatility of thinking of modern generation, but there are some serious impacts that are negatively affecting the society. It has been found that many young female audiences are taking interest in showing their beauty by revealing their body as a medium for getting progress in the fashion industry (Hjorth). This is adversely affecting the culture and ethical believes of the society. This type of famine presentation in media advertisement has captured the attention of huge number of people and has a long term impact on the audiences. Therefore it can be said that the use of women as sex symbols in advertisement media has become a common feature for advertisement communication in the market.

Critical review of the idea

Through this research it has been seen that the use of sexual portrayal of women in media advertisement is one of the best idea to get success in the advertisement market. But along with the positive impacts it also leaves some negative impact on the society and on the culture of the community. There have been several critics made on the issue that are discussed in the points below:
Advertisement effects on Young and Adult Females: It has been found that the young females are influenced by these ideas and they are attracted towards the idea of showing their body in media to gain fame and name in the fashion industry. This is one of the major negative impacts of the idea. The portrayal of the good looking models in the advertisement also creates high body dissatisfaction among the female audiences after seeing all young and skinny female models in the advertisements. The involvement of beautiful women in the advertisement not only attracts male audiences but it also has certain impact on the female audiences. It creates a strong psychological lust and desire among the viewers that is exploited by this kind of advertisement. Hence it is required some changes in the ideas and ads that are sexually exploited must be banned to being telecast. These are not appropriate for the young girls or boys because it has a negative impact on the sexual desire of the young generations.
Ethical consideration of sexual advertisement: The industry of advertising and media must make sure that it considers all the ethical issues that are uses females a just an sex object for attracting more customers to but the services and products that are offered by the company. The above method also helps in maintaining the dignity of human morality that should be respected by the advertisement firm and must show all the feminine side that are often quite offensive in respect to the ethical moral considerations. Although nowadays most of the human being has adapted a broader mindset among themselves in respect to their traditional time, the morality must be within them intact. In today’s modern era an educated women can easily understand the advertisement prospect that involves several female models do not highlight the inner reality and at the same time cannot be antagonized by the real world. The above mentioned group of women is the representative of the high profiled customers as they can easily catch all the tricks and can understand each and every aspect of marketing that is used in form of creative art to sell the services and products of the company and are not an illustration of the original life.
View of educated consumers towards use of women in advertisement: For discussing the educated and young consumers in using females as an object in advertisement, it is very important to understand the cultural society for evolving in advertising and at the same time would not be of such a problem to portray women as an object of sex (Sakr). At thus present time the young college girls have evolved hugely in respect to the community as it is growing in this highly sexualized modern world. There are several young females that are sexually much proactive and stress on sex as the most important factor in commercial, recreational and exploitation areas.

Conclusion

After reviewing the idea of sexual portrayal of women in the advertisement media to attract more viewers and to make the communication procedure more effective, it can be seen that the use of this idea is justified to fulfill the requirement of the advertisement agencies. Though this idea is helpful to increase the number of audiences, but has certain impact on the culture and ethical beliefs of the community. It has been found through this research that critics have always disapproved the use of sexual ideas in the advertisement media. But to increase the demand of the ads and further increase the demand of the products, these ideas are highly appreciated by advertisement agencies to grow their business and earn more revenue. To provide examples of brands that use this idea to build a separate identity in the market some profitable brands can be named like Calvin Klein, Gucci and Victoria’s Secret that uses images of feminist models to increase the sale of their products. To be the top leading brand in the globalized market, it must be seen that the promotion of the brand must return maximum benefit to the company. Therefore the use of these ideas is justified to develop the communication and marketing strategy for the company to survive in the competitive market.

Works cited

Hjorth, Larissa. Mobile Media In The Asia Pacific. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Ross, Susan Dente, and Paul Martin Lester. Images That Injure. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, 2011. Print.
Sakr, Naomi. Women And Media In The Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004. Print.