A Thesis
entitled
Gender Messages in Television Commercials Aired on Disney Junior Channel
by
Mirela Alina Bocicor
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Master of Arts Degree in Sociology
______Barbara Coventry, Committee Chair
______Dwight Haase, Committee Member
______Monita Mungo, Committee Member
______Dr. Cyndee Gruden, Dean College of Graduate Studies
The University of Toledo
May 2019
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge everyone who played a role in my academic accomplishments. I offer my sincere appreciation for the learning opportunities provided by all the amazing professors I had at the University of Toledo.
I would especially like to thank Dr. Barbara Coventry, the chair of my committee for the patient guidance, encouragement, and advice she provided me throughout my entire thesis work. I am also thankful to the rest of my thesis committee: Dr. Monita Mungo, and Dr.
Dwight Haase for their support and insightful guidance.
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Abstract
To determine whether toy commercials challenge the conventional gender roles, this study analyzes the ads based on the overall action and play, language, gendering of the toys and the way the female characters interact with the advertised toys and the other characters. Toy commercials aired from September 1st to September 7th, 2018, on Disney Junior channel were content analyzed.
The sample consists of 25 commercials, out of which 18 ads feature girls only and 7 ads feature boys and girls. To determine the gender orientation of the toys, this study developed a coding scheme, based on two existing studies. This analysis found that the majority of the toy commercials aired on Disney Junior channel promote the traditional gender role stereotypes and all children featured in the analyzed commercials are shown playing with gender appropriate toys. The female characters are showed playing mainly indoor, involved in group oriented and static type play.
When involve in competitive type of play, girls are never showed winning, while in most of the commercial at least one boy in featured celebrating a win. The commercials use more stereotypically distinctive language styles in the ads where girls play together, then in the commercials when girls play with boys.
Keywords: Gender, Stereotypes, Toys, Disney Junior
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Contents CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION ...... 5 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 8 2.1 Learning about gender in early childhood ...... 8 2.2 Learning about gender and gender roles through toys and playing ...... 13 2.3 Learning about gender though media, commercials and toy commercials ...... 17 2.4 Disney Junior Channel ...... 22 CHAPTER 3 - METHODS ...... 26 3.1 Research questions ...... 26 3.2 Sample ...... 27 3.3 Coding frame ...... 27 3.3.1 Is the play with the toys gendered? ...... 28 3.3.2 Do the ads use stereotypically gendered language? ...... 29 3.3.3 How are the girls interacting with others? (Other girls, boys, adults) ...... 30 3.3.4 Are the toys gendered? ...... 31 3.3.5 Does the gender orientation of the toys influence the interaction and action of the commercial? ...... 34 CHAPTER 4 - ANALYSIS ...... 36 4.1 Is the play with the toys gendered? ...... 37 4.2 Do the ads use stereotypically gendered language? ...... 41 4.3 How are the girls interacting with others? (Other girls, boys, adults) ...... 44 4.4 Are the toys gendered? ...... 47 4.5 Does the gender orientation of the toys influence the interaction and action of the commercial? 49 CHAPTER 5 - DISCUSSION ...... 51 5.1 Limitations and further research ...... 54 5.2 Conclusion ...... 56 APPENDIX ...... 58 REFERENCE ...... 61
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CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
The following thesis is a content analysis conducted to examine the gender role stereotypes in toy commercials. Its purpose is to determine whether the toy commercials aired on Disney Junior promote the female traditional gender roles stereotypes. The sample of this analysis consists of
25commercials aired on Disney Junior channel from September 1st to September 7th, 2018, between 8am-8pm. Disney Junior Channel is a pay television network whose target audience are pre-school children, 7 years and under. In the sample, 18 ads feature girls only and 7 ads feature boys and girls. The commercials are analyzed based on the overall action and play, the gendering of the toys, the language, and the way the female characters interact with the advertised toy and the other characters.
Television commercials, as an important agent of socialization, are a persuasive source of knowledge for children. Children’s television ads do not sell exclusively products, but also
“mindset(s) of how one is expected to live in today’s society” (Kahlenberg and Hein, 2009:831).
As children under age of eight are in the formative stage of developing gender schemas, identities and values, they do not understand the selling intent of the commercials (Calvert, 2008); the messages sent through advertising become to the young audience ideal images of how they need to behave, look, and interact with others.
One essential activity through which children of all ages learn about gender roles is playing
(Blackmore and Centers, 2005; Owen, Padron, 2016). Toys, as vital instruments in playing, simulate the gender roles of the society and train children about the roles they are expected to perform. Previous studies show that in the US the toy manufactures produce toys that tend to be gender specific and send powerful messages about the social gender expectations of the society
(Zimmermann, 2017). As a result, by the age of three, children accurately become able to attach
5 gender stereotypes to toys and identify toys as being “girls’ toys” or “boys’ toys” (Weisgram,
Fulcher, and Dinella, 2011, Zimmermann, 2017).
This thesis examines these two critical tools of teaching children gender roles: toys and advertisements. Studies show that TV toy ads stress the traditional gender stereotypes that a society holds and teach children that toys and playing should be gender specific (Pike and Jennings, 2005;
Calvert, 2008; Etheridge, 2015; Zimmermann, 2017). This influences children’s and their parents’ purchasing habits of toys (Etheridge, 2015) and develop in children an unconscious rejection for toys that are labeled for the other gender (Bradbard and Endsley 1983). By doing this, children narrow their opportunities to develop skills and play outside of their traditional gender roles
(Bradbard and Endsley 1983, Etheridge, 2015). According to a White House press release in
2016, "research shows that children’s interests, ambitions, and skills can be shaped early on by the media they consume and the toys with which they play, potentially influencing everything from the subjects they choose to study to the careers they ultimately pursue" (Office of the Press
Secretary, 2016).
This study used Disney Junior channel as a sampling source because the official mission statement of the station focuses on such social values as gender and race equality. According to
Disney Junior representatives, the original content of the station was created based on extensive research to promote equality and open new horizons for girls and minority children. Also, Disney
Junior is also a non-ad-supported channel. As the main corporation financially supports the station,
Disney Junior does not financially depend on advertisement and can have more control over the aired commercials (Barnes and Chozick, 2013). Thus, this analysis aimed to see whether Disney
Junior channel truly provides less gendered messages to young children in its commercial content.
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The topic of gendered toys, commercials, and the influence they have on children has received more attention in the last years. This thesis can add valuable information to the limited existing literature, and it can become a starting point for more in-depth and intersectional analyses on the topic. This analysis takes a different approach than the studies conducted before, as it analyses not only the action of the commercials, but also categorizes the advertised toys based on their gender orientation to analyze whether the typology of the toys influence the way the characters are feature in these toy commercials. In a society that aims for gender equality in all matters, it is important to assure that children from early ages learn about gender and gender roles in a way that will not restrict with their major life decisions.
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CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW
The prevalent sociological viewpoint of gender stresses the idea that gender roles is learned though socialization. Numerous sociological studies have taken different approaches in understanding the issue of gender socialization, leading to the general conclusion that gender stereotypes can build barriers to individual development and can lead to social inequality
(Bandura, 1999, Martin, Eisenbud and Rose, 1995). The studies of gender socialization point out the critical influence that gender acquisition has for preschool children, since the gender information children retain in early ages represent the backbone of their social identity. The first part of this literature review focuses on the children’s early gender role socialization and the various effects that each agent of socialization has on the development of children. The next two subsections will examine in detail two major agents to socialization, toys and media, and the role that playing with these toys, as well as media consumption, has on children’s acquisition of gender information and gender roles. The last part of this literature review focuses on the data source used for this analysis, the Disney Junior channel, providing rationale for this choice.
2.1 Learning about gender in early childhood
Gender refers to the non-physiological aspect of being a male or female and it is the cultural aspect of masculinity and femininity (Lips, 2017). Gender and gender behavior are social constructs learned through various agents of socialization such as family, school, peers or media
(Bandura, 1999). The acquisition of gender identity or gender socialization is a process that starts in early childhood and it is heavily related to socialization (Marshall, 1990; Ward and Aubrey,
2017; Owen and Padron, 2016). From early ages children are taught the social norms, expectations
8 and attitudes associated with being male of female and are expected to conform to the traditional gender stereotypes and gender roles (Owen and Padron, 2016). Girls are taught to embrace the role of nurturance, passivity and dependence. They are socialized to be emotionally expressive, focus on physical looks and accept caregiving and domestic tasks as their primary obligations
(Owen and Padron, 2016; Ward and Aubrey, 2017). On the other hand, boys are encouraged to express power, aggression, risk taking and domination. They are socialized to be competitive, independent, seek status, but not displaying emotions (Owen and Padron, 2016; Ward and Aubrey,
2017).
