The Construction Of Female Images In Newspaper Advertisements

ShunPao is one of the newspapers that were published earliest in modern China.it is informative and rich in content,thus high-valued in historical research.As a research object,the cigarette advertisementsexcerpted from Shun Pao are mainly advertised during 1927-1937,during which the political,economic and cultural development is relatively stable.Combined with the relevant social development background,throughclassifying and counting the pictures and copies of the cigarette advertisements and through analyzing the female images on them,this treatise is aimed to illustrate how the female images are constructed by the cigarette advertisements in Shun Pao,according to the social sex theory and the consumption theory.This treatise consists of six chapters.The first chapter tells us the historical background in Shanghai and analyzes the historical reasons why it became the national economic and cultural center during the 1920s and 1930s.Then it discusses Chinese women's practice infreedom and equality from three aspects:education,matrimony and social participation.The second chapter focuses on the development of the whole newspaper industry in 1927-1937 and the development of the ShunPao itself.It shows its development from the aspects of advertising management and news comment.It also analyses Shun Pao' advantages in advertising management and the various limitations it received on news comment.The third chapter mainly classifies and counts the female advertisements in Shun Pao from 1927 to 1937.From the cosmetics advertisement,drug advertisement,clothing advertisement and cigarette advertisement.,it presents people's stereotypes on females,namely their fascination for beauty and their fragility.And it also shows Shun Pao's strong psychological appeal and various marketing methods through its advertisement form and marketing methods.The fourth chapter presents the female image in the advertisement of the Shun Pao from its clothing and age,and discusses its emphasis on the beauty of the female figure and its favor for young women.The fifth chapter analyzes women's characteristics appeared in the cigarettes advertisement of Shun Pao from the change of scenes,during 1923 to 1937.From the changing quantities of beautiful women and housewives and the change from domestic scene to outdoors,it discusses the changing characteristics in Shun Pao.Chapter 6 starts from the social sex theory,especially focusing on Butler's research,including the physiological gender,social gender,the main body of desire,the female image as "sex object".It illustrates the newspaper's influence on the construction of female image and analyzes its influence on society's identification with the female.As a media for cultural communication,and part of social culture,advertisement is influenced by social culture and presents this kind of influence in the newspapers,so that the image of the female is spread to the whole modern society and further affects the image of women in society.Otherwise,during the 1920s and 1930s,the female image in cigarette advertisement of Shun Pao helps facilitate the society's identification with the female and makes the whole society more tolerant.This treatise is aimed at showing the close relationship between the media and the construction of the female image,through the research on the female images in the cigarette advertisement in Shun Pao,which provides a new way of coordinating the female images in newspapers with the ones in reality.