H567/03 Section B Option 1 - Johnson and Young (2002) and reducing advertising effects

Language, gender and the research questions

Advertising can connect a product with a desirable identity or lifestyle. Gender codes provide one possible link: a toy may be associated with an image of what boys or girls are expected to do. Images can be communicated through appearance and action, but language and voice quality may reinforce the same association less obviously.

The study asked whether advertisers script language differently for males and females in adverts aimed at preschool and early primary-school children, and how gender operates as a discourse code linking products to roles. Its critical perspective examined whether commercially produced portrayals recycle polarised conventional roles despite wider discussion of gender equality.

Content analysis codes communication systematically; discourse analysis examines how language constructs meanings and relationships in context. The researchers combined counts with qualitative examples. The sampled units were adverts, not a newly recruited group of child viewers. An interpretation that television contributes to social learning must be distinguished from direct evidence that each child adopted a stereotype.

The broadcast sample and units of analysis

Cartoon programmes were recorded from commercial networks, regional independent New England stations and Nickelodeon in autumn 1996, 1997 and 1999. The range of sources broadened coverage, but Disney Channel and Cartoon Network were excluded because they required expanded premium subscriptions in the regional market then. The 1999 collection allowed a check on changes in targeting.

The paper reports 15 half-hour programmes for autumn 1996 and 1997, and 24 for 1999. Its wording does not explicitly clarify whether the first number applies separately to each year, so no combined programme total is inferred here. Commercials within programme boundaries were included; station/network promotions and adverts between programmes were excluded. There were 149, 133 and 196 commercials respectively, totalling 478.

Product coding covered food/drink/snacks, toys, educational/public-service messages, recreation, and video/movie promotion. An additional other category captured adult products and services in 1999. Toy commercials formed the detailed language sample: 188 broadcasts, but only 147 distinct adverts, because some were repeated. Thus a broadcast count is not a count of independent creative messages or child viewers.

The total toy share is $188/478\times100\approx39.3\%$. Food-related adverts accounted for 216 broadcasts. Toys were selected because they were commercially significant and particularly amenable to gender segmentation. This purposeful focus is suitable for the stated question but does not represent every product, programme season, country or later platform.

Coding gender orientation and language

Toy adverts were transcribed and coded as boy-oriented, girl-oriented or oriented to both. The people and prominence of roles shown guided classification, rather than assuming a toy's nature determines its gender. A brief background appearance did not make an otherwise explicitly targeted advert mixed: nine adverts with girls visible were coded boy-oriented because those roles were peripheral or difficult to detect without replay.

Voice-over coding considered perceived male/female voice and whether it exaggerated conventional gender qualities, such as unusually aggressive deep speech or high sing-song speech. A third person outside the project independently classified 20 voice-overs and agreed with the researchers in all 20. This limited check supports that coding decision; it is not an agreement coefficient for all verbal or gender-target categories.

Verb analysis excluded copula forms such as is and are. Five categories described action, competition/destruction, agency/control, limited activity, and feeling/nurturing. A movement verb concerns physical action, a control verb assigns influence, and a nurturing verb concerns care. Interpretation depends on context; the same everyday word can convey different degrees of agency.

A speaking turn was a continuous verbal contribution by an on-screen character, ending when another person, voice-over, action or music took over. The analysis also examined the conspicuous use of power-related language and qualitative examples of who initiated or responded. These measures address different parts of discourse and should not be collapsed into one score of how stereotyped an advert is.

Findings across voices, verbs and speaking roles

The published combined targeting figures were 54.8% boy-oriented, 33.0% girl-oriented and 12.2% mixed. The paper's combined boy/girl counts do not exactly match the sums of its annual columns; the combined percentages are reported findings, not figures reconstructed here from those columns. Overall boy-oriented adverts predominated, especially in 1999, while 1997 had more similar boy/girl numbers.