The Depiction of Gender and Race On

The Depiction of Gender and Race on Magazine Covers and in Magazine Advertisements

Kristin Sink – SOCI 453 – Dr. Kristi Hoffman Fall 2015 2

Abstract

Within our society there are stereotypes based on gender and race, many depicted and shown on magazine covers and in magazine advertisements. There is an imbalanced representation of gender and race among many of these magazines that can be seen through out the years. The following research outlines the data of how magazine covers and advertisements depict gender and race. Previous research has been conducted, outlining the significant data and presence of gender norms. This study aims at examining and analyzing gender on magazine covers and in advertisements through a content analysis. Six magazines’ covers will be examined every five years from 1990-2015: Time, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Forbes, GQ, and Cosmopolitan. There were a total of 216 magazine covers analyzed during this study. The advertisements came from four magazines all from November 2015: Rolling Stone, GQ, Cosmopolitan, and Forbes. There are various characteristics coded for each magazine cover and advertisement included on the coding sheets. The findings are quite standard based on our societal norms and align with many of the hypotheses, with a majority of the cover people and advertisement models being male and white. There is a high relationship between gender and race on magazine covers, with an overrepresentation from the male population. This information and data from the research summarizes the portrayal of gender and race, which can be seen in our nation’s print media and affects our society everyday. 3

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………..……………………… 4

Literature Review ………………………………………………………………….. 6

Theory ……………………………………………………………………………… 10

Methodology………………………………………………………………………... 13

Results …………………………………………………………………………….... 15

Discussion ………………………………………………………………………….. 25

References …………………………………………………………………………. 29

Appendix A: Cover Coding Sheet……………………………………………………. 30 B: Advertisement Coding Sheet ………………………………………….. 31 4

Introduction

Everyday people are bombarded with thousands of images in television, magazines, advertisements, and online. It is crucial to analyze and evaluate these types of images to determine societal standards, patterns, and stereotypes. Manifest content, which is visible surface level content, will be analytically examined to observe and question the underlying significance behind media images. The images presented to the public often time depict racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes. As Carini and Weber state in their content analysis of magazine covers, “the media is a powerful purveyor of messages about culture and gender ideology” (Carini and Weber 2012; 196). By looking at past and present magazine covers and advertisements we can gage cultural norms and assess sociologically femininity, masculinity, and racial differences, as well as socially constructed norms.

Magazine covers and advertisements have a greater impact then many would realize. On a regular basis we come in contact with these images and portrayals numerous times a day. These images influence society; they hold a persuasive force on our values, confidence, and societal norms. By examining the data we can better understand the full effect and power that many of these images have on our culture. Popular magazine covers and advertisements tell a lot about our current cultural dynamics. In a study done by

Saraceno and Tambling (2013:1), they state “one way researchers can analyze the behavior of a society is through the critical examination of images in multimedia.”

Multimedia images offer a unique insight on the values, gender-norms, and societal dynamics that make up our world. 5

When cover images and advertisements are examined, it is clear that marketing plays a huge role regarding physical appearance, race depiction, and even the pose of those individuals depicted on covers. When it comes to business, selling strategically is vital to a company’s longevity and success. Cover images make a magazine stand out against the rest, so they are chosen to represent the magazine as a whole. “No feature is so important to a magazine as its cover. As the most important page of a magazine, the cover is the magazine face; it creates the all-important first impression” (Johnson

1987:3).

Race and gender as key concepts will be examined through a content analysis of magazine covers and advertisements in several popular publications, including Time,

Rolling Stone, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, and Cosmopolitan. Manifest and latent content will be observed and noted with regard to gender, race/ethnicity, magazine type, pose, clothing, and headline wording. Pomper, Lee, and Lerner (2009:274) claim that, in terms of gender representations on magazine covers, men appeared more often on

Time covers. This gender representation is a key part of feminist theory, which is the framework theory for this study. Given this pattern of gender inequality this research examined types of people represented on magazine covers and advertisements and the change over time, 1990-2015, based on gender and race.

