Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Masculinity in advertising; Sex role in advertising; Television advertising--Social aspects; Academic theses;

Abstract

This study examines the portrayal of masculinity and the socialization patterns that can be found within television commercials. Television commercials' depiction of social members and their roles act as guides for social members in which they desire to portray during day to day social interactions and situations. Social members are generally unaware of this social phenomenon because they take for granted their social world and the logistics within it. While television commercials aim to create and encourage consumption, the purchasing of a product, service or event, television commercials also create and encourage social members to believe that these advertised items may contribute to gaining or maintaining social images, especially masculinity. A significant proportion of these images portrayed by television commercials are illustrations that display traditional hegemonic masculinity. The problematic issue deals with television commercials' depiction and reflection of images that aid in the oppressive and the discriminatory behavior towards other social members, while other forms of masculinity are not widely accepted by comparison. A manifest and a latent content analysis are used to research television commercials qualitatively. A total of 423 television commercials were recorded from four television networks, NBC, FOX, BET and ESPN and 14 television commercials were selected for analysis to uncover key components of hegemonic masculinity.

Year of Submission

2007

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology

First Advisor

B. Keith Crew

Second Advisor

Phyllis Baker

Third Advisor

Dawn Rothe

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to [email protected] and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2007

Object Description

1 PDF file (102 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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