Fifty Years of Advertising Images: Some Changing Perspectives on Role Portrayals Along with Enduring Consistencies

Abstract

Content analysis is used to evaluate portrayals of women and men in United States magazine advertisements over a 50-year period, 1950 through 2000. We examine 7,912 portrayals of people in 3,212 advertisements from the time period and analyze changes in those advertisements relative to transitions in feminism and cultural trends. Magazines from representative categories provided the sample data. Over the period studied, magazine advertising showed a trend toward objective role portrayals of women fairly equal to men. This trend perhaps resulted from feminist’s positioning women in the public as well as the private sphere. Women were still subordinated to men in more subtle aspects of advertisements, measured by Goffman’s (1979) cultural positioning framework. Sexual exploitation of both sexes was noticed.