According to social learning theory, individuals learn from interacting with others in a social context. Bandura (1977) claimed that children learn about gender through observation, imitation and modeling. This social approach claims that the development of gender behavior in children is done through four stages: attention, memory, imitation and motivation. In the attention phase, children observe and notice gender behaviors in others. In society, children are surrounded by various individuals who become influential models in learning appropriate gender behavior. In daily interaction, children observe their parents, peers, and teachers; while when consuming media, they see characters or celebrities. These models provide children with examples of socially accepted gender behaviors. In the memory phase, also called retention, children memorize features of the behavior they observed, whether is a visual or verbal information. The imitation phase, also called reproduction, is an implementation of the learned behavior, in which children use their cognitive skills or sensorimotor capabilities to reproduce what they have seen and accepted as a model. Bandura (1965) discovered that children are more likely to imitate behaviors that are socially appropriate for their gender, whether these behaviors are negative or positive. The last phase in the social learning approach is the motivation phase in which children anticipate
9 consequences and expectations from the memorized behaviors and decide on whether to reproduce the learned behavior, or not. Bandura (1977) claims that children learn and estimate the appropriate gender behavior by observing rewards and punishments. If a parent makes a positive comment when seeing a girl consoling her baby doll, this is perceived as a reward that reinforce the behavior which is more likely to be repeated.
In early ages, parents and the other family members introduce children to the gendered norms and expectations of their culture. Consciously or not, the parents embrace gender stereotypes that will be passed on to their children. These stereotypes are ideas about how a girl and a boy should ideally behave, interact, dress and think. Parents often treat their boys and girls differently and assign to them roles that encourage children to identify with stereotypes and behave accordingly (Seccombe, 2012). As a result, around the age of three children begin to label their own sex and start to categorize the world around them based on gender (Ward and Aubrey, 2017).
The gender socialization process continues in education centers, from daycares to schools and colleges (Seccombe, 2012). The gender stereotypes in school are influenced and taught by teachers and peers, as well as the hidden curriculum (Seccombe, 2012). Studies had shown that teachers endorse cultural gender stereotypes suggesting different learning expectations for each gender and provide girls and boys with different learning opportunities and feedback (Riegle and
Humphries, 2012; Seccombe, 2012). The curricular material contains gendered information that influence girls’ and boys’ academic, social and personal development (Riegle and Humphries,
2012). In their longitudinal study, Lavy and Sand (2015) concluded that teachers’ gender biases on favoring boys’ academic achievements in science, technology, engineering, and mathematic
(STEM) courses have long run implications for occupational choices and earnings in adulthood.
The girls studied in the sample were less likely to enroll in advanced math and science courses
10 later in school and oriented their interests towards stereotypical female perceived jobs (Lavy and
Sand, 2015).
Another important agent of socialization that influences the process of gender learning is media. Mass media outlets affects children’s depiction of gender roles in all staged of their development (Ward and Aubrey, 2017). Overall, gender-normative behaviors and stereotypes, dominate most children’s media, which support the traditional gender stereotypes that values masculinity more than femininity and tend to bring boys on boys and present girls in stereotypical ways (Seccombe, 2012). Most media content tells boys that their problems can be solved through aggression, and girls that their self-worth is linked to their appearance” (Ward and Aubrey, 2017).
Studies have shown that women are sexualized and underrepresented across most media outlets.
Women are portrait in stereotyped roles as nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives or parents
(Collins, 2011; Marshall, 1999; Ward and Aubrey, 2017). In an analysis of animated characters, women’s bodies are featured with unrealistic body shapes that distorts the expectations of children.
These unrealistic looking characters become role models for children of all ages (Collins, 2011).
The same feature of unrealistic body shapes of women can be also found in toys and video games (Seccombe, 2012), both important socialization agents in the process of gender acquisition.
Recent studies revealed that the majority of the toys found on the US market are differentiated on the basis of sex; they exploit the traditional gender stereotypes and are targeted towards a single gender (Blakemore and Center; Freeman, 2007; Seccombe, 2012; Auster, Mansbach 2012). These gendered toys reinforce the traditional gender stereotypes and “represent ideologies of our culture”
(Kahlenberg and Hein, 2009:830). The dolls for girls often come with baby bottles so girls can practice feeding an infant, while the dolls for boys are typically called action figures and involve an aggressive type of play and competition (Seccombe, 2012). Research has shown that when
11 preschoolers play, they look for the reactions of familiar people (Raag, 1999). Cross-gender play refers to playing with toys that are marketed or stereotypically assigned to children of the opposite gender. When playing and choosing toys, this social constraint of gender is stronger in boys who are generally “more gender-typed and less cross-gender-typed” (Raag, 1999).
All these social agents influence children’s personal development and contribute to the gender knowledge that creates the self-identity of an individual. The preschoolers, children age three to six, are in a continuous search for cues about gender in their social environment and are very sensitive about the gender information to which they are exposed (Kahlenberg and Hein,
2009). Around this age “the gender stereotype rigidity peaks” (Zimmermann, 2017:120) and the preschoolers tend to even exaggerate the gender stereotypes they learn (Ward and Aubrey, 2017).
Three-year-old children already refer to themselves in terms of their gender and are aware of the gender expectations and norms, as well as the appropriate gender behavior (Seccombe, 2012) They use labels to build a greater understanding of gender and associate activities, toys, occupations, and colors with a gender. When children have their gender identity established, they start to act with awareness that they will be judged according to what is considered socially appropriate for their gender and will develop a strong motivation to fit into their gender group (Marshall, 1999;
Martin and Ruble, 2004).
Gender flexibility, the open-minded attitude towards gender roles, is a skill that preschoolers do not possess (Spinner, Cameron, Calogero, 2018). Studies have shown that younger girls are more determined than older girls to dress in gender specific clothes. They do it to fit in the group they want to be part of and to have a physical appearance that is socially accepted and characteristic for their gender (Spinner, Cameron and Calogero, 2018). When playing, preschoolers express a stronger preference for playmates of the same sex and have a more positive
12 response towards toys that are clearly marketed as appropriate for their gender, whether this identification is done though color, name or the toys are simply labeled as boy’s toys or girls’ toys
(Martin and Ruble, 2004; Spinner, Cameron and Calogero, 2018).
2.2 Learning about gender and gender roles through toys and playing
Playing is an essential mechanism in the early childhood and a key element in the general understanding and development of gender identity (Blackmore and Centers, 2005; Owen, Padron,
2016). According to Hofferth (as cited in Weisgram and Dinella, 2018), children in the US spend approximately 10-15 hours per week engaging in playing activities. Through playing, young children discover the world in which they live, practice and develop new skills, and engage in activities that encourage their cognitive, emotional and social development (Guyton, 2011;
Blakemore and Center, 2005).
Role playing is a crucial activity that improves children’s social skills, creativity and teach them various social knowledge, including gender roles. Mead (1934) compare the way children embrace role playing to the way early people responded to the learning of sacred rituals. Children take role playing seriously and follow the rules, no matter how strict they are. They observe, listen to the rules and embrace the roles they play accordingly (Mead, 1934). At preschool age children do not have a fully development self and role playing becomes important part in the process of personal development and gender identity acquisition (Mead, 1934; Blakemore and Center, 2005).
The stereotypes found in role playing become social realities that add to children’s knowledge of gender and gender roles (Blackmore and Centers, 2005).
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Toys are important instruments in the role-playing activities. Historically, toys were used to train children for the roles they were expected to have as adults and simulate the gender roles of the society. For example, toy dolls were given to girls to prepare them for their role as mothers and toy guns were given to boys to prepare them for their military careers (Weisgram and Dinella,
2018). However, the feminist movement of the 1970’s gradually changed society’s gender roles, significantly diminishing the number of the occupational fields that were gender specific
(Weisgram and Dinella, 2018). Yet, although changes have occurred within society, the toy industry in the US remains gender specific and continues to exploit the traditional gender role stereotypes (Martin, 1995; Blakemore, Centers, 2005; Freeman, 2007; Auster, Mansbach 2012;
Sweet 2014). Sweet (2014) analyzed toy catalogs from 1970’s to 2013 and found that “toys are more divided now than they were 50 years ago.” In the 1975 Sears catalog, science kits and kitchen sets featured boys and girls playing together and half of the toys were advertised in a gender- neutral manner. Auster and Mansbach analyzed the toys listed for sale on the Disney website in
2012 and concluded that most of the toys sold online by the Disney company were gender specific, targeted towards a single gender and labelled as "boys’ toys" or "girls’ toys" (Auster and Mansbach
2012).
Gendered toys refer to the toys that are clearly associated with a particular gender within a culture (Auster and Mansbach 2012; Weisgram, Fulcher, Dinella, 2001). Toys can be gendered based on typology, design, labeling and color (Seccombe, 2012; Auster and Mansbach 2012;
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Weisgram and Dinella, 2018). Thus, girl toys focus on quiet or nurturing activities, boy toys focus on rough play. Boy toys are bold color, girl toys are pastel. Also, toys can be advertised as gendered by using gendered marketing strategies. Marketing studies suggest that a commercial is more effective when it is targeted towards a specific group (Auster and Mansbach,
2012). Thus, when advertising toys, marketers believe that by promoting toys as being for a specific gender they reach to dominate their niche.