There are some hypotheses guiding this research that deal with gender and race: men are more likely to be depicted on magazine covers then women; caucasian women and men are most likely to be featured on magazine covers and in advertisements; women are posed, photographically styled, and dressed more provocatively compared to men; and advertisements geared towards women focus more on their physical beauty and less 6 on the actual product while advertisements geared towards men focus more on the product rather then the person. All of the hypotheses will be supported or not supported after analysis takes place of the magazine covers and advertisements.

Literature Review

Considerable research has been done on the topic of gender and race depictions in magazine advertisements and on magazine covers. The studies have been similar, typically a content analysis approach of covers and advertisements within popular magazines. For this study, Time, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Forbes, GQ, and

Cosmopolitan were examined.

Covers

Research indicates that gender, specifically when it comes to women, is underrepresented on magazine covers. Media, especially print media, has complete authority over what is sent out into the world. They control what people see, specifically on covers of their magazines. “An analysis of covers also can tell us something about the kinds of people who wielded power and influence” (Johnson 1987:8). Covers hold a lot more power over use then we would like to think, “they influence how society perceives movements about gender and gender itself” (Carini 2012: 197).

One study by Carini and Weber (2012:199) states that gender representation on magazine covers,

“From 2000 through 2011, there were 716 opportunities to depict a figure from

the sports world on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and yet 35 out of 716 covers

had females on them. This seems to be a growing trend between not only Sport 7

Illustrated and also other magazines. In fact, over 70 year of TIME magazine

covers, men appeared more often then women (Pompper et al., 2009: 274).”

The female representation on magazine covers is either nonexistent or it seems to follow along with generalized, stereotypical cultural norms as well.

On magazine covers women are portrayed more for their looks then their accomplishment. On most of the covers in which women were on, they were picked because of their looks. They were models, socialists, or actresses; leaving out businesswomen, comedians, musicians, and athletes (Pompper et al., 2009). Women were more likely to be on covers that were talking about fashion, sex, or violence. They are also more likely to only be on a cover if their male spouse or co-star was the main interest. Women are underrepresented on magazine covers, and when they are on the covers they are highly sexualized and seen more often in traditional gender roles.

One study yielded similar results about gender, more specifically women on magazine covers. Research on TIME magazine person of the year was completed. Since

1927, seven women have been awarded “person of the year.” There are over 92 instances where TIME has names a person of the year, including duplicate winners: 7 women and

78 men have taken this title (Schol 2015:11). While the title has changed from “Man of the Year” to “Person of the Year,” there still seems to be a gender disparity among magazine covers. The percentages of women on covers were incredibly lower than the average of their male counterparts. By the end of 2003, Rolling Stone magazine published female images grew to 36.1%, considerable lower then that of the male percentage

(Pompper et al., 2009). According to on TIME magazine article, “out of 3,329 covers 8 over a period of 64 years, only 441 covers (13%) pictured women (Johnson and Christ

1987:17).

Not only are women underrepresented and marginalized on the covers of popular magazines, so are minorities. Unless the person has a “cross-over” appeal to all races, then they do not appear on covers. “Along ethnicity line, mass consumer magazine covers have featured predominantly white images, unless the person was considered to have crossover appeal” (Pompper et al., 2009:275). On magazines such as Rolling Stone and TIME, whites were overexposed. In Pompper, Lee, and Lerners (2009) study whites made up 77.85% of the cover images, with blacks making up 13.7% and Hispanics making up 6%. In other studies as well, white individuals were the majority. Over 79% of whites were represented on TIME magazine covers, a racial breakdown of complete injustice (Schol 2015).

“The media sends potent messages of what it deems culturally important via what it chooses to omit and include” (Carini and Weber 2012: 197). Men are overrepresented on covers leaving women in the background of even modern day covers. Whites are the typical race to be photographed and presented to the public on magazine covers. The marketing tactics of race and gender that plague our media continues to affect magazine covers, the individuals, and society. Not only are magazine covers sending powerful messages about gender and race but now so are advertisements.

