Gender Roles In Television Commercials In Asia

Gender Roles in Television Commercials in Asia:

A Comparison of Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore

Piya PONGSAPITAKSANTI

Department of Information and Media Studies,

Faculty of Global Communication, University of Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan

piyatom@yahoo.com, piyatom@sun.ac.jp

Television advertisements are a rich source of data for social scientists to investigate because they can be seen as a reflection of prevailing cultural values. Gender value is also one of the critical factors in developing marketing strategies via advertising messages.  

Advertising gender role stereotyping has been a prominent topic in literatures since the 1970s. Over the past decade gender stereotyping in television commercials has received particular attention. Most studies reveal that advertisements reflect the construction of gender roles in society. However, research of gender roles in advertisements is plentiful in the United States. There has never been any comparative research concerning the gender roles in television commercials between Asian countries. Therefore, this paper compares the gender roles in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore.

              This comparative content analysis of 2,205 sampling advertisements, collected randomly during August and October in 2012, suggests that the image of gender roles in television commercial does not correspond with the construction of gender roles in reality. In contrast, advertisements create the attractive image of gender roles in society. However, the most findings of this research are similar to the previous result of literature in term of gender of main character, voice over, age, and roles of male and female character in television commercial.