Studies have shown that toys can convey powerful messages about social expectations and gender roles (Zimmermann, 2017). Freeman (2007) claims that children accurately apply general gender stereotypes to toys by the age of three, an age when they start to identify toys as being
“girls’ toys” or “boys’ toys.” As a result, children start to express a visual preference for gender- typed toys and select their toys based on gender typology, colors or labeling (Martin, 1995;
Weisgram, Fulcher, and Dinella, 2011, Zimmermann, 2017). These choices are strongly influenced by the opinions expressed by family and other children, but also by media and the marketing strategies used by advertisers (Auster and Mansbach, 2012).
The ways that gendered toys influence the development of children has recently raised numerous questions. It has been suggested that as boys and girls play with different types of toys, they develop different skills, passions and interests, which lead to gender differences in adulthood
(Martin, 1995; Etheridge, 2015; Weisgram and Dinella, 2018). In their study, Blackmore and
Center (2010) categorized toys as strongly masculine, moderately masculine, neutral, moderately feminine and strongly feminine and concluded that only the gender neutral and moderately gender- typed toys are perceived as educative and helpful for the physical, cognitive and artistic development of children. Martin (1995) concluded that gendered toys can limit children’s experiences and influence children’s behavior in various ways. Children play differently with a
15 toy based on how the toy is labeled. In the playing activity, children recall information and game related names much better when using toys that are labeled as being for their gender than when the toys are targeted towards the other gender (Martin, 1995). Martin (1995) also claims that different toys exploit different developmental path for social and cognitive skills in children. When children play with cars or action figures, they develop visuospatial skills and space orientation, while when children play with dolls they develop mainly nurturing skills (Martin, 1995; Spinner,
Cameron and Calogero, 2018).
Sherman and Zurbriggen (2014) showed that playing with Barbie dolls can have an immediate effect on little girls and their perception of future career options compared with the options that boys have. In their focus group study, girls that played with Barbie dolls indicated limited possible career options for their future compared to what they have indicated for boys, while the girls who played with Mrs. Potato Head, a gender-neutral toy, did not indicate these differences (Sherman, Zurbriggen 2014). Also, research has shown that a long exposure to gendered toys can contribute to children developing an unconscious rejection of toys that are labeled for the other gender, which narrows the children's opportunity to explore roles and play outside of the tradition gendered roles (Bradbard and Endsley 1983).
In the United Kingdom, the campaign "Let Toys Be Toys" launched in 2012 aimed to change the way toys are produced and advertised. The initiators of this campaign asked the toy and publishing industries to "stop limiting children's interests" (Etheridge, 2015) by promoting toys only suitable for girls and others only for boys. According to Etheridge (2015), gender should not be a factor to guide children interests and personalities. The same trend started in the US in
April 2016 when in a The White House press release, President Barak Obama stated that "research shows that children’s interests, ambitions, and skills can be shaped early on by the media they
16 consume and the toys with which they play, potentially influencing everything from the subjects they choose to study to the careers they ultimately pursue" (Office of the Press Secretary, 2016).
The White House call came as a proactive step to solving the issue of the under representation of women in the STEM fields. As a result, in 2015 Target stores removed their “girls’ toys” / “boys’ toys” gender labeling section to encourage and promote cross-gender toy interest (Weisgram and
Dinella, 2018). Thus, the type of toys a boy and girl has is not a trivial matter. These toys can affect how children interact with others, their interests, the development of certain skills and gendered outcomes throughout their lives.
2.3 Learning about gender though media, commercials and toy commercials
Television is certainly one of the most persistent socialization agent and source of knowledge for children. According to a Common-Sense Media report released in 2017, children up to eight years old typically spend an average of two hours and 19 minutes every day on live screen media. Further, with the technology advancements and content being moved to other platforms, the screen time for children expands even more (Kahlenberg and Hein, 2010).
A rich source of empirical and theoretical studies shows the great influence that television content has on children and their gender development. Bandura (1999) described many ways in which the interaction with others can influence the children’s development of gender identification, but he also acknowledges mass media as a major source of information that teaches children about human values, behavior patterns and styles of thinking (Bandura, 1999). The various new advanced technology and mass communication platforms became the dominant vehicle for disseminating gender information (Bandura, 1999; Pike and Jennings, 2005), by expanding the range of models to which children are exposed every day. Jean Piaget studied how
17 children make sense of their world and identified four stages of cognitive development in children.
The sensorimotor stage describes the phase in which infants experience the world only through their senses. The preoperational stage involves children age two to seven, a phase when children start to use language and symbols to communicate and understand the world. The last two stages, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage, involve children seven years and older and are described by children’s ability to see casual connections in their surroundings and think abstractly and critically. The second phase, the preoperational stage describes the age group this study is interested in. According to Piaget, when consuming media content, children in the second stage have a difficult time distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Young children believe that imaginary events and characters can be real and through media consumption they attach meaning to the experiences and the objects they see (Calvin, 2008, Macionis, 2017). At this age, children will identify a toy as their favorite because the toy is presented to them in a way that they feel attached to it, but they cannot explain what typology of toys they like (Macionis, 2017).
Research examining the relationship between media exposure and children's awareness of gender hierarchy revealed that children who watch more television than the average child in the
US, are more likely to support the stereotype that “boys and men are better than girls and women”
(Ward and Aubrey, 2017:6). In the same analyses, Ward and Aubrey (2017) concluded that girls who watch video content featuring females in stereotypical roles are less likely to express interest in a STEM field career than girls that watch video content featuring female scientists.
Although the recent Disney princess movies are more progressive and evolved to promote gender equality and the values associate with society today, the older Disney movies such as Snow
White or Cinderella remain extremely popular and their messages are still taught to the new generation. Parents nostalgically keep these stereotypical stories alive, teaching their children more
18 traditional gender roles that impact their development (Coyne, Linder, Rasmussen, Nelson, and
Birkbeck, 2016).
Whether they watch traditional television, TV on demand, or content on online platforms, children are inevitably exposed to commercials that are essential in shaping knowledge about gender and gender roles (Freeman, 2007). Researchers determined that TV ads provide children with models of how to interact with others and influence children’s playing habits, creativity and imagination (Kahlenberg and Hein, 2010).
To attract the young audience, marketers use a variety of techniques including repetition, branded characters, or celebrity endorsements (Calvert, 2008). According to the cultivation theory, the repetition of themes and stereotypes found in video content, TV programs or commercials encourages children to cultivate beliefs about the real world that match the video content they watch (Spinner, Cameron and Calogero, 2018). Through this repetition, the gender attitude and beliefs are deeply rooted in a child’s subconscious and become hard to break (Calvert,
2008; Spinner, Cameron and Calogero, 2018). To exemplify his theoretical work of cognitive learning and the way branded characters influence children’s perceptions, Bandura (1999) used the case of SpongeBob SquarePants TV show. According to Bandura, if a child has a positive opinion of the SpongeBob SquarePants character and follows the SpongeBob program, the child is more likely to associate positive feelings to anything SpongeBob promotes, from toys, to clothing and food.
Studies trying to understand the way children comprehend television ads concluded that children under eight years old do not understand the selling intent of commercials and believe that the purpose of the commercials is to inform them about the vast number of products they can purchase or help them with their purchasing decision (Calvert, 2008). The fact that children do not
19 possess cognitive skills to understand the persuasive intent of TV ads makes them an extremely vulnerable audience and a main target for advertisers (Calvert, 2008; Danovitch and Mills, 2014).
Data shows that children have become an important market niche, with more than $17 billion a year spent on advertising and marketing to youth (Linn, 2008). Today children often have their own money to spend or have a strong influence on the purchase habits of their parents (Linn, 2008).
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is the agency of The United States
Government in charge of regulating all means of communications and protecting the public interest
(Ramsey, 2006). Because of age-based limits in children’s ability to understand the purpose of commercials, since 1970 the FCC has started to protect the young audience, issuing several policies asking networks to make a clear transition between the advertisement and the program content and to limit the commercials during the program directed at children (Calbert, 2008). The main rule limits the amount of commercial time aired during a children’s program to 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays. This rule applies to cable as well as digital television (Calvert, 2008; Ramsey, 2006).
The few studies conducted on toy commercials concluded that TV toy ads reinforce the traditional gender stereotypes. The toy market is divided in clearly gendered segments, where advertisers teach children and parents that toys and playing are gender specific and each gender needs a different type of toys (Pike and Jennings, 2005; Calvert, 2008; Etheridge, 2015;
Zimmermann, 2017). In commercials featuring children, girls are more likely to be showed indoors, in domestic settings, while boys are showed outdoors in active type of activities.
(Etheridge, 2015; Kahlenbers and Hein, 2010). Regarding behavior, girls are more likely to engage in cooperative types of activities, while boys are portrayed in more competitive or violent interaction (Etheridge, 2015). There patterns have been also confirmed in the toy advertisements,
20 which in most cases feature children engaging in stereotypical activities and interaction (Davis,
2016).