Advertisements

Advertisements are much like magazine covers, they represent the “norm” gender and race within society. “This multibillion-dollar industry has essentially taken over the means of mass communication. According to Advertising Age, in 2009 it was estimated 9 that approximately $125.3 billion was spent on advertising in the United States alone”

(Carson 2011:1). With this amount of money spent on advertising, the advertisements play a huge part in our social lives and how we view ourselves. Gender and racial depictions in advertising are often skewed towards societal norms. A lot of this depends on the type of advertisement, where it is located, and who the target audience is for the product.

Early research revealed that advertising that deals with cleaning products, food, beauty, drugs and clothing are often advertised with women as the subjects. If the product was advertising something dealing with the home, like appliances, home buying, or fixing then the women were joined by their male counterpart and put in the foreground of the image (Courtney and Lockeretz 1971:93). Whenever a male and a woman were together in an advertisement, the man always seemed dominant while the woman submissive. The male, no matter the race, radiated power and strength even when the product was targeted to women. However, “males were the minority and were drastically underrepresented in comparison to their female counterparts in advertisements” (Carson

2011:18).

When women were in advertisements they were sexualized, often times there to make a product look better or to sexualize their body. This includes women draped across hoods of cars, cleaning in heels, lying around in their lingerie holding perfume bottles or playing a sport in a bikini. Women in these ads were above average looking. According to Goffman (1979:21) “females depicted in commercially posed scenes have straighter teeth and are slimmer, younger, taller, blonder, and ‘better’ looking then females in most real life situations.” The women represented in advertisements seems to be the ideal 10 woman men want to have and women want to be. Women are portrayed mainly as

“decorations” in ads, dressed extravagantly and artistically posed.

Advertisements are geared towards the readership of a magazine. If it was trying to sell a teenage girl, then the advertisement presented a white, teenage girl. There did seem to be a lack of racial segregation in many advertisements. African American and

Caucasian women were the two highest represented races, with Asians and Hispanics coming in with low numbers, barely close to their representation. “In terms of race, minorities bear the brunt of stereotypical advertising. Minorities are stereotypes by either being underrepresented or inaccurately represented in advertisements” (Carson 2011:5).

Race and gender are only two primary categories that prior research ahs examined regarding magazine covers and advertisements. The focus of this research, similarly to past research is to examine magazine covers and advertisements to gage the gender and race representation among the people and images. The media plays a huge role in our everyday lives, “media images act as socializing agents that influence our attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors” (Holladay 2010:1). Minorities are diminished when it comes to both advertisements and covers, as there is an overemphasized on the white male population. Due to societies standards about culture and gender ideology, women are underrepresented on covers and depicted in stereotypes in advertisements, continuing to reiterate the message that one particular group is better then the other.

Theory

“Feminist theory focuses on women’s inequality and how that inequality is structured and experienced at macro and micro levels” (Dillon 2010: 314). Throughout history and still today this theory affects women’s role within society, their presentations 11 to the public, their occupational roles, their opportunities, and in some instances even the laws that govern our nation (Dillon 2010). In return, it not only affects women but it affects men as well. As Dillon states, “the validation of men’s ideas and experiences as the objective and legitimate human experience continues to permeate gender structures and social relations” (Dillon 2010: 315). White men are seen as the norm, hereby reducing all women and other races to the “inferior” class. This theory affects our everyday life; it can even be seen in the portrayal of men and women on magazine covers and in advertisements.

“Dorothy Smith elaborates how the practices of sociology crystallize the larger structural and everyday dilemmas of gender in a patriarchal society” (Dillon 2010: 316).

In our society, men have written the rules, beliefs, and procedures. “Men have literally written the rules that “define society and how we think about things” (Dillon 2010: 316).

