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Communication and culture professor Fern Johnson and student Jennifer Clark explore how gender stereotypes are used to sell products on television and in print. |
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As seen on TV: Take Care of Me Twins vs Electronic Karate Fighters
Professor Fern Johnson's research
"From a marketing perspective, it is … more profitable for producers of children's toys to create separate toys for boys and girls as a way of placing more items in the marketplace."--Johnson and Young
Television is an important medium for advertising directed at children. Even in this age of supposedly equal opportunity for men and women, television advertisers still invoke traditional gender stereotypes to market toys to children. This conclusion was reached in a study by Dr. Fern Johnson and Karren Young '98. They demonstrated how television advertisers use language to reinforce the association of a toy with one or the other gender. Language emphasizing power and aggressive activity was used to sell toys to boys, while ads directed at girls emphasized nurturing behavior, feelings, and more placid activities.
Johnson and Young selected for study 147 ads for toy shown during cartoon programs broadcast in 1996, 1997 and 1999. Using a technique called content and discourse analysis, they examined
- The genders of the actors
- The types of toys being advertised
- The names of the toys
- The characteristics of voices used for voiceovers
- The types of verbs and other words used in the ads
- The speaking roles of the boy and girl actors
Johnson and Young sorted the ads into three groups:
- Ads featuring boys*
- Ads featuring girls*
- Ads featuring both girls and boys
Gender typing
The researchers assumed that the actors' genders were selected to correspond with the gender(s) of the target audience; for example, boy actors would used to sell toys to boys. Based on this criterion, the majority of ads appeared to be directed at boys. Of the remaining ads, about twice as many were directed at girls as were aimed at both boys and girls.
Types of toys
Johnson and Young also analyzed the types of toys being sold in these ads. Action figures, electronic games, and computer-related toys were targeted at boys, while posable dolls and animals shown in low-action scenes were aimed at girls.
Toy naming
Toy names also appeared to be selected with a particular gender in mind. Toys for boys often used words emphasizing size or power, while those for girls emphasized parenting.
Voiceover characteristics
All ads for boys, as well as those for both girls and boys, featured male voice-overs. Ads for girls usually, but not always, used female voice-overs. Usually an adult voice was used for the male voice-overs, but about one-sixth of the girl-oriented ads used a girl's voice for the voice-over. Voices, whether male or female, were caricatured in the majority of ads, with male voices often sounding unnaturally deep, husky or loud, and female voices unusually high-pitched, squeaky, or sing-song.
Verb and word choice
Verbs provide clues to the type of action being expressed, the agent of the action, and the activity being undertaken. Johnson and Young classified the verbs used in the ads into five categories:
· Action verbs relating to physical movement or motion
· Verbs indicating competition or destruction
· Agency/control verbs indicating that the child consumer can exercise power or control
· Verbs indicating limited activity or a state of being
· Feeling and nurturing verbs
Feeling/nurturing verbs were used solely in girl-oriented ads, while competition/destruction verbs were used almost exclusively in ads directed towards boys. Action verbs were more evenly distributed between ads for boys and girls, but agency/control verbs were more likely to be used for boys and limited activity verbs in ads for girls.
The word "power" was used in 21% of the ads oriented towards boys, but only mentioned once in ads for girls.
Speaking roles of girls and boys
Although women have a reputation for being more verbal than men, boys were more likely to be speaking in ads showing both boys and girls.
Gender polarization
Johnson and Young suggest that the way language in advertising is used to link a particular type of toy to a particular gender polarizes differences between boys and girls. While in reality many boys demonstrate feelings and behaviors labeled as "feminine," and vice-versa, these television ads create the impression that certain behaviors are exclusive to one or the other gender. Young children exposed to this type of advertising have not yet developed the thinking skills that would allow them to view these ads critically. Johnson and Young are concerned that such ads present stereotypes that may hinder boys and girls from recognizing themselves as the complex and multifaceted individuals that they are.
*The first two categories of ads might show a child of the opposite gender in the background or for a few seconds.)
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Additional Resources
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 Take Care of Me Twins
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 Electronic Karate Fighters |
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