Studies conducted on the language used in toy commercials suggest that specific linguistic styles characterize the communication of males and females (Owen and Padron, 2016; Etheridge,
2015). Owen and Pardon (2016) claim that the choice of words in TV commercials reflects the traditional gender role stereotypes and aligns with the hierarchical power structures that position males as the dominant class and females as subordinate. The words describing the girl’s interaction with toys emphasize nurturance, emotional expressivity and passivity and the female narrative contains more social words, and adjective referring to physical appearance, fantasy, and
“supporting stereotypes of females as emotional, social” (Owen and Padron, 2016: 70). Similarly,
Etheridge (2015) found that the keywords used in the commercials featuring girls focused on appearance and beauty (fashion, accessories), relationship (love, friends, and friendship) and magic and fantasy (magic, dream).
Owen and Padron (2015) also found that in toy commercials, girls use mainly first-person plural pronouns (we, us, ours), as their overall activity is team oriented and focuses on collaboration with others. The same study concluded that the analysis of the adjectives used suggests that female characters use emotional related adjectives, while males use adjectives associated with action, power, independence and logic. Owen and Pardon (2015) also concluded that in the toy advertisements targeted towards girls the language used numerous intensifier adverbs like very, quite, really, and pretty to facilitate the expression of emotions. In contrast, the language used in toy commercials targeting boys use imperatives, a direct type of speech giving commands and orders (e.g., Go play! Run to catch!). Stereotypically, the usage of imperatives by males is associated with “competence, power, and dominance” (Owen, Pardon, 2015:70)
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Another way that language can be gendered in commercial is through the voiceover that is used. According to Cambridge English Dictionary, voiceover is a piece of narration in a broadcast, not accompanied by an image of the speaker. The role of the voiceover is used to explain the concept of the new toy, to exemplify how the toy can be used and how the toys can benefit the users. In a commercial, the voiceover plays a critical role, as it has been established that when voiceover and visuals are combined, the brain processes information faster and more effectively
(Wolin, 2003). Previous studies showed that in most cases the gender of the voiceover used in a commercial match the gender of the target audience. Owen and Padron (2016) and Etheridge
(2015) concluded that in toy commercials the gender categorization of the toy always match the gender of the voiceover.
The marketing and gender labels affect children’s decisions about the toys they pick to purchase or play with (Etheridge, 2015). Although feminist movements have changed the way women are portrayed in media and commercials over the years, studies have shown that toy commercials still portrayed boys and girls in stereotyped roles (Pike and Jennings, 2005,
Etheridge, 2015; Zimmermann, 2017). In toy advertisements the stereotypes can be based on color of the toys advertised, but also based on the action of the commercials, the language, or subtle features as the voiceover or production features (Pike and Jennings, 2005; Kahlenberg and Hein,
2010)
2.4 Disney Junior Channel
Walt Disney Company is one of the world’s more powerful corporation in entertainment, with a stock market value of $173.4 billion reported in mid-2018. (Beattie, 2018). Disney’s primary target market is children age three to 14, a group for which the company provides products
22 varying from clothing, books, toys and games, to entertainment and vacations. With such great influence and control over the US market, it is not surprising that Disney’s content inspires “as much cultural authority and legitimacy for teaching specific roles, values, and ideals” as public schools, families or religious institutions (Bazzini, Curtin, Joslin, Regan, Marts, 2010:4690).
In the entertainment sector, the Disney Company addresses each of their target groups through different age appropriate channels. In 2012, Walt Disney launched the Disney Junior channel, a station that targets children two to seven years old. With the new channel, Disney representatives claimed that the channel aims to secure the loyalty of the preschoolers, as they are expected to further migrate to the Disney Channel, Disney X and ABC Family. According to Cable
Network Coverage Area Household Universe Estimates, in January 2016 Disney Junior was available to 74 million households in the U.S. According to the same source, from its first year
Disney Junior became the most watched channel in its age group, defeating its competitor, Nick
Jr.
Anne Sweeney, the president of Disney-ABC Television Group, claimed in 2013 that
Disney Junior first original content has been developed based on extensive research, with over 450 hours of testing concepts and more than 700 children and 300 parents involved in this process.
These studies showed that parents became less focused in programs that promote academic goals and more in emotion-based storytelling that teach social values and good behavior. As a result, the mission statement of Disney Junior focuses on social values, strong storytelling, and characters that resonates with the young audience. According to Sweeney, the channel’s goal is to promote characters with good values, and gender and race equality (Barnes and Chozick, 2013). Thus,
Disney Junior brings to the children’s media market content that promotes race and gender equality and open new horizons for minority children and girls.
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Doc McStuffins, one of Disney Junior’s first original releases has followed the channel’s mission statement and presents a counter stereotypical story that empower a vulnerable group of children. The main character, an African American girl is a doctor to her toy animals, while her mother is a real doctor and her father is a stay-at-home parent. According to Lenish (2010), counter stereotypical content changes the traditional stereotypes by promoting strong capable characters that are not following the social role expectations. Research has suggested that when children are exposed to counter stereotypical messages, they become more malleable and express less gender- typed views towards others (Spinner, Cameron, 2018). Ward and Aubrey (2017) found that
African American and Latino children consume more media than white children and most of the media content feature Blacks and Latinos in a negative context and stereotypical situations. For black little girls and girls in general, Doc McStuffins became an inspirational role model. In 2014
Time magazine named Doc McStuffins, the toy reproduction of Doc McStuffins character, one of the most influential toys of all time.
Following the success of Doc McStuffins, the Disney Junior channel continued to create content that followed the same path. Miles of Tomorrowland, launched in 2015, was created after consultation with Google and NASA. The show features an adventure-seeking boy, his sister who is a technology whiz, and mother who drives the family spaceship (Kang, 2015). This series also is consistent with Lenish’s (2010) characteristics of counter stereotypical content, as the feature female characters lead and initiate actions while male characters collaborate with girls and resolve conflicts in non-aggressive ways.
According to Walt Disney Company, the Disney channel and Disney Junior are non-ad- supported channels. This means that the channels are sponsored by the main corporation and they have control over what advertisements they air. Disney acknowledged the powerful role that their
24 stations play in influencing children's behavior; in 2012 Disney imposed new strict standards for food and beverage advertising and claimed not to accept sponsorships or advertisements for foods that do not meet certain healthiness guidelines (Poggi, Schultz, 2012).
The advertisements aired on Disney Junior follow the same marketing model as the Disney channel. The network focuses on limited commercials and air 15-second advertisements every 30 minutes. The commercials never interrupt a program and end most of the time with the statement: “
(Friedman, 2014).
Overall, the Disney Junior channel has been progressive with their content development.
The network produces counter stereotypical content and uses an advertising strategy that reduces the program interruption. This analysis aims to determine if the gendered messages and mission statement on Disney Junior is still conveyed in the commercials the network airs. As previous studies suggest, the television content and toys play critical roles in shaping the gender identity of children. For this reason, it is important to understand what message advertising are sending to children about gender roles when watching toy commercials on television. As social learning theory suggests, the characters in TV commercials are role models to the little viewers. The behaviors, language and actions are elements that children will observe, memorize and most likely imitate. Next to these elements, the gender labels added to toys will influence and reinforce gender roles. The colors and typology of the toys advertised add to the content of the commercials and become for little children ideal images of what their behavior and play should be like. A stereotypical representation of gender and gender roles can dramatically influence the development of children, carrying social gender inequality to the future generation.
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CHAPTER 3 - METHODS This study is a content analysis conducted to examine the female gender role stereotypes found in the toy commercials aired on the Disney Junior channel. The commercials are analyzed based on the overall action and play, language, and the way the female characters interact with the other characters. The final part of this analysis aims to determine whether the advertised toys are gendered and if the gender orientation of the toys influences the action of the commercial and the way children interact.
3.1 Research questions In order to analyze the commercials based on all the criteria mentioned above, this thesis embrace one main overarching research question and four sub-questions that address specific topics. The main research question to be answered in this study is:
Do the ads challenge the conventional gender roles?
In order to answer this overarching question, this analysis will address the following:
1. Is the play with the toys gendered?
2. Do the ads use stereotypically gendered language?
3. How are the girls interacting with others? (other girls, boys, adults)
4. Are the toys gendered?
5. Does the gender orientation of the toys influence the interaction and action of
the commercial?
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3.2 Sample This study examines the toy commercials aired on the Disney Junior channel during one week from Saturday, September 1, 2018 to Friday, September 7, 2018 between 8am to 8pm. This time block corresponded with the Labor Day week, a holiday that extended the weekend break with one day. The Labor Day holiday is not a holiday associated with toys. Therefore, no commercial or toy was related to the Labor Day holiday.
The sample used for this study consists of 25 unique commercials aired on the Disney
Junior channel during the chosen week. For a convenient and in-depth analyses, all advertisements have been recorded. In the sample, there are 18 ads featuring girls only and 7 ads featuring boys and girls. During the sampling week, only two commercials featured only boys on Disney Junior channel. Given the small number of commercials featuring boys only, the sample does not contain this category and no analysis is conducted on toy commercials featuring only boys.
Disney Junior, as a non-ad-supported and limited commercials channel, follows the advertisement model in which the ads never interrupt the program. The commercials are approximately 15 seconds long and air in block of two to four ads every 30 minutes. In the time frame used for this data gathering, one or two toys ads appeared in every commercial block. Most of the toy commercials repeated throughout the day several times. No video games were advertised during the sampling period. All toys are physical toys or accessories that can be used for playing.
