Abstract
This paper aims at identifying socio-cultural portrayal of women through representational, interactive and compositional meanings with a focus on gender stereotypes propagated by media advertisements in Pakistan. Media adverts as such are an instrumental tool for manipulating attitudes and behavior of large and diverse audience for example, a large body of data reveals that women are portrayed in media to stylize their physical attributes to tempt and persuade customers. Therefore, advertisements are instrumental in creating a certain mind-set by shaping an ideologythrough highlighting the hegemonic representation of men and sexual objectification of women for creating an erotic fantasy. The data for the study comprises print media adverts which were randomly collected to have primarily advertised Pakistan TV morning shows, home products and cosmetics and have been selected on an assumption that they embody a socio-cultural perspective. The findings show that the selected advertsproject the world of male chauvinism where women are shown as the facilitating sexual objects.
Highlights
This research explores Pakistani advertisements being used as a medium for defining gender roles in society
It analyzes the aspect of sexual objectification of women in adverts where women are used as a commodity to increase the appeal of a product, or as subservient to men
The analysis show that women in all the samples except one are presented in the lower i.e. represented participant in the lower section (Real) section which shows that women are subject to power and
Summary
This research explores Pakistani advertisements being used as a medium for defining gender roles in society. It analyzes the aspect of sexual objectification of women in adverts where women are used as a commodity to increase the appeal of a product, or as subservient to men. The study is significant in identifying what major semiotic resource systems Pakistani advertisers deploy for disseminating a particular ideology and enhancing stereotypical representation of women in Pakistan. In this global world where everything has come close owing to the technology, socialization has become rapid due to the far reaching effects of mass media. It helps us to construct certain ideologies and behaviors and develop
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