¶ … advertisements are specifically designed to lure select audiences -- such as the use of Joe Camel to entice youth to smoke. The article "Racial and Gender Biases in Magazine Advertising" concerns a study that looked at whether or not this problem with stereotyped advertising has grown. Are the racial and gender biases in magazine advertisements increasing, and, if so, to what extent? To determine the answer, authors S. Plous and Dominque Nepture of Wesleyan University conducted content analyses of ten years of fashion advertisements geared toward white women, black females or white men. In total, 1000 ads were studied that ran in 1985 to 1994 publications. The researchers found a) except for black females in white women's magazines, African-Americans were underrepresented in white magazines; b) female body exposure was greater than male body exposure, and white female body exposure rose significantly during the ten years; c) white women were shown in low-status positions nearly twice as often as were other models; and d) black women wore the majority of animal prints, most of which were patterned after a predatory animal.
THOUGHTS ON ARTICLE
Such results as these by Plouse unfortunately substantiate the saying, "the more things change, the more they are the same," or even become worse. Despite the fact that the 1990s were supposed to promote women's equality among men, these advertisements show differently.
As the authors note, over 184 billion classified and 12 billion display ads bombard people of all ages and backgrounds in the United States every day. This is addition to billion advertisements in magazines and other periodicals, 2.6 billion commercials on the radio and another 330 commercials on television.
These advertisements act as a window, displaying societal values. At the same time, they promote these values to the most vulnerable audience -- the American youth. U.S. teenagers view about 350,000 TV commercials by the age of 18.
Although it is impossible to...
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