3.3 Coding frame The operational definitions for the coding process were established based on past research and existing definitions. The content of the commercials was coded to analyze the female characters in relationship to the gendered typology of toys they played with, the interaction with the advertised toys, the overall action / storyline of the commercial, and the language used.
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As this analysis found that the Disney Junior Channel airs re-edited versions of the original toy commercials, I also analyze the full-length commercials to compare the two versions. Through this comparison I aim to see if the re-edited version eliminates or brings new elements of gender stereotypes to the Disney Junior airing of the advertisements. Next, I will explain how the commercials will be analyzed to answer each research question.
3.3.1 Is the play with the toys gendered?
This first analysis aims to determine whether the girls featured in the toy commercials aired on Disney Junior are presented in stereotypical roles, actions and situations. Previous studies conducted to analyze how women and girls are featured in advertisements concluded that females are mainly shown indoors, in domestic settings, doing static activities that focus on cooperation and integration (Etheridge, 2015; Kahlenbers and Hein, 2010). In toy commercials girls are involved mainly in stereotypically feminine activities like decorating/ drawing, dressing/brushing hair, applying make-up or jewelry, dancing, singing, talking, role playing domestic tasks (e.g., cooking, cleaning), and cuddling toys/ dolls (Etheridge, 2015). When girls play with boys, their playing activity is based on cooperation and it is presented as family time (Kahlenbers and Hein,
2010).
This analysis examines the location, activity, and type of play in the analyzed commercials.
Location refers to whether the setting is indoor or outdoor, the activity analyzes whether the action is static or active and the type of play addresses whether the play is group or individual oriented.
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Table 1 Categories Used to Analyze Location, Activity, and Type of Play
Location Activity Type of Play
Indoor vs. Outdoor Static vs. Active Group vs Individual play
Activity is considered static or passive if the children are in seated position with slow gestures or if vertically positioned with no movement (e.g., reading a book, playing with a doll), while it is deemed active if the child shows more movement than in the passive one. Type of play considers if the girl appears individually by herself or if multiple children are playing in the commercial.
The list with stereotypical female activities has been created based on Etheridge’s (2015) study. Stereotypical female activities include activities such as: dressing up/ brushing hair/ applying make-up or jewelry, dancing / singing, domestic tasks role playing such as cooking and cleaning, decorating /drawing, and cuddling toys or dolls. This analysis uses the stereotypical female activities, along with the location, activity, and type of play to examine if the play depicted in the toy commercials is gendered.
3.3.2 Do the ads use stereotypically gendered language?
As previous studies focused on specific linguistic styles that characterize the communication of males and females, this analysis examines the language used by children and voiceovers in the analyzed commercials. Studies showed that the language describing the interaction of girls stereotypically emphasize friendship, nurturance, emotional expressivity and passivity, and use numerous adjectives referring to physical appearance and fantasy (Etheridge,
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2015). In the ads featuring girls the language use intensifier adverbs like very, quite, really, and pretty, while the language used in ads featuring boys use imperatives, a direct type of speech giving orders such as: Go!, Run! (Owen, Pardon, 2015). The studies mentioned above also claimed that in most cases the gender of the voiceover used in a commercial match the gender of the target audience.
In addition, I will conduct a word cloud analysis of the Disney Junior toy commercials.
The word cloud analysis is a visual representation of the text data gathered from the analyzed commercials, where the size of each word represents the frequency it was used in the sample. In this analysis, the large size words represent the words that occur most often in the sample, and vice-versa. The software used for this analysis is a free online word cloud generator named wordclouds.com.
This study aims to determine whether the language used in these commercials is stereotypically gender and aligns with the conclusions found in the previous studies. The analysis examines the use of verbs, adverbs and adjectives and analyzes the predominant words to determine if the commercials use stereotypical gendered language.
3.3.3 How are the girls interacting with others? (Other girls, boys, adults)
The analyzed commercials feature an individual girl, children (girls or at least a boy and a girl) or at least one girl and an adult. The commercials where the characters are not fully shown are eliminated from this part of the analysis, but they are included in other analyses. The analysis of interaction with these characters uses the four interaction categories developed by Larson
(2001): cooperative, competitive, parallel or independent. Commercials are coded as cooperative when the girls work and play together with other girls or boys; competitive when the girls are
30 focused on defeating another participant; independent when the ad features only one girl character; and parallel when there are two or more characters appear in the scene, but not interacting with one another. When children are engaged in a competitive type of play, the analysis will examine if there is a winner in the play. For each of the above types of interactions, the characters are analyzed based on the language used for direct communication and their facial expression.
The facial expression analysis is based on Paul Ekman’s proposed list of basic emotions, published in 1990, and comprises the six main facial expressions to express emotion: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. The analysis takes into account all the emotions displayed by the characters, considering that there might be cases where the characters display various different emotions or there might be situations in which the emotions of the characters change with action. The existing literature suggests that girls are more likely to outwardly express more cheerfulness and joy, while the boys are more likely to exhibit sentiments of anger and aggression. Also, girls have higher rates of showing anxiety and sadness than boys (Chaplin and Aldao, 2012)
3.3.4 Are the toys gendered?
This part of the analysis aims to determine if the toys in the Disney Junior commercials are gendered. To determine the gender categorization of the toys, this analysis combines two existing coding systems developed by Blackmore and Centers (2005) and Austin Mansback (2012). As toys are sometimes cross gendered (e.g., cars that are targeted towards girls) and have design elements and colors that will make them more suitable for a specific gender, a more complete categorization of toys should combine the two criteria.
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Blackmore and Centers (2005) created a list with 126 toys categorized based on typology as strongly masculine, moderately masculine, neutral, moderately feminine and strongly feminine.
To categorize the toys, their study used a rating scale that measured the toy’s characteristics on whether they were suitable for boys, girls or both. Overall, the study concluded that strongly feminine toys are the toys associated with physical attractiveness, nurturance, and domestic skills, while strongly masculine toys are associated with violence, competitiveness and dangerous activities. The moderate masculine or feminine toys are the toys that contain both feminine and masculine characteristics but inclined more towards one gender than the other. The neutral toys are the toys rated as being equally suitable for boys and girls. Austin and Mansbach (2012) used past literature to color-code the toys advertised on the Disney Store website. The authors argue that the color palette and the predominant color of the toys are important aspect of gendered learning. Based on color, children associate toys with one gender or the other. The study concluded that girls’ toys are soft pastels, mostly pink and purple and have glitter, while boys’ toys have bold and strong colors, mainly red, black and brown, and neutral toys are mainly white, tan, green or orange.
In Table 2 and Table 3 are examples of typologies of toys created by Blackmore and
Centers (2010) and the color characteristics developed by Auster and Mansbach (2012).
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Table 2 Typologies of Toys According to Blackmore and Center (2010)
Examples of Toys as Categorized by Blackmore and Centers (2010)
Strongly Moderately Neutral Moderately Strongly Feminine Feminine Masculine Masculine
Fashion dolls Toy kitchen Doctor Kit Car toy Toy soldiers Tea sets Ken Dolls Music Train set Toy weapon instruments Make up toys Toy store Ball Tool kit Cash Register Jewelry toys Vacuum cleaner Construction toy Sword Board Games Vanity set Veterinarian kit WWF Figures Cards Play house Microscope Plush toy Interactive toy
Table 3 Toy Color Characteristics Based on Auster and Mansbach (2012)
Feminine Neutral Masculine
soft pastels Tan bold colors glitter Orange red pink Green black purple White brown lavender gray yellow tan blue
Because the color of the toy is important in the process of toy categorization, it is useful to visually assign a color for the categories of toys created by Blackmore and Center (2005).
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Therefore, I purpose a gender typology of toys that combines both the category of toy as suggested by Blackmore and Center (2005) and the color of the toy that Auster and Mansbach (2012) emphasize. Thus, a toy kitchen play-set which is categorized as moderately feminine on
Blackmore and Center’s (2005) typology can move to strongly feminine category if its design contains glitter or other strongly feminine features on my new combined categorization scheme. Furthermore, a pink tea set is more feminine than the strongly feminine neutral colored tea set. Therefore, as shown in Table 4, two new categories of toys—extremely feminine and extremely masculine—are added to Blackmore and Center’s table that expands their typology be adding color to the gendered assessment of toys. The new categorization of toys developed is used to determine if the toys advertised are gendered and to assign levels of masculinity or femininity to the toys in the sample.
Table 4 The New Expanded Toy Categories
Extremely Strongly Moderately Neutral Moderately Strongly Extremely
feminine feminine feminine masculine masculine masculine
3.3.5 Does the gender orientation of the toys influence the interaction and action of the commercial?
Furthermore, the new developed gender categorization of the toys is used to answer the overarching question and assess whether the action and interaction of the ads differ when the toys advertised have different gender orientation. The analysis compares the action of the ads featuring toys found in each category and determine if there are differences in location, activity, language,
34 interaction and type of play. All these criteria are measured using the same tools as in the previous questions of this content analysis.