These “ruling texts” define the organization and framework of our societal practices, such as who can do what, how it should be done, how you should look, and so forth. These texts do not have to be written texts, they can also be “far more encompassing – including the many images in society in stores, magazines, and advertising, for example, and the various discourses that circulate and which organize, reflect, and remind us of the practices and social relations that govern our everyday/every night worlds” (Dillon 2010:

317). Due to the inequality within our society between genders and even race we exclude the less significant group from many different aspects of life.

One aspect of life that is affected by the social structures of our patriarchal society is magazine covers and advertisements. “Race, class, and gender oppression could not continue without powerful ideological justifications for their existence, emphasis on how 12 the discourse of femininity through advertising, displays maintains women’s presentations of self as a on object for and inferior to men” (Dillon 2010: 327). Looking at magazines with a feminist theory perspective will aid in observing the magazines and how women, men, and different races are portrayed. The objectification of women, making them appear as objects or emphasizing their looks, is a result of this theory and can be viewed in magazines and advertisements all over the world. By using the information from these theories and researching and analyzing magazine covers and advertisements over time, patterns about gender and race are identified.

There are some key research questions that the study focuses on. The first asking, what genders and races are mainly represented on the cover of popular magazines and in magazine advertisements? This will bring awareness to the main gender portrayed within the sample. Another question is, are there gender and race differences among magazine covers and advertisements? By using the coding sheet this question will be answered and the differences will be noted. The third question is about the percentage and regularity of women on cover, how often do magazine covers have women has the main cover image?

The next research question is key to the research since it aims to look at gender and race specifically, do the types of images on magazine covers and in advertisements differ between sexes and race? The last question is, will different magazine types affect the cover images and advertisements represented? All of these research questions led to the hypotheses and guided much of the research.

Hypotheses:

The following are hypotheses developed for advertisements and magazine covers:

 Men are more likely to be depicted on magazine covers then women. 13

 Caucasian women and men are most likely to be featured on magazine covers.

 Caucasian women and men are most likely to be represented in advertisements.

 Women are posed, photographically styled, and dressed more provocatively compared to men.

 Advertisements geared towards women focus more on their physical beauty and less on the actual product.

 Advertisements geared towards men focus more on the product rather then the person. Methodology

A content analysis is the method used to analyze magazine covers and advertisements. The research conducted for the magazine covers was from six different magazines: Time, Forbes, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, and Cosmopolitan.

These magazines were chosen to represent a variety of genders - males, females, and both

- targeted towards these specific groups. Each of these magazine’s covers were analyzed and coded, along with advertisements within each magazine. The samples come from the following six years: 2015, 2010,2005,2000,1995, and 1990, a five-year range going back

25 years. The samples were six magazines from each year, the months included January,

March, May, July, September, and November. This provided an adequate amount of data for each magazine and category.

For this study a detailed coding sheet was created. For the magazine covers the coding sheet is a convenient organized table (see appendix A). Each individual magazine, like Time for example, was analyzed on its own table. Covers were examined for gender, 14 race, magazine type, clothing, headline topic, and pose. Gender, based solely on two categories: female and male. For race, since it is harder to analyze race in a picture, it was coded as either white or other. Magazine type, like mentioned before, is based on whether it was geared towards women, men, or a neutral party. The category of clothing took a look at the cover person’s attire, either business professional attire like a suit, button-up, uniform, or collard outfit versus nonprofessional attire, such as jeans, dresses, or t-shirts.

Along with physical attributes, headline topics among the magazines were also observed.

There were two issues analyzed while assessing headlines, these were does the wording differ based on gender and if so then what types of words appear most frequently for each gender. Lastly, pose was reviewed and included the two categories of headshot or body shot. This looked at the cover person’s body language and how they were photographed and portrayed on the covers.

In addition to the covers, the study also took a look at advertisements and those portrayed in them. Magazine advertisements came from four magazines, GQ,

Cosmopolitan, Forbes, and Rolling Stone, all from November 2015. Mainly the person in the advertisement will be coded; if the advertisement has no person or persons then that advertisement will only be included if it has gender specific graphics. Only certain advertisements were looked at, such as alcohol, perfume/cologne, cars, and insurance.

