Construction Of Female Identity In Pakistani Television Commercials (November, 2015-April, 2016): A Semiotic Analysis

Abstract

This study explores how TV commercials in Pakistan construct female identity in the present era. Advertising becomes an essential part in moulding and shaping our behaviour, attitude, values towards lifestyle and advertisers use visual, semiotic and printed text aims to convey their specific messages. This work attempts to analyze how the belief system of "flawless" and "perfect" society is created and constructed in and through advertisements. This study employed semiotic analysis as a research method to examine Pakistani TVCs. With stratified sampling technique, ten TVCs selected that appeared during intervals breaks of famous TV serials ,obtained from main three private Pakistani channels, on a week after week premise for a time of six months. TVCs were analyzed with reference to the representation of Pakistani women in selected time period. As sign frameworks are included in the construction of meaning and advertising utilizes these signs to transmit its message. The ideologically developed messages, TVCs not only depict the image of women but have additionally made that image into the affirmed part of the female identity in the society. The overall findings reveal that women identity thrive in TV commercials that repeatedly represent women as glamorized sex object, there by not reflecting the different and progressive roles of women. This study is an effort to examine the advertising practice in Pakistan that how it constructs and depicts Pakistani women. Most commercials reveal today’s Pakistani women as an independent glamorous and liberal object. This study would be significant for communication experts as well as for the policy makers who can apply it as a basis for creating and executing advertisements in future.