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CHAPTER 4 - ANALYSIS
In order to answer the overarching question of this study and determine if the toy ads aired on the Disney Junior channel challenge the conventional gender roles, I will have to answer all the underlying research questions mentioned earlier in the methods section. First, I will analyze the overall action of the commercials and see if playing with toys is portrayed as a stereotypically gendered activity. Furthermore, I will turn my attention to the language used in these commercials and the interaction between the characters and the advertised toys. The final underlying question of this analysis aims to determine if the gender orientation of the toy advertised influences the overall action and interaction featured in the analyzed sample.
The analysis in this thesis examines the commercials in the sample based on two categories: commercials featuring girls only and commercials featuring boys and girls. The conclusions are drawn for each category separately, but also as a whole. Whenever is appropriate, the analysis compares the two group, aiming to find the differences and common elements between the ads featuring girls only and the ads featuring girls and boys playing together. The sample consists the toy listed in Table 5. Throughout this analysis I might refer at some point to the names of these commercials, which also match the name of the toy advertised.
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Table 5. Disney Junior Toy Commercials by Gender of the Children
ADS FEATURING GIRLS ONLY ADS FEATURING BOYS AND GIRLS Barbie Dreamhouse Giggle Wiggle Barbie New Born Pups Go! Go! Smart Wheels Calico Critters Little People Take Turns Skyway Fancy Nancy Doll Lucky Ducks Fingerlings Pandas and Dragons Mr. Bucket Hairdorables Yeti in My Spaghetti Hatchimals Yeti Set Go Lego Friends Lil Gleemerz Little Live Pets My Fairy Garden My Little Pony Singing Dash Party Pop Polly Pocket Shopkins Cutie Cars Shimmers Tiny Toes Twisty Petz
4.1 Is the play with the toys gendered?
This first part of the analysis aims to determine if the toy commercials break the main gender stereotypes, by analyzing if the girls are featured indoor or outdoor, in static or active type of activity and in individuals or group type of play. For this analysis, two of the commercial, Barbie
New Born Pups and Shopkins Cutie Cars, are eliminated, as they don’t present full size characters, but only a hand or a half body playing with the toys. Thus, this analysis consists of 16 commercials featuring girls, and seven commercials featuring boys and girls.
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Table 6. Disney Junior Ads by Gender of Children and Location, Activity, and Type of Play
Indoor vs. Outdoor Static vs. Active Individual vs. Group
Ads featuring girls only 13 vs. 3 15 vs. 1 2 vs. 14
Ads featuring girls and boys 7 vs. 0 5 vs. 2 Not applicable
When playing with other girls, the female characters featured in the toy commercials aired on the Disney Junior channel tend to be shown indoors (13 out of 16), in static type of activity (14 out of 16) and involved in a type of play that focuses on cooperation (14 out of 16). If the setting is supposed to be outdoors, the commercials use chroma key, a technique by which a block of a color in a video can be replaced by an image. In two of the ads (Barbie Dreamhouse and Little
Live Pets), although the characters are human, the outdoor scene is an animated background. The third commercial to feature girls playing outside is Lego Friends, a fully animated commercial.
In 14 out of 16 commercials, the girls are shown in a static activity. In My Fairy Garden,
Polly Pockets and Tiny Toes for example, the girls sit or stand playing gently with the advertised toys. Even when playing with action-oriented toys like cars, the girls sit moving their hands and upper body in gentle ways. In the analyzed sample, only two commercials had the girls featured in active type of play. In the My Little Pony Singing Dash commercial, the girls dance while singing into the microphone and in the Lego Friends commercial the girls are shown walking towards a building sector.
In 14 out of 16 commercials, the action of play is cooperation oriented. In these commercials, the girls interact and play together. This cooperation is also highlighted by the language, as the voiceover focuses on words like friendship and team work. In Fancy Nancy Doll and Barbie Dreamhouse, girl is featured playing by themselves, while the voiceover introduces
38 the advertised doll and character figure as a potential friend. Thus, even in these two exceptions the play is not solely individual.
To analyze the activity the girls are engaged in, this analysis refers strictly to the commercials featuring girls only. Table 7 describes the activity of each commercial and answers whether the activity is stereotypically feminine or not. In half of the commercials (9 out of 18) the action was stereotypically feminine. In five commercials, the girls were featured cuddling dolls, stuffed animals or animal figures; in three commercials, their activity focused on jewelry or beauty, while in one commercial the girls were featured singing and dancing. None of the commercials showed girls doing domestic tasks, activities that were found predominantly in previous studies conducted on toys.
In all the commercials featuring girls playing with boys the action takes place indoors.
Even when the activity is action oriented, like in the Mr. Bucket commercial in which the children need to run and pick up balls, the action is still indoors. The other commercials where boys and girls are featured playing together have static activity in which children are shown sitting in a circle, most of the times at the table. The physical movement of the characters focuses on upper body and hands. In three of the commercials screening boys and girls playing together, a woman is shown in the action. However, the adult is not part of the play but has the role of a supervisor or coordinator.
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Table 7. Disney Junior Ads Featuring Only Girls by Activity and Gender Stereotyping
Stereotypically Commercial Activity Feminine
Barbie Dreamhouse Playing with play house set No
Barbie New Born Pawls Barbie helps a dog give birth No
Calico Critters Playing with miniature figures and house No
Fancy Nancy Doll Cuddling a doll Yes
Fingerlings Pandas and Dragons Cuddling toys Yes
Hairdorables Brushing hair Yes
Hatchimals Interacting with toy pet No
Lego Friends Playing with building set No
Lil Gleemerz Cuddling toy pet Yes
Little Live Pets Cuddling toy pet Yes
My Fairy Garden Planting flower No
My Little Pony Singing Dash Singing and dancing Yes
Party Pop Playing with play set No
Polly Pocket Playing with miniature dolls No
Shopkins Cutie Cars Playing with cars No
Shimmers Playing with sequins toys and accessories Yes
Tiny Toes Cuddling toys Yes
Twisty Petz Playing with Jewelry Yes
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4.2 Do the ads use stereotypically gendered language?
All of the toy commercials aired on the Disney Junior channel use a female voiceover. The toy ads aired on the Disney Junior channel are not the original commercials found on the manufacturer's website, but a re-edited version tailor made for the channel. The commercials aired on the Disney Junior channel use the images of the original version of the ads, which are edited to fit the 15 seconds time frame imposed by the channel. The music and the voiceover used to present the advertised toys or the action of the commercial are similar or the same in most of the analyzed ads. Every commercial in the sample end with the statement “
Junior’s re-edited version uses a female voice and changed the language and speech. Most of the toy commercials aired on the Disney Junior channel use the same interaction approach and promotes messages that focus on friendship, laugh, love, having fun, discover and getting together.
In most of the toy ads, whether the girls were playing with other girls or with boys, the language emphasizes friends and friendship (21 mentions). The messages relate to making new friends, having fun with friends, playing with friends, or seeing the advertised toy as a potential friend. This emphasis on friendship and collaboration supports the idea of group play identified in the analysis of action. Thus, in the Disney Junior commercials playing is described as collective activity meant to bring children together and create or support friendships.
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The commercials featuring girls only use mainly linking or helping verbs, which are used to express a state of being, not action (e.g., “make a memory,” “can make a friend,” “can be awesome,” and “can be anything”). Contrary, in the ads where girls and boys play together, most of the verbs express action and use imperatives: “go,” “play,” “move,” and “laugh.” Examples of different narratives used in the analyzed commercials can be found in Table 8.
Table 8. Examples of Language Used in Disney Junior Commercials
Ads Featuring Girls Playing with Other Ads Featuring Girls Playing with Boys
Girls
Add a little sparkle to your life. Find your Laugh, move and play! Being active with inspiration and let your creativity shine your friends is the best way to have a blast. through. Have a laugh and kick it off with your Everything can be so fun, when you're friends, because good times are meant to be hanging out with your friends. shared.
Spending time with your bff, can light up any Get ready! Let's go! When you team up with day. good friends, you’ll be on the right track to fun. When you use your imagination, you can be anything. Be silly and have a laugh. Because good times are made to be shared. Life is a party and you are invited. Everything is more fun with your friends by your side.
A best friend can light up your world. When you laugh together, you’re having a great time.
When analyzing adjectives, the toy ads featuring girls only use more adjectives than the toy ads featuring boys and girls playing together. A popular adjective to describe physical characteristics of the toys was “sparkle;” and it was used to define six toys in the sample. Other popular adjectives used in the analyzed ads are: “amazing,” “awesome,” “special” and “unique,”
42 each with at least three mentions in the commercials. Below are word cloud analyses done on the common words used in toy ads featuring girls only and the ads featuring girls and boys, with the larger words representing the words that occur most often. Figure 1 shows the words that occur the most in commercials with girls playing alone or with other girls. Some of the most frequently used words in these commercials are friend/s, little, having fun, discover, fairy and love. On the other hand, the word cloud analysis in Figure 2 indicates that some of frequently used words in toy ads with both girls and boys are laugh, go play, good time, go, fun, and move.
