Media Assignment: Analyzing Gender Messages in Advertisements OBJECTIVE: To recognize the gender messages put forth by the media that influence how women are viewed in our society. As Jean Kilboume discussed in her Killing Us Softly series, images of women are used in all forms of advertising. People are subjected (consciously and subconsciously) to 3,000 ads a day; such pervasiveness is powerful in its impact on society’s beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours. Take a look at this 1970’s sexist ad (scroll down): http://genderbend.blogspot.com/2011/08/sexist-ad.html
ASSIGNMENT DETAILS: For this assignment, you will be analyzing PRINT advertisements (not commercials on youtube: youtube commercials WILL NOT BE MARKED nor will magazine covers or pictures from magazine articles so make sure you are using advertisements ) to identify stereotypical gender messages as discussed in Module 2, “Gender, Culture and the Media° and explored through readings and visuals. REQUIRED: 1. BAD AD: Find a print ad that you feel portrays women negatively; please chose one that has not been used in our course. This must be a current ad, not one from another decade. Using the ad, discuss the following: • What product is being advertised? Discuss whether the ad is effective in advertising that product. • Discuss what you find problematic about the ad and why, so why you chose this ad for the ‘bad’ ad. This will require detail and depth of discussion. Be specific about what you are critiquing and why you find it to be problematic, providing details with reference to course material, specifically Module 2. • Are any stereotypic images used? How? Why? We looked at many different stereotypical ways of showing women especially in Killing Us Softly 4. Discuss. • Why do you think the advertiser used the details that were used in this ad? What is the purpose of these images and details? • What do you think is the message of this advertisement? There may be a few messages: obvious (intended) and not-so-obvious ones. Ensure this answer addresses the idea of ‘controlling images’ (from module 2)
patriarchal society.
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