2. Background In the study, “Who is Gazing at Whom?,” the authors analyzed 287 advertisements out of popular magazines and determined that most of the ads were directed towards a male audience. They also found that out of the ads that were directed towards men, 99 percent of ads contained alluring behavior and 82 percent had the actors dressed in provocative clothing. Based on this study, I decided to test if males did respond to sexualized ads more than neutral, non-sexual advertisments.
3. Hypothesis Male college students are more likely to favorably react to sexualized advertisements featuring objectified female characters than female college students.
4. Method To test my hypothesis, I developed a power point presentation that featured two advertisements side by side; one sexual ad and one non-sexual ad. I then created a script and an answer sheet for the participants to mark their answers on. Before the presentation began, the participants marked which sex they identify as. While looking at the slides, participants circled on their answer sheet which product they were more likely to try or to buy for someone else based solely on the advertisement. Here are some examples of the ads I used:
6. Method (contd.)/Subjects The ad on the left features a phallic visual of a woman with a water bottle near her mouth. This ad was sexualized. The ad on the right had no sexual message, it was just a water bottle. After all the slides had been shown, I collected the surveys and analyzed the data. I collected a total of 106 valid surveys (3 did not specify which sex they identified as). 71 were female college students and 35 male college studdents.
7. Results 75% of female students preferred neutral ads, 13% of female students preferred sexual ads 57% of male students preferred sexual ads, 2% of male students preferred neutral ads My hypothesis was supported, most males found sexualized ads more appealing.
9. Conclusion If I could do my experiment again, I would test more participants. I would try to obtain an equal amount of male and female responses. I would also separate the participants so that when they are taking the survey, they are not influenced by the comments of other classmates. I would be curious to see if age is a factor in participant’s responses. Because most of my subjects were young and in college, that may have had an influence on how they answered. I would want to test older and younger individuals and compare them to the college aged answers to see how age affects the influences of advertising.
10. References Monk-Turner, E., Wren, K., McGill, L., Matthiae, C., Brown, S., & Brooks, D. (2008). Who is gazing at whom? A look at how sex is used in magazine advertisements. Journal of Gender Studies, 17(3), 201-209. doi:10.1080/09589230802204167.