Figure 1. Common Words Used in Toy Ads Featuring Girls
Playing Alone or with Other Girls
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Figure 2. Common Words Used in Toy Ads Featuring Girls Playing with Boys
4.3 How are the girls interacting with others? (Other girls, boys, adults)
This section explores the type of interaction exhibited by the children featured in the toy commercials and analyzes the facial expression children display when interacting with one another or with toys. This analysis excludes the commercials where the characters are not shown fully or where the children do not have visible facial expressions. The two eliminated ads are: Barbie New
Born Pups and Cutie Cars.
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Table 9. Disney Junior Ads by Gender of Children and Type of Interaction
Types of Interaction
Cooperative Competitive Parallel Independent
Ads Featuring Girls Only 4 out of 16 0 10 out of 16 2 out of 16
Ads Featuring Girls and Boys 2 out of 7 5 out of 7 0 Not appropriate
In most of the girl only commercials (10 out of 16), the girls are shown together, but not involved in a cooperative action, but in parallel type of play. The girls have their own toys and play with each toy individually, while being together. When involved in cooperative type of play
(4 out of 16 ads), the girls either build something that requires team work (Lego Friends, Little
Fairy Garden) or sing together (My Little Pony Singing Dash). Only when shown in cooperative type of play do the girls interact verbally. In My Little Pony Singing Dash the girls sing together, while in the Lego Friends commercial the girls plan to fix a fire station and turn it into a club house. In the rest of the commercials, the girls do not talk, but sometimes they use exclamations
(e.g., “aw,” “oh,” “wow”). None of the commercial portray girls competing with each other.
When girls and boys play together their interaction focuses on cooperation or competition. In four of the five ads depicting competition, the commercials show a boy’s reaction after winning the game. The only image that shows a girl possibly celebrating a win is in Yeti, Set,
Go ads, but the girl is filmed from behind for a very short period. The original version of this commercial, Yeti, Set, Go featured a girl winning, but the Disney Junior version of the ad eliminated this moment. In no other commercial girls are shown winning or celebrating a successful attempt in their play. Below are pictures with some of the children celebrating from the
45 analyzed commercials. The bottom right picture shows the back of girl with her hand in the air celebrating.
Figure 3. Children Celebrating in Disney Junior Commercials
In all the commercials in the sample, the children express happiness. When the toy is designed to reveal a surprise (e.g. Hatchmals), the children will also display surprise in their facial expression. Since all characters display happiness while playing with the toy or interacting with others, no other conclusion can be drawn from this analysis. The boys did not exhibit expressions of anger or aggression as suggested in the past studies, breaking the traditional gender stereotypes of emotion display.
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Table 10. Disney Junior Ads by Gender of Children and Facial Expressions
Facial Expressions
Happiness Sadness Fear Surprise Anger Disgust Unclassified
Ads Featuring Girls 16 0 0 6 0 0 0 Only
Ads Featuring Girls 7 0 0 3 0 0 0 and Boys
4.4 Are the toys gendered?
This part of the analysis aims to determine whether the toys advertised are gendered and whether the gender orientation of the toys advertised influence the overall action of the ads and girls’ interaction with the toys and the other characters. The toys advertised in the sample have been categorized based on the two existing studies: Blackmore and Centers’ (2005) toy typology study and Austin and Mansbach’s (2012) categorization of toys based on color. To combine the two criteria, typology and color, the new schema added two extreme sets: extremely feminine and extremely masculine. The table with the detailed step-by-step categorization of each toy can be found in the appendix, Table 12. In Table 11, the gray section lists the toys in the sample advertised in the commercials featuring girls only, while in the beige section are the toys advertised in the commercials featuring girls and boys playing together.
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Table 11. Disney Junior Ads Categorized by Gendered Typology of Toys
Extremely Strongly Moderately Neutral Moderately Strongly Extremely Feminine Feminine Feminine Masculine Masculine Masculine
Hairdorables Barbie Schopkins Calico Critters Lego Friends Dream Cutie Cars Shimmers House Fingerlings Little Live Pets Pandas and Twisty Petz Fancy Dragons Nancy Doll Hatchimals Tiny Toes Polly My Fairy Pocket Garden
Party Pop Barbie New Born Pups Lil Gleemers My Little Pony Singing Dash
Yeti in my Yeti Set Go Spaghetti Little People Lucky Ducks Take Turns
Go! Go! Smart Mr. Bucket Wheels
Giggle Wiggle
The Disney Junior commercials appear to promote gender stereotyped toys. In advertisements featuring girls only, most of the toys are feminine, varying from moderately to strongly and extremely feminine. Only three ads show girls playing with gender neutral toys, and
Lego Friends is the sole moderately masculine toy featured in a commercial with only girls. In the commercials featuring girls and boys, the advertised toys are gender neutral or moderately masculine.
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A point to consider is the fact that most of the toys from the sample come in different colors and the image of what an individual might have of a toy name and toy brand, might not fit the visual representation of the toy advertised in this sample. For examples, Fingerlings toys come in all colors targeting both boys and girls. In the sample, the commercial features girls only, where some girls play with Fingerling colored with feminine colors, other girls play with Fingerlings colored with masculine colors. Similarly, Lego Friends toys are found in the US market with different colors, from bold to pastel colors, black to pink. In this sample, the Lego Friends construction set advertised on Disney Junior Channel used a mix of feminine and masculine colors.
4.5 Does the gender orientation of the toys influence the interaction and action of the commercial?
In all the ads advertising extremely feminine toys, the girls are engaged in stereotypically feminine type of activities that involved physical appearance. The girls are featured in static activities, indoors, brushing hair and playing with jewelry or accessories. On the other hand, the only toy to have a predominantly masculine characteristic was Lego Friends, which is the only commercial in the sample to breaks the gender role stereotypes. In this ad a group of girls are shown walking towards a damaged fire station, planning to fix it and turn it into a club house.
Thus, in this commercial, girls are shown active, walking outdoors, interacting verbally and planning to use creativity in an activity that is not stereotypically feminine.
In the other categories, strongly feminine, moderately feminine and neutral, no patterns in action or interaction can be identified. Overall, the girls are shown indoors and in static activities.
The language used in the ads promoting a strongly feminine toy is similar to the language used in the ads promoting gender neutral toys. Similarly, the interaction is very similar in all of the ads;
49 all girls displayed happy and/or surprised facial expressions, with limited or no verbal communication.
All of the toys advertised in the commercials featuring girls and boys playing together have been categorized as neutral or moderately masculine. Whether children play with neutral or moderately masculine toys, they are represented in the same way. The action and interaction of these commercials present children in static action, in cooperative type of play or competition.
Since these elements of action and interaction were fairly equally shared in the two categories, no pattern can be attached to this gender categorization.
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CHAPTER 5 - DISCUSSION
This content analysis examined toy commercials aired on the Disney Junior channel to deduce the extent to which these advertisements refute the traditional gender stereotypes. The analysis of my four underlying research questions suggest that the toy commercials in the sample promote gender role stereotypes, following similar stereotypical patterns as found the previous studies conducted on the topic (Austin and Mansbach, 2012, Kahlenberg and Hein, 2010,
Etheridge, 2015). In most of the analyzed commercials, the female characters are presented in stereotypical ways, following the conventional gender roles. When playing with other girls, the female characters are shown mainly indoors, in static type of activity and involved in a group- oriented type of play. When girls are shown playing by themselves, the toys advertised—a doll and a feminine character figure--are presented as potential friends through verbal language. Thus, even in these situations the action is not individual; the girls still interact in play, but with a fictional character.
In half of the commercials the girls are shown in stereotypically feminine types of activities, with the focus being on their physical appearance or the physical appearance of their dolls, cuddling toys or dancing and singing. When girls and boys play together, their activity is sometimes presented as family time. In specific cases, an adult female character is presented at the playing scene, but not part of the play, only for supervision.
The analysis of the language used in the toy commercial aired on the Disney Junior channel lines up with the finding of previous studies (Kahlenberg and Hein, 2010, Etheridge, 2015). In the ads featuring girls the language focuses on friendship and uses an abundance of adjectives, while in the ads featuring boys the language is more action oriented. Although the commercials are edited by the Disney Junior channel, the language and message approach are different in the commercials
51 where girls play with other girls than when the girls play with boys. This analysis concludes that the analyzed ads used distinctive language styles for the two categories of commercials to match the traditional gender roles and stereotypes. When girls are featured playing with other girls the narratives use linking verbs and intensifier adverbs to highlight the expression of emotions.
Contrary, when girls and boys are shown playing together the narrative approach changes and the language uses action verbs and imperatives to focus on action.
The language and action analysis show that in the Disney Junior commercials playing is described as collective activity meant to create and support friendships and bring children together.
In most commercials, the narratives of the ads focus on friendship and cooperation and show children being together in groups. However, in most of the cases, the activity of the ads shows the girls involved in parallel type of play, not cooperation as suggested in previous studies (Etheridge,
2015). The girls are together, but they play individually with their own toys. Only when the girls are engaged in cooperative type of play, they will verbally interact. Otherwise, the only verbal interaction will be exclamations. When boys and girls play together, they are involved in cooperative or competition activity. When competing, in six out of seven commercials the boys are shown winning the game. In all these cases all the children expressed happiness. This is a strong stereotype that highlights the social expectations of gender socialization. Boys’ engagement in play focus on winning; the boys are pressured to aim for a win in the activities they are involved in, while girls are encouraged to be passive and accept the defeated with a smile on their face. This social pressure plays an important role in the development of children. Today, society expects women to effectively complete with men, but growing up girls are socialized to accept the fact that they are expected to underperform when competing with boys.
