Advertising and Sexual Content free essay sample

Sexual Content in Advertisements in Women’s and Adolescent Girls’ Magazines 3/2230 California State University San Marcos Abstract A content analysis was conducted to examine sexual content in women’s and adolescent girls’ magazines. Sexuality was classified under three dimensions: facial expression, body language, and revealing clothing. Four popular female fashion magazines that publish adult and adolescent counterparts were selected. Coders analyzed 40 full paged advertisements for sexually explicit material and recorded ads as either â€Å"yes† or â€Å"no† as sexual. It was hypothesized that there would be more ads with sexual content in women’s magazines than in adolescent girls’ magazines. A Chi-Square test of independence yielded that there was not a significant difference between the two. The implications of these findings are discussed. Sexual Content in Advertisements in Women’s and Adolescent Girls’ Magazines Advertising is not only the bearer of messages, it is the message. Many present day advertisements allure to the philosophy that an ideal woman is submissive, extremely beautiful, and subsists to fulfill men’s sexual desires (Baker, 2005). Studies have revealed that across a variety of magazines, advertisements use many stereotypes to portray women in an assortment of roles such as housewives, sex objects, and even as decorative elements (Baker, 2005; Stankiewicz amp; Rosselli, 2008; Zimmerman amp; Dahlberg, 2008). Sexual content in advertising has become more evident. Between 1964 and 1984 alone, the amount of ads sexual in nature tripled (Soley, 1986). At present, this trend continues to increase and intensify (e. g. , Archer, Iritani, Kimes, amp; Barrios, 1983; Courtney amp; Whipple, 1983; Goffman, 1979, as cited in Baker, 2005). The fact that advertising has become so pervasive and ubiquitous suggests it has a substantial and objectionable impact on society. The enormity of the impact of sexually explicit ads has remained indistinct. However, it has been strongly suggested that observation leads to modeling. Albert Bandura (1977, as cited in â€Å"Social Learning,† n. d. ) stated that â€Å"from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors [italics added] are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action (p22). On that account, it is not surprising that recent evidence shows young women to be increasingly less offended by the portrayal of women as sex objects (Zimmerman amp; Dahlberg, 2008) or that adult and adolescent women appear to be becoming more and more representative of the images portrayed in today’s media (Baker, 2005). The themes of sexually explicit ads, and the models depicted within them, set an example for women to emulate. Bandura’s research demonstrates that individuals are more likely to imitate or model after people who are in a position of authority, who are well liked, or of a higher status (Bandura, 1977, as cited in â€Å"Social Learning,† n. d. ). Of equal importance, according to Bandura’s theory, individuals are likely to model after behaviors that result in outcomes they personally value (â€Å"Social Learning,† n. d. ). These principles are important to note and directly relate to what is seen in the magazine advertisements of today, specifically those targeted toward women. It is estimated that the average American views approximately 37,000 advertisements from television alone, per year (Bretl amp; Cantor, 1988, as cited in Stankiewicz amp; Rosselli, 2008). Just as surely, people are exposed to a great number of advertisements every time they open a magazine. The women depicted there are examples of â€Å"ideal† women in â€Å"ideal† situations—a very powerful and highly observable influence indeed. Women and teen magazines are rife with sexual content. Numerous studies have recorded high amounts of sexualization across an assortment of magazine categories (e. g. , Baker, 2005; Stankiewicz amp; Rosselli, 2008; Zimmerman amp; Dahlberg, 2008). One study reports that on average 51. 8% of magazine ads feature women and portray them as sex objects (Stankiewicz amp; Rosselli, 2008). This is a sizeable increase from the numbers reported in a 1984 study that found 22. 8% of ads portrayed women as sex objects (Soley, 1984). Stankiewicz and Rosselli (2008) also reports that 63. % of advertisements in the women’s fashion category portrayed women as such. This was higher than the overall average of all magazine categories. Therefore, we hypothesized there would be more ads with sexual content in women’s magazines than in the adolescent girls’ magazines. To study this hypothesis, we identified and selected magazine brands that publish both adult and adolescent versions. The sample was narrowed to two major brands: Cosmopolitan and Vogue; and were chosen because they are widely circulated and the most popular among the fashion category. Advertisements that were of at least one full page in length and contained any part of female were numbered and marked for possible examination. Sexuality was operationally defined through three dimensions: facial expression, body language and revealing clothing. The numbered ads were then randomly assigned and distributed amongst coders. By aid of a coding sheet and directions operationalizing the variables (e. g. body language), coders recorded each advertisement as either sexual or non-sexual. The aim of the procedure was to objectively examine sexual content within the widely popular and therefore influential magazines selected for our study. Advertising is a highly visible and therefore observable entity. Again, advertising is the message. In truth, Bandura’s Social Learning Theory would suggest that whatever messages put across by highly visible advertisements are likely to be received and imitated by their viewers. Women and especially teens are regularly subjected to unfavorable influences and heavy pressures to conform to images depicted by the â€Å"ideal† women portrayed in today’s magazines. Accordingly, it has become important to measure and compare sexual content in ads out in the open to the public. Similar research has illustrated that content (sexual) traditionally reserved for adult audiences continues to grow more rapidly within adult (women’s) categories, and that adolescent magazines do not experience the same growth of this type of content, despite an increase in their category as well (Stankiewicz amp; Rosselli, 2008). The purpose of this study was to explore the sexually explicit material that women of modern society observe day to day. Such a central source of persuasion has not been adequately scrutinized. Method Sample The content analysis sample consisted of 40 advertisements purposively selected from four popular women’s fashion magazines issued during October, 2008: Cosmopolitan, Cosmo Girl, Vogue, and Teen Vogue. Magazines were selected