The coding for advertisements was more in depth and detailed to ensure an adequate data collection. The coding sheet included magazine title, magazine type, year, product, words used, picture/graphic, gender, race, number of people in ad, occupational role, perceived importance, pose, models activity/actions, facial expressions, and clothing. (See appendix

B). 15

Many of these codes are explanatory like gender being male or female or the product category being the actual product sold in the advertisements. Race, which breaks down to white or other was coded. Occupational role/representation of the person roles the people are being portrayed doing during the shown advertisement such as, entertainer, athlete, blue-collar, managerial, or non-occupational/homemaker. The models activity during the advertisement was also observed during this process, such as if they’re cleaning, taking care of children, or playing a sport for example. Perceived importance, taken from Carson (2011, 48) who did a detailed content analysis on magazine advertisements and provided a useful coding sheet, takes a look at the person’s stance either background role, minor role, or major role. The pose/posture of the model was observed, tracking the pose of each person in the advertisement such as lying down, standing up, bending backwards or forwards, or sitting. Next is facial expression of each model, for instance does it show women smiling and men frowning or are women more seductive while men are casual. The last code looked at for advertisements was clothing.

This is examined by monitoring the type of clothing, or lack there of that each individual is wearing during the advertisement. All of these variables will aid in the study and investigation about gender and race depiction, specifically on magazine covers and in magazine advertisements.

Results

Magazine Covers

The total sample size was 216 magazine covers. A total of 36 covers from each magazine; Time, Entertainment Weekly, Forbes, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Cosmopolitan, were observed for the differences between race and gender on their covers. Months for 16 each magazine included: January, March, May, July, September, and November each from 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. Other things were also observed, such as the clothing worn, headline topic/wording based on gender, and pose of the subject. By looking at these variables we can gage the effect of gender and race on magazines over time as well as the depiction among the wide variety of magazines.

The magazine type ranged with a heavier skew towards neutral magazine types.

Four of these magazines were considered neutral, one woman’s, and one man’s. The analysis will take a look into the breakdown of gender and race specifically on magazine covers, with the other variables as well.

Gender

A total of 313 people were depicted on the covers, as some had more than one person. Out of all the magazines analyzed, there were a total of 202 men or 65% and 111 women or 35% on the covers. Out of the 111 women, 43 were with men as co-cover subjects and 68 were by themselves, women alone on the covers makes up about 61% of the total percentage of women on covers. Out of the 202 men, 63 were co-cover subjects with others and the rest of the 139 were men on the covers alone. When collected together as the total percentage of men as cover subjects that comes to about 68% of men were alone on the covers while the rest 31% were co-cover subjects. One magazine,

Cosmopolitan, was made up of only female cover images in the sample that was selected.

The rest of the sample size was mainly male covers with women either mixed in with other males as co-cover subjects or by themselves, which only occurred a few times. (See

Table 1) 17

Table 1: Magazine Cover’s depiction of Gender Magazine Title Male Female Time 48 13 Forbes 43 9 Entertainment Weekly 40 26 Rolling Stone 40 12 GQ 31 10 Cosmopolitan 0 41 Total 202 111

Graph 1: Total Percentage of Gender Representation on Magazine Covers

Out of the 313 people depicted on the magazine covers, 279 of them were white while 27 were categorized as other. (See Table 2) This number is extremely high, with a percentage of whites being 91% and other being 9%. (See graph 2) The research shows that whites are overrepresented on magazine covers while others are either not represented at all or represented at extremely low rates.

