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Sex-Role Stereotyping in Television Commercials: A Review and Comparison of Fourteen Studies Done on Five Continents Over 25 Years - Statistical Data Included

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Sept, 1999 by Adrian Furnham, Twiggy Mak

Adrian Furnham [1]

Since the pioneering content-analytic study by McArthur and Resko (1975) on sex-role stereotyping of television advertisements in America, many others have used a similar methodology and coding scheme to examine similar stereotypes in their own countries. This study compares and contrasts 14 studies, all using the McArthur and Resko (1975) scheme: 3 from America, 1 each from Australia, Denmark, and France, and 2 and one from Great Britain, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, and Portugal. Problems of such a comparison are considered: specifically, the equivalence of the channel, the three different time periods, and slight variations in the content categories. Nevertheless, clear patterns arise which attest to the universality of sex-role stereotyping in television commercials.

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Over the past 20 years commercial television has spread around the world. Tourists and explorers are often amazed and surprised to find indigenous people in extremely "cut-off" rural settings sitting around watching the television set in their crude dwellings. Nearly every country in the world now has commercial television channels--frequently more than one--and most adults are exposed to thousands of television advertisements annually.

While the power and influence of television on the beliefs and behaviors of viewers remains probably the most important area of research for media researchers, many have concentrated on the portrayal of certain features. Thus violence on television remains one of the most researched and controversial topics (Gunter & Wober, 1988; Lanis & Covell, 1995). Similarly the portrayal of gender on television and the social effects of television on gender-role portrayals have attracted considerable interest (Prakash, 1992), according to a recent review (Gunter, 1995).

Researchers, particularly in the United States, have been interested in the portrayal of men and women in television commercials for over 25 years (Dominick & Rauch, 1972; Maraceck et al., 1978; Liebler & Smith, 1997; O'Donnell & O'Donnell, 1978; Schneider & Schneider, 1979; Suezle, 1970). Sex-role cues in children's commercials have also been studied (Durkin & Nugent, 1998; Furnham, Abramsky, & Gunter, 1997; Smith, 1994; Welch, Huston-Stein, Wright, & Phehal, 1979), as well as sex-role stereotyping on the radio (Furnham & Thomson, 1999; Hurtz & Durkin, 1997). Studies have concentrated on gender-role stereotypes in commercials for particular products such as food (Jaffe & Berger, 1994), beer (Iijima, Hall, & Crum, 1994), and medical products (Leppard, Ogletree, & Wallen, 1993) or particular types of programs such as comedies (Olson & Douglas, 1997) or, specifically, portrayals of people in the work place (Vandeberg & Streckfuss, 1992).

One of the first content-analytic studies of the portrayal of men and women in television commercials was published by McArthur and Resko (1975) on data collected nearly 25 ago, yet studies currently being published follow essentially the same coding categories (Neto & Pinto, 1998). It has proved the model for many subsequent studies (though not all studies of stereotyping on television), and it is the aim of this paper to do a "meta-analytic" review of the research based on the coding scheme. In doing so, it examines the results of 14 studies, from McArthur and Resko (1975) to some still in press.

Bretl and Cantor (1988) reviewed eight studies, all bar one from the 1970s, as well as presenting their own original data. They were particularly interested in studying trends over the 15-year period. At the time they found men and women appeared equally often as central characters but that 90% of all narrators were male. Fewer females were depicted as employed, while women were still more likely than men to be seen in domestic settings, advertising products in the home. The authors concluded 12 years ago that (American) advertisements seemed "to be presenting a less sexist and more equal view of the roles of men and women in society" (p. 607). However, it is uncertain whether this was true in other countries.

At much the same time Lovdal (1989) replicated one specific study (O'Donnell & O'Donnell, 1978). Contrary to the above, she found no significant differences on nearly all of the coding categories examined and concluded that conventional sex-role stereotypes persist in television commercials.

There are numerous problems in attempting to understand compariSons done in different countries over different time periods. All cross-cultural psychologists acknowledge the many problems associated with cross-cultural comparisons (Smith & Bond, 1993). These include stimulus and sample equivalence, the functional and meaning equivalence of particular behaviors, and changes over time if studies are carried out or compared at different points in time. Some stress the subtle uniqueness of culture and the problems with measuring accurately, while others believe that the increasing modernization and Westernization of the world means that all cultures will converge onto a homogenized unity. Some psychologists have taken an etic (based on phonetic) approach that focuses on universals, while others have preferred an emic approach (based on phonemics) which stresses the difference and variety. These issues are particularly problematic for content analysis, which is the method of this study. This is because a content coding category scheme developed in one country at one particular time period is applied to other stimuli resulting from and mirroring a different and unique culture at very different periods of time. There always remains the question of whether the coding scheme is sufficiently robust and sensitive to interpret the many subtle nuances, particularly in the area of sex-role portrayal.

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Sex-Role Stereotyping in Television Commercials: A Review and Comparison of Fourteen Studies Done on Five Continents Over 25 Years - Statistical Data Included

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Sept, 1999 by Adrian Furnham, Twiggy Mak

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