Dolores Garcia
Sociology 4
April 21, 2015
Race, Gender, and Status: A Content Analysis of Print Advertisements in Four Popular Magazines
In the beginning of the article, they start by letting the reader know what the concept will be in a small summary. After that, that is when they go into a more detail description of their concept, of what they’re trying to achieve by doing this study. They tell what they want to get out from the study, the four magazines they chose, and to whom they decided to put their focus on.
The study was conductedto figure out if race and gender are still being stereotypical in advertisements for a products message, especially if they implied social status and promises something good in return. They chose four magazines that showed different reading audiences by race and/or gender; Life, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, and Essence. There were three types of status images that they created, which were affluent, trendy and everyday; along with five products, also known as the “promises”: celebrity identification, sex-romance, appearance, marriage-family, and good times.The three statutes and five products were modeled and presented to male, female, Black, and White readers. Everyone knows that the goal of selling a product is to have eye grabbing visuals that can link up to something good in the long run. They also explained how Black, women, specifically, are the gender that are categorized as “dependent and decorative, unemployed homeworkers and care givers, and sex-beauty objects”. Black magazines have not been involved in the media because gender representations in the early studies only focused on magazines that were intended for White readers. But on the bright side, there have been some, but not a lot, of evidence that media for Black and women are improving. On the not so bright side, stereotyping still exist in advertising.
They started off by surveying ads from the four different magazines (Life, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, and Essence) from their 1988 through 1990 issues; Specifically for the months of February, July, September, and December because each represents significant period themes. For example, February represents Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, July represents the beginning of summer, September represents back to school, and December represents the holiday season. They were only considering Black or White models, but their original plan was to “consider Black models White-audience separately and vice versa”. Unfortunately, none of the publications had the numbers of ads that featured models of the opposite race to make the analysis possible because of the segregated ads. Each advertisement was tallied in their own and as many categories as possible. But not all ads had any specific category; they didn’t have a real good status image. An example that they gave was a face-alone model selling cosmetic products (appearance), and that can’t be grouped into a status image because there are no clothing, hairstyle, or jewelry shown.
They had three status images in print advertising which were affluent, trendy, and everyday. Affluent status image is associated with wealth, elite style, and taste. Affluent is usually simple because viewers automatically recognize the illusion of the lifestyle.Trendy, on the other hand, represents a fashionable “in-crowd” appearance, which they consider high-status image. Everyday status represents the men and women dressed and posed like a regular person, an average person. Everything about the everyday status is casual like their appearance and everyday life. They also identified five product promises: good times, appearance, sex-romance, family-marriage, and celebrity identification. Good times is shown as a group of models that are having fun. The promise is that you’re going to have the time of your life with friends. Appearance is shown what a product will do to be more of what you wish to look like; younger, thinner, and/or beautiful. Sex-romance is a male and female model being intimate and both showing affection towards one another. Family-marriage is shown as a male and female model doing what a traditional family would be doing like having family meals. Lastly, celebrity identification sends out the message that you can trust a famous person by what they’re trying to sell.
In conclusion, White women portrayed high-status images more frequently, while Black women portrayed everyday status more. It was something that could’ve been predicted. For the men, it’s a different story. Both racial groups wereportrayed everyday status. White men are portrayed as more affluent than Black men, while Black men are portrayed as trendier than White men. Advertisers rely on high-status images to sell their products, while magazine advertisers went for a more appropriate and effective way for a specific race-gender audience. Life went towards affluent images, and Cosmopolitan had more trendy images than any other. Ebony and Essence, both Black magazines, published more everyday images. At the end, there are still some race-gender stereotypes being shown. White models are seen as more put together with an elite lifestyle, while Black models get the average, normal lifestyle.
3 Discussion Questions
1.Do you think there is still race-gender stereotyping in magazines today?
2. If people see celebrity identification, why do people seem to believe that product promise than any other promises?
3. What product promise would grab your attention?