WRC 1013/1023: Freshman Composition: Exploring Critical Issues

" Gendered-related advertising research has been undertaken for more than three decades now, and the revealing of the "real" truth is far from being attained. Starting with a brief literature review, this paper's aim is to draw the attention on and generate a larger debate on the following topics: gender response to visual communication, language and cultural impact of the ads, and portraying self-image as a result of emotional/rational reactions to ads exposure. Based on Goffman's groundbreaking analysis of advertising and Jhally's "The Code of Gender," our paper covers the most popular and fashionable Romanian adverts analysis. Living up to the ads shapes our self-esteem, our perception of the self and our gender identity. How deep is the influence and how dangerous the ads are? This paper is an attempt to provide a reasoned response to these questions. "

"The nature of effective advertisement was recognized full well by the late media philosopher Marshall McLuhan. In his Understanding Media, the first sentence of the section on advertising reads, "The continuous pressure is to create ads more and more in the image of the audience motives and desires."

"One of the most important prerequisites for building a more visual social science is demonstrating that visual data provide answers to research questions, which are not addressed satisfactorily by the use of more conventional, non‐visual, methods. In this article the author argues that a systematic analysis of the images in print advertisements not only accounts for patterns in contemporary American race relations as reliably as findings derived from national surveys like the General Social Survey (GSS) and the US Census, but also illuminates questions that are often raised by, but seldom resolved with, quantitative data. These questions include, for example, consideration of what factors might encourage respondents to espouse some attitudes – or to make certain choices – but not others."

" Explores the role accorded to advertising in cultural studies. Transformative potential of advertising; Effect the evolving nature of advertising has on the relationship between people and objects and between culture and economy; Approaches to the definition of key entities like meaning, culture and economy."

"The portrayal of male and female advertising characters was examined to determine whether or not sex was used to sell a product. We defined sex as having at least one of three qualities. Two hundred and eighty-seven advertisements were content analyzed into four categories (gender of the actor, product type, whether or not sex was used to sell the product, and what kind of sexuality, if used, was shown). Most of the advertisements did not use sex to sell the product; however, if sex was used, it was more likely to appear in an advertisement aimed at a male audience. Objectified advertising characters were likely to be females alone or paired with males. Support was found for Mulvey's theory of the male gaze."