Abstract
A great deal of debate has centered on the role of television advertising. The two dominant positions in this debate have been the "mold" and "mirror" theories. The "mold" theory states that advertising leads societal attitudes, values, and beliefs while the "mirror" theory suggests the opposite. The majority of work supporting these positions comes from studies conducted in the United States. However, this study sought to test the validity of the "mirror" by examining the portrayal of women in British television advertising, and comparing results with those of an earlier U.S. television advertising study. Due to long shared histories and numerous societal commonalities, television commercials aired in Great Britain were chosen for comparison. This study hypothesized these societies should exhibit similarities in the manner in which television advertising portrays demographic groups. In particular, the current work focused on the portrayed roles of women in British advertising. The reasons for this decision were twofold. First, an increase in the study of sexual stereotyping provided strong background support and documentation. Second, this focus allowed replication of a previous study to compare results (Ferrante, Haynes, and Kingsley, 1988).
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© 2015 The Academy of Marketing Science
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Bickel, J., Taylor, R.K. (2015). The Role of Women in Television Advertising in Great Britain: A Content Analysis. In: Wilson, E., Black, W. (eds) Proceedings of the 1994 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13162-7_43
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13162-7_43
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Online ISBN: 978-3-319-13162-7
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