Table 2: Magazine Cover’s Depiction of Race

Graph 2: Total Percentage of Race Representation on Magazine Covers

Magazine Title White Other 18

Time 44 10 Forbes 49 3 Entertainment Weekly 62 4 Rolling Stone 50 2 GQ 34 7 Cosmopolitan 40 1 Total 279 27

Other aspects of the covers were also examined when looking at race and gender on magazine covers, such as pose. The study looked at the pose of the person to determine whether it was a headshot or a body shot. From the 311 cover people, there were 126 headshots and 185 body shots. (See Table 3) The majority of the images were body shots but there were still a great number of headshots. In fact the magazine Entertainment

Weekly was mainly headshots while magazines such as Time, Rolling Stone, GQ and

Cosmopolitan were overwhelmingly body shots of both female and male.

Table 3: Pose of Cover Person

Head Shot Body Shot Male 90 110 Female 36 75 Total: 126 185

Clothing

Another variable examined when looking at covers was clothing. Clothing was broken down into two categories, nonprofessional and professional. Nonprofessional clothing included jeans, t-shirts, bathing suits, lingerie, and short dresses. Professional clothes were things such as suits, ties, formal dresses, and job attire uniforms. Covers images 19 where it was too close to tell what the subject was wearing, have been labeled as N/A.

Also, many of the covers with more than one person had the same clothing options on, so the study for clothing only included the 216 total magazines. (See Table 4)

Table 4: Magazine Cover Model Clothing

Nonprofessional Professional Not Available

Time 6 17 13 Forbes 5 21 9

Entertainment 8 14 14 Weekly Rolling Stone 21 7 8

GQ 16 15 5

Cosmopolitan 32 2 2

Total: 87 76 51

1 unavailable magazine = Total magazines: 216

Advertisements 20

Selected advertisements were analyzed next for the depiction of race and gender among the subjects or theme of the advertisement. There were a total of 4 magazines analyzed,

GQ, Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan, and Forbes. All of the advertisements came from magazines from November 2015 There were a total of 14 advertisements examined, with only eight containing people in them. Of these advertisements products like perfume, cars, Geico insurance, and alcohol were portrayed in each of the sampled magazines and as a result were used as the overall sample. (See coding sheets in appendix)

Perfume

Perfume was examined as one of the products from two magazines, GQ and

Cosmopolitan. The 1st perfume ads in the magazines were used. The Brands were Dolce and Gabbana and Coco Chanel, which both included people as the subjects. (See Table 5)

The second perfume ad was from Cosmopolitan. The bottle for the perfume was in the lower right hand corner, which indicates a small perceived importance towards the perfume. The ads seemed to be advertising the people more so than the actual perfume.

Both ads were similar in their portrayal of the subjects and the bottle of perfume.

Table 5: Perfume Advertisements

GQ Cosmo

AD/brand Dolce and Gabbana Coco Chanel People 2 White Female and Male 1 White Female

Picture/Graphic 2 people in bathing suits Model in formal wear surrounded by water

Occupational Role N/A Entertainer 21

Pose Woman lying on stomach Model leaning on table, leaning her head on the man’s arched back, with her other shoulder, he was sitting hand in her hair straight up facing camera

Perceived Importance Major Role – bigger than the Major role perfume bottle Facial Expression Seductive Seductive

Clothing Bathing Suits Formal Clothing

Wording “Dolce and Gabbana Light “Coco mademoiselle” Blue” Cars

There were four car advertisements examined from GQ, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, and

Rolling Stone. Two of the advertisements were the same, just featured in two different magazines. The same Toyota brand car was in three of the four magazines, while Cadillac was the fourth car brand. All car advertisements included people, with four male and two female subjects, all of which were White. (See Table 6)

Table 6: Car Advertisements

GQ COSMO Forbes Rolling Stone AD/Brand Toyota Camry Toyota Camry Cadillac Toyota Tacoma People 2 - White 2 - White 1 – White Male 1 – White male Female and Female and Male male Picture/Graphic Couple holding Couple holding Car on the road, Mountain hands. Us hands. Us man walking Scene, biker sitting in the sitting in the away from it in flipping on the driver’s seat driver’s seat business clothes air off the blue looking out the looking out the car window window Occupational Blue-Collar Blue-Collar Managerial Athlete Role Pose Couple holding Couple holding Full body, Full body, hands walking hands walking walking with upside down on away from car away from car hands in bike pockets Perceived Minor Role, Minor Role, Major Role, Minor Role, off 22

