Sex role stereotyping in television advertisements: A content analysis of advertisements from South Africa and Great Britain

Abstract

This paper reports on one of the few African studies examining sex role stereotyping in television advertisements and compares these results to those from a similar analysis of British television advertisements collected at the same time. A total of 95 British and 77 South African television advertisements were analyzed using traditional content analysis methods and categories. The sample included 127 British central characters and 116 South African central characters. The coding scheme was based on McArthur and Resko (1975), but extended previous research in two ways: first by adding specific context categories (i. e., race of actors) as well as conducting the analysis for both central and secondary characters in the advertisements. When only central characters were analyzed, results showed greater sex-role stereotyping in South Africa. When just first central characters were analyzed the number of significant results increased in both countries. Limitations of content analytic procedures are discussed, as well as the role of television advertisements in both reflecting and shaping social representatives of gender in a given society. © Walter de Gruyter.