only if they had both an adult and adolescent counterpart. Advertisements were randomly selected from all full-page advertisements containing any part of a female’s body. Ten advertisements were collected from each magazine, 20 from the women’s magazines and 20 from the adolescent magazines. Measures and Procedure In this content analysis, each advertisement was coded for sexual content. The nominal data was coded as either yes (1) or no (2); similarly, magazines were coded by target audience as either women’s (1) or adolescents’ (2) magazines. Three sub-groups were created to evaluate the content of each advertisement (for coding directions see Appendix A): facial expression, body language, and revealing clothing. Facial expression was described as sexually suggestive looks and/or expressing sexual desire. Body language was described by posture (spread legs, leaning or bending over in a sexual manner), camera angle (focus on an intimate area, emphasis on breasts, buttocks, thighs, and hips), and sexual activity (hugging, kissing, in bed, sexual acts). Revealing clothing was defined as the model wearing short skirts/shorts (above mid thigh) and showing of the midriff, cleavage, and/or shoulders. If any of the above criteria were met, the advertisement was coded as sexual. Cohen’s kappa was used to measure inter-rater reliability among the three coders. Scores ranged from . 75 to 1. 00 (M = . 83, SD = . 14). Each coder analyzed approximately 13 advertisements for a total of 40. The coding sheet in its entirety is located in Appendix B. Results The study was designed to determine if advertisements with sexual content were more frequent in magazines targeted towards adult women rather than magazines targeted toward adolescent girls. A Chi-Square test of independence revealed that the number of sexually explicit advertisements in adult magazines was similar to that of the amount shown in adolescent magazines, therefore, the hypothesis was not supported; ? 2 (1, N = 40)= 1. 62, p = . 20. As seen in Figure 1, in the sample of women’s magazines, only 35% of advertisements contained sexual content whereas in teen magazines, 55% contained sexual content. Figure 1. Percentage of advertisements displaying sexual content across magazines targeted for women and adolescent girls. Discussion The aim of this study was to examine sexual content within advertisements in women’s and adolescent girls’ magazines. Based on interpretations of previous findings, we hypothesized that adult women’s magazines would contain more sexually overt ads than their adolescent equivalent. In fact, statistical analysis yielded that there was not a significant difference between the two. Adolescent girls’ magazines embodied a comparable occurrence of sexuality to the adult women’s magazines they are meant to grow into. Given our small sample size, it is feasible to presume that a power analysis would be appropriately suited to determine a more adequate sample size, therein increasing the validity of our results. Nevertheless, Stankiewicz and Rosselli (2008) reports that women are more likely to be depicted as sex objects in men’s, women’s fashion, and adolescent girls’ magazines; where three out of every four advertisements portray them as such. The oversight here is that sexual ads appear to be equally represented within adult and teen magazines. Zimmerman and Dahlberg’s (2008) research insists that shifting ideologies in feminism might help to explain how this change has gone relatively unnoticed. The interest of examining the portrayal of women in advertising was initially provoked by the women’s movement of the 1960s (Zimmerman amp; Dahlberg, 2008) and â€Å"in the past, young, educated women were the strongest critics of advertisements† (p. 71). However, attitudes of today’s younger generations have changed. Mittal and Lassar (2000, as cited in Zimmerman amp; Dahlberg, 2008) found that sexual liberalism had an effect on the perception of advertising. Although present studies show an agreement between respondents in terms of seeing advertising as highly sexualized, people less often think of such portrayals as offensive, irritating, or unethical (Zimmerman amp; Dahlberg, 2008). As far back as the 1980s, Coltrane and Messineo (2000, as cited in Baker, 2005) uncovered evidence that advertisers believe women accept objectified and passive views of themselves. In summary, it appears that adolescents have become increasingly exposed to sexual content in magazines without disconcerted notice because of societies increased tolerance and culturally acceptable views toward sex. Sexuality is a muddled concept. Further, advertising’s affect on sexuality is even more so. The American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (2007, as cited in Stankiewicz amp; Rosselli, 2008) proposes that it is important to distinguish sexualization from healthy sexuality. This is a limitation of our study as it affects the degree of the implications we may infer from the findings. We made no attempt to identify or measure positive sexuality—only sexually explicit material in the broadest sense. Another limitation lies in gender. We only examined ads that contained women. Our literature review indicated that approximately one-half of ads in magazines are of women and that 63. 4% are sexually overt (Stankiewicz amp; Rosselli, 2008). If we had broadened our specification within the sample to include men, we might have seen different results. Thus we failed to account for any possible additional measures of sexual content in our magazine sample. In addition to removing biases and allowing the full examination of each magazine, using nominal scales of measurement appeared to limit our gauge of sexual content and left us little direction. Converting the coding system into a continuous scale would not only increase validity but would likely offer an overall clearer picture. For this reason, future research would do well to follow the aforementioned improvements in addition to exploring a way to distinguish, as well as measure, sexualization versus healthy sexuality. Despite the findings of this content analysis, it remains to be debated whether as Zimmerman and Dahlberg (2008) say, â€Å"society should find it surprising, alarming, or empowering that†¦[women] now casually accept the sexual objectification of their gender† (p. 78). The fact that our analysis yielded non-significance warns that adolescents are receiving advertising messages in many of the same forms as adults. English (2003, as cited in Zimmerman amp; Dahlberg, 2008) finds that â€Å"girls exposed to these images become more sexually aggressive, and [that] sexual experimentation is beginning earlier [italics added]† (p. 73). Observational behaviors occurring at earlier stages of life have always raised uncertainties as to their implications, and the case should not be different here.