Importance small image of small image of subject in front to the side people people of car Facial Smiling at Smiling at each Serious N/A: can’t see Expression each other other face Clothing Casual Casual Formal Casual

Alcohol

All four magazines had alcohol advertisements and the second alcohol ad in each magazine was examined. Although they were different brands of alcohol, the ads were similar especially when looking look into the race and gender depiction within advertisements. Of the three total people in the advertisements, two were male and one was female, all of which were White. (See Table 7)

Table 7: Alcohol Advertisement

GQ Cosmo Forbes Rolling Stone AD/brand Miller Lite Rum Chata Johnnie Walker Rum Chata Whisky People No person 2 White 1 White Male No person Female and Male Picture/Graphic Rum Chata Jude law bottle, the 2 stepping onto a people toasting stage, bottle glasses very little in corner Occupational N/A - Entertainer Role Unknown Pose Half Body Full Body Perceived Major Role Major Role Importance Facial Smiling Smiling Expression Clothing Formal holiday Formal 23

wear Clothing Wording “The original “Tis the “Joy will take “Toast with steinie back Season” your further, cinnamon” for a limited keep walking” time.”

Insurance

All four magazines had similar Geico Insurance advertisements, but the findings revealed the differences in the graphics and wording based on magazine genre. There were no people in the advertisements, instead gender-based graphics. Many of the differences were based on and geared towards a certain gender, like a bikini top in Cosmopolitan or a man’s razor in GQ. Although the advertisements were for the same company and product, the ads themselves were dissimilar. (See Table 8)

Table 8: Insurance Advertisement

Chart 8 GQ Cosmo Forbes Rolling Stone AD/brand Geico Geico Geico Insurance Geico Insurance Insurance Insurance People No person No person No person No person Picture/Graphic Blue, electric Bikini Photocopier Orange razor top/bottom in airplane pink with yellow polka dots Wording “Saving “Saving “Saving people “Saving people money people money money since people money since 1936… since 1936… 1936… That’s since 1936… That’s before That’s before before there That’s before there were the bikini.” were the sound battery photocopiers.” barrio was operated broken.” razors.”

The magazine advertisements studied revealed that the majority of the people photographed and represented were white and male. Out of the 12 people depicted in the 24 magazine advertisements, all of them were white. A slight gender difference was also found in the advertisements. Out of the 12 people depicted, five were female and seven were male. However, many of the ads did not have people as subjects, instead graphics of the product. The overall representation in these advertisements was of white males, which is also a pattern in magazine covers also observed in this study.

Discussion

This research gathered substantial data on gender and race on the six magazines observed and within the advertisements analyzed. Much of the literature reviewed before the study also had similar results. One study reviewed, Pompper Lee and Lerner (2009:

274), was correct in saying that “this [males being overrepresented] seems to be a growing trend between not only Sport Illustrated and also other magazines. Many of the magazines analyzed throughout this study supported this claim that women were seen less on magazine covers while men were overly pictured on the covers. Much of the data lined up to similar rates of gender and race representation in this study. A few studies reviewed mentioned statistics about whites being portrayed on the covers and in advertisements were well over 50%. In other studies as well, white individuals were the majority. Over 79% of whites were represented on TIME magazine covers, a racial breakdown of complete injustice (Schol 2015), which was supported and highly considerable in this research as well. The literature out there about this study and sample aligned quite well with the conclusions within this study and were reinforced by much of the collected data and percentages.

The study found that many of the hypotheses were supported, including many hypotheses that of which are listed below: 25

 Men are more likely to be depicted on magazine covers then women.

 Caucasian women and men are more likely to be featured on magazine covers.

 Caucasian women and men are most likely to be represented in advertisements.

 Women are posed, photographically styled, and dressed more provocatively compared to men.

 Advertisements geared towards women focus more on their physical beauty and less on the actual product.

