Developing a stereotype index of gender role stereotypes in television advertising

Over the decades women have usually been portrayed in the mass media in stereotypical roles, such as inferior to men, as sex objects, and/or as dependent on men. Although society has developed and the status of women has improved, there have been few changes in the mass media. The mass media continue to reinforce stereotypical gender roles. Few studies have conducted content analyses that effectively measure stereotypes in advertising other than using nominal level data. Accordingly, this study was designed to develop a "Stereotype Index," measuring how much an advertisement uses stereotypical images in its content at the ordinal level. Each advertisement received positive points for the use of stereotypes and negative points for the use of reverse-stereotypes in its content based on the Stereotype Index. The mean of each variable could subsequently be compared directly using parametric statistics rather than traditional chi-square analysis. Differences between nominal (categorical) and ordinal level data were examined by conducting both non-parametric and parametric analyses in this study, using a probability sample of prime-time television commercials during a sweeps month (4 November through 1 December, 2004). The final sample included 845 advertisements and 1,062 central figures.;Findings indicated that both categorical and ordinal data measured the same stereotypical traits. The Stereotype Index test certainly overcame the limitations of the chi-square test. According to the results of both measurements, men and women were portrayed frequently in stereotyped roles in television advertising during prime time. For example, women were frequently portrayed as homemakers/parents and product users, whereas men were often portrayed as professionals and authorities. The Stereotype Index reported detailed gender role stereotypes within embedded traits of stereotypes and indicated how gender roles were portrayed overall. The Stereotype Index proved useful to examine overall gender role stereotypes among studies by comparing means of stereotypical traits, if the same index is used. Therefore, the outcome of this study indicated a promising knowledge contribution of the Stereotype Index to gender role studies for researchers who have been challenged by the limitations of the chi-square tests.