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The Disney Junior channel claimed to aspire to not only entertain, but also to inspire and educate their young audience. The network's mission statement promotes gender and race equality by airing content meant to empower minorities. Many original Disney Junior series present female lead characters in positions of power, breaking the traditional gender stereotypes that have been part of the Disney brand. The female characters of Disney Junior do not wait to be saved by a prince, because they have the power to be independent. Doc McStuffins is an African American doctor for her toys, Sofia the First is the atypical independent and strong princess, while Loretta is a tech-savvy girl who uses her computer skills to discover hidden planets.
Although Disney Junior is officially presented as a non-ad-supported channel, the toy commercials aired by the network do not fit the channel's mission statement. Furthermore, Disney
Junior does not air the original commercials produced by the toy manufacturers, but an edited version to which the channel adds sound and the voiceover. Surprisingly, this analysis found the language of the commercials extremely stereotypical. The narratives and message in the toy commercials featuring girls only focus on expressing the state of being, while in the commercials featuring girls and boys playing, the narratives become action oriented. It might be difficult for
Disney Junior to re-edit the video images and eliminate the gender stereotypes that are promoted by the manufacturer, but Disney’s video editors could make the ads less stereotypical by using non-stereotypical language. Also, in some cases Disney Junior eliminated the images with girls winning, making the commercials more stereotypical than the manufacturer’s original versions.
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5.1 Limitations and further research
There are several limitations with this research study. Since the sample was gathered from the Disney Junior channel only, these findings are not representative for all toy commercials aired in the US. This study aimed to see whether the mission statement of Disney Junior is applied throughout the channel's entire content, ads included; it did not aim to make a general conclusion on toy commercials and gender stereotypes. Yet, this study started with a general idea that Disney
Junior is expected to be less stereotypical, as it is the only kids’ channel to have their mission statement built around gender equality and girls’ empowerment. Also, the fact that this sample is missing toy commercials featuring boys further limited the overall findings and a narrowed the conclusions of this analysis. Thus, a further study might gather the data from several TV stations and cover all three categories: toy ads featuring girls, toy ads featuring girls and boys and toy ads featuring boys.
Furthermore, to determine the gender orientation of the toys this study combined two existing categorization schemes created on typology and color. As I approached this analysis in a conservative way, I strictly adhered to the two-existing schemes I used. As a result, the categorization of the toys in my sample might not represent the vision others that might have on a specific toy from my sample. In addition, the categorization in this study refers strictly to the toys advertised in the Disney Junior commercials; it does not categorize the entire collection of these brand toys. For example, in this analysis the Fingerlings toys are categorized as gender neutral because they used a mix of feminine and masculine colors, but if the commercial would have featured the Fingerlings colored with only feminine colors, the toy would have been categorized as moderately feminine. Thus, the gender categorization of the toys in this study were restricted to
54 their presentation in a specific commercial on Disney Junior, not the toy in its broadest cultural context.
The gendering of toys is not a stagnant, permanent phenomenon. Some toys have been launched to target only one gender (e.g Lego Friends initially targeted boys only), but with time these toys extended their appeal to both girls and boys. In future studies, researchers might need to update Blackmore and Centers’ (2005) toy typology and push the boundaries of their gender classifications and explore additional elements that might be gendered. Additional criteria that could be considered include the linguistic message and the name of the toy, as these can also send stereotypical messages. For example, in this analysis some of the toys have in their names words that are stereotypically assigned to girls, like Cutie Cars, Fairy Garden, Fancy Nancy. For these types of toys, the name plays an important role, just like the typology and the color.
It must be emphasized that some of the results of this analysis can be caused by other external factors. The analysis revealed that in most of the ads the girls are shown indoors. As this sample was gathered in the fall season, a season with school and cooler weather, it might be the case that the toys advertised were intentionally promoting indoor playing. Similarly, the indoor setting could have also be influenced by the production costs. It is more cost effective to film indoors than outdoors, and also the chroma-key technique is known to be an easy, cheap and effective production tool.
For the language analysis, new software that analyze the voice tone exist on the market. As this study had no technical support to include a tone analysis, and the narratives of all the commercials used female voiceover and communication approaches, it is suggested that further research on language should expand to add an analysis that measure and compare the tone used in the ads targeting girls and ads targeting boys.
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5.2 Conclusion
Overall, this thesis was able to add more data analyses to the limited literature that exists on the study of toy commercials and toy gender categorization. One major contribution this analysis adds to the literature is a more complete coding scheme which can be used for toy categorization based on gender. The previously existing scheme focuses on typology of toy only
(e.g. cars are masculine, dolls are feminine), omitting the fact that color can make, for example a masculine toy gender appropriate for a girl, and vice versa.
When I chose Disney Junior as my data source, I expected to find less stereotypical commercials, as the channel’s mission statement aims to break the social gender stereotypes and empower little girls. What I find problematic is the fact that Disney can have control over the commercials they advertise. The network is non-ad supported, which means that the channel does not rely financially on the revenues coming from advertisers. The fact that in the past Disney has imposed strict rules for food and beverage advertising and claimed to reject commercials that do not meet these criteria (Poggi and Schultz, 2012), makes me believe that Disney Junior has the power to become more selective and accept to advertise only commercials that rise to their mission statement.
Another surprise regarding Disney Junior and my sample was the fact that during the sampling week only two toy commercials featured boys only. Even more surprising is the fact that the channel has a fairly evenly split in TV shows targeting boys and girls, airing during the sampling week TV show like Handy Manny, a series featuring a handyman boy, and The Lion
Guard a series inspired by Disney's 1994 classic known and The Lion King many other TV show targeted towards boys. Yet, during the commercial break of these shows the ads were advertising jewelry, stuffed animal toys featuring girls only or other girls-oriented types of toys. The initial
56 research plan of this thesis was to analyze and compare three categories: toy commercials featuring girls, toy commercials featuring boys and toy commercials featuring girls and boys. The gathered data allowed me to conduct the analysis on only two categories: toy commercials featuring girls and toy commercials featuring girls and boys.
The topic of gendered toys has become a trend and every year valuable data is added to the existed literature. Hopefully, these studies will reach manufactures, retailers, advertisers and more importantly parents, and toys will become just tools meant to develop skills, passions and offer entertain. A society that aims for gender equality, should give all children from early ages the same opportunities to play with toys that are not linked to their gender. If toys continue to teach girls that their expected roles focus on nurturing, domesticity and self-care and boys that they are expected to enjoy competition, action and violence, the gender inequality in society will continue to persist, as well as the gender segregation of workplace.
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APPENDIX
Table 12. Gendered Coding Schemes for Toys
Name of the Toy Typology Based on Color Based on Austin New Blackmore and and Mansbach (2012) + categorization Centers (2005) Other feminine elements
Toys in Commercials Featuring Girls Only
Barbie Dream Moderately feminine Feminine colors Strongly Feminine House and Neutral
Barbie New Born moderately feminine Neutral colors Moderately Pups feminine
Calico Critters Neutral Mix of feminine and Neutral masculine colors
Fingerlings Neutral Mix of feminine and Neutral Pandas and masculine colors Dragons
Cutie Cars Moderately Feminine colors + glitter Moderately masculine feminine
Fancy Nancy Doll Strongly feminine Feminine colors Strongly feminine
Hachimals Neutral Feminine colors Moderately feminine
Hairdorables Moderately feminine Feminine colors + glitter Extremely feminine.
Lego Friends Moderately Mix of feminine and Moderately masculine masculine colors masculine
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Lil Gleemers Moderately feminine Feminine colors Strongly feminine
Little Live Pets Neutral Feminine colors Moderately feminine
My Fairy Garden Neutral Feminine colors Moderately feminine
My Little Pony Neutral Feminine colors Moderately Singing Dash feminine
Party Pop Moderately feminine Feminine colors Strongly feminine
Polly Pocket Moderately feminine Feminine colors Strongly feminine
Shopkins cutie Moderately Feminine colors + glitter Moderately cars masculine feminine
Shimmers Strongly feminine Feminine colors + Extremely sequins feminine.
Tiny Toes Neutral Mix of feminine and Neutral masculine colors
Twisty Petz Strongly feminine Feminine colors + glitter Extremely feminine.
Toys in the Commercials Featuring Girls and Boys
Yeti Set Go Neutral Masculine colors Moderately masculine
Yeti in my Neutral Neutral Neutral Spaghetti
Mr. Bucket Neutral Masculine colors Moderately masculine
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Little People Take Moderately Masculine colors Moderately Turns masculine masculine
Lucky Ducks Neutral Neutral Neutral
Go! Go! Smart Moderately Mix of feminine and Neutral Wheels masculine masculine colors
Giggle Wiggle Neutral Masculine colors Moderately masculine
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