 Advertisements geared towards men focus more on the product rather than the person.

After analyzing the results all of these hypotheses many seemed to be supported by our data collection. Overall, men are more likely to be depicted on magazine covers, seen with the statistics based on cover images. Sixty-five percent of cover subjects were men, hereby supporting the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis focuses on the race of the cover subject, stating that Caucasian women and men are more likely to be featured on magazine covers. This hypothesis had strong support as well; 91% of those represented on the magazine covers were white. There was an overrepresentation of white subjects on magazine covers, even between female and males. Ethnic minorities are featured so infrequently; magazines are neither promoting diversity nor unity. The next hypothesis that was supported dealt with race in magazine advertisements. It stated that Caucasian women and men are more likely to be represented in magazines. From the smaller number of magazine advertisements viewed (14) there were a total of 12 people within them, all of which were white. This hypothesis was one hundred percent supported and validated by the data. Another interesting aspect of advertisements was the Geico insurance ads, which included no images of people but still led to the support of the hypothesis about gender representation. Although there were no people there were still 26 gender defining graphics, like a bikini or a razor. It was interesting to look at the magazine type and then the ad to see how they changed the just the wording, colors, and graphic to attract a certain audience. This tells us a lot about gender and the stereotypical reinforcements provided by companies and magazines.

However, there were a few contrasting hypotheses that were neither fully supported nor not supported. On magazine covers and in magazine advertisements women were seen as photographed in more provocative poses, either containing models that were seen lying down, with arched backs, seductive looks, open legs, and others. The styling of women was much more provocative then that of men, who were mainly just sitting or standing with serious facial expressions or a smile. Many of the magazines had more of a sway towards body shots instead of headshots, even though that number was still high. The last hypothesis deals with advertisements and how the ad is pictured. There were some ads that offered women products using lighter colors, more detailed borders, and relationship driven pictures. The men’s advertisements dealt with adventure or the actual product, showcasing the product bigger then the model most times.

It was interesting taking a look at the wording used based on gender. There were some magazines that did not really have good headline topics but the covers being taken look at presented men and women in different lights not just visually but verbally as well.

Men were more often to be “rulers or king,” “person of the year,” “strong”, and others.

While women were “pretty,” “hot,” “Goddesses,” and other suggestive wording that would likely only be written about women. Along with wording, women were also posed more seductively and were in more nonprofessional clothing then that of their male 27 counterparts. All of this data elicits and proves the stereotypes mentioned in older literature and also within more recently collected data, including this study.

Although this study presented useful and extensive data, there were some limitations. Limitations for this study included the amount of magazine covers and subsequently magazine advertisements. Due to the level and time of this project a deep analysis of magazine advertisements could not be gathered. Also, the lack of accessibility among many of the magazines was an issue. The lack of diversity among the magazine types also hindered the study. A magazine perhaps geared towards minorities would be an interesting sample to code. A coder bias was also perhaps an issue; since there was only one coder the probability of a bias taking place was high. These are some of the things that could have added to the reliability and accuracy of the studies research.

Future research can be done to further our knowledge on gender and race depictions among magazine covers. A deeper analysis of magazine covers could take place, with longer year spans, more magazines, and a wider field of magazine types with more diversity. This would allow for more of a detailed analysis of covers. Researchers can also take an analysis of every advertisement within magazines, this would add for a greater sample size and more in-depth information about all advertisements.

Many of these hypotheses were correct or supported after the research. More research needs to be done on the advertisements, perhaps looking more of the similar products for a longer period of time. Overall the research yielded valuable data and insights into the depiction of gender and race on magazine covers and in magazine advertisements. Much of this research is supported due to the cycle of our societal patriarchal system in which we live today. White men are dominant, even within minor 28 print media. This project helped open more light on the issue of race and gender on basic magazine cover images and in magazine advertisements. The data presents relevant information about the portrayal of gender and race in our nation’s print media and our societal norms that affect all people.

References

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Appendices on hard copy