Portrayal of Men and Women in Indian Television Advertising :: Advertisements India Culture Media Essays

Portrayal of Men and Wo custody in Indian Television publiciseAbstractAlthough gender usage portrayals in publicize scram been extensively studied in Western and separate Asian countries, very few such analyses have been done in India. The study does a systematic analysis of the voice portrayal of manpower and women in Indian television ad. 128 male role portrayals and 196 female role portrayals ar content analyzed for the years 1996, 1999 and 2002. Results show that Indian advertising depicts men and women in traditionally assigned roles of the culture. In several respects, role portrayals in Indian advertising are different from the West exclusively similar to different Asian countries.Role Portrayals of Men and Women in IndianTelevision AdvertisingThe advertising industry in India is estimated to be Rs 11,000 crore (Advertising Back in Business Businessworld, August 23, 2004) and growing at a robust pace every year. The expenditure in advertising is utilise to promote a wide range of products ranging from automobiles to washing machines to personal look at products. Although the primary function of advertising is to inform consumers about product attributes and benefits, advertising also functions as a vehicle of socio- heathenish communication (Courtney and Whipple 1983). Advertisements link the available benefits of a product to emotional and social benefits thus creating cultural content in the course of communication (Aaker, Batra and Myers 1992). The potential of advertising to reflect cultural roles and norms has been recognized by marketing professionals, who have described advertising metaphorically as a mirror of social values (Holbrook 1987 Pollay and Gallagher 1990) or the tone glass of masses (Lantos 1987). Researchers who have analyzed gender portrayals in advertising have found that a societys gender roles and cultural norms are manifested in its advertisements (e.g. Wolin 2003). Gender Role Portrayals in Western advertising p roto(prenominal) studies on gender role portrayals in US print advertising documented the presence of a number of stereotypes in the way women and men were depicted in advertising (e.g. Belkaoui and Belkaoui 1976 Courtney and Lockeretz 1971 Sexton and Haberman 1974 Venkatesan and Losco 1975). Studies found that women were found in general at office or in domestic settings. Women were under stand for in working situations and were shown in a narrow range of occupations typically in secretarial, clerical, or blue-collar positions. A large majority of advertisements showed women as preoccupied with physical attractiveness and as sex objects. Men, on the other hand, were shown in a range of occupational roles in settings away from home such as work or outdoors.