The stereotyped portrayal of men and women in British television advertisements

Abstract

This study examined the portrayal of men and women in a sample of British television commercials, attempting to replicate and extend past investigations done in America, Britain, Canada, and Italy. The aim was to update British research and to compare findings across cultures. One hundred and eighty daytime and evening commercials were content analyzed by two white raters, one male and the other female, to check reliability. The attributes of each of their central figures, who were over 90% white, were classified into 11 categories: Gender, mode of presentation, credibility, role, location, age, argument, reward type, product type, background, and end comment. The findings were that sex role television stereotyping in Britain was more or less constant across time, compared to studies done 5 and 10 years ago, but were weaker than in Italy and comparable to North America. The implications of such findings for the maintenance of sex roles are discussed.