Final Paper

I think we are supposed to post it and turn it in. Here it is

Kristen Mihalco
JOUR4250
12.6.07

The Center of Attention

Summary of findings:
Women in advertisements for alcohol in two high end fashion magazines were the focus of the ad rather than the alcohol itself. The women were depicted as though they were objects, much like the bottle of alcohol, rather than people.

Summary of previous study:
The previous study sone by Jennifer A. Schlenker, Sandra L. Caron, and William A. Halteman (“Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,” 1998) shows that women are depicted as objects leading to lower self-esteem in many adolescents in ads from 1945 to 1995. In this study of several magazines with an audience in prime adolescent years, the issue that women are valued for looks and not other things, is proven (Mann, 1994).

Relation to my study:
The most relevant study using this method of research was done by Pierce (“Socialization of teenage girls through teen-magazine fiction: The making of a new woman or an old-lady?” 1993, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication). This study took magazines such as Seventeen and the late Sassy, to find that they focused primarily on topics such as appearance, finding a man, and household activities.

Study and method:
My study consists of all full page print ads for alcohol with women in them. I used two, high end fashion magazines, Vogue and Vanity Fair, the December 2007 issues. The method was a qualitative and quantitative content analysis, in which, I only looked at ads with women and alcohol. I used a descriptive analysis to analyze the way women were depicted in these ads.

Findings:
In Vanity Fair, I found 5 ads for alcohol with women in them. In ll 5 of these ads, women are depicted as objects, leading the audience to wonder, “Is the woman or the bottle, the object of desire here?” In 2 of the 5 ads, the woman is lying down or on here knees in a very coy position. In 2 other ads, the bottle of alcohol is almost non-existent, with the focus point of the ad being on the women. In both of these ads the men are looking at the women, completely ignoring the bottle, in which she is intending to sell. In the last ad, the women is standing next to a martini class with her entire body in view, but with her face in a shadow almost completely un-visible.
In Vogue, I found similar findings. There were 3 ads for alcohol with women in them and in all three ads the women were clearly the focus. There were 2 ads for wine and one for vodka. The wine ads were a little more classy, but still focused on the features of the woman rather than the bottle of wine. The ad for vodka features four rowdy women with the center being a blond in a red dress straddling the table with the bottle on it. Clearly, the focus here is on the girls and not the vodka.

Conclusion:
This mini-study continues to prove that women are more often, then not, depicted as objects rather than people. While Vanity Fair featured a larger quantity and more explicit ads, both Vanity Fair and Vogue continue to show their readers that women can simply be compared to a bottle of alcohol. Even in ads with both men and women, clearly the woman was the object of the man’s desire. The direction of the man’s eyes is directly toward the woman, though the ad tries to make it appear as though he is looking at the bottle of alcohol. This mini-study also shows women almost a prize for consuming the advertised drink. “Drink this bottle of vodka or wine and women like me, scantily clad, will be all over you.” It’s interesting that 2 very prominent women’s magazines that supposedly celebrate that of being a women, include ads such as the ones in this study, that clearly celebrate being an object. The findings here continue to support the idea of the objectification of women in advertising. Now, in flipping through these magazines I saw a couple of ads for alcoholic beverages that included men and no women. In all of these ads, then men were fully clothed and out of focus from the bottle being advertised. Why is it that women have to be half naked to sell alcohol and men just drink it with their buddies and gave a grand ‘ol time? It would be very interesting to continue this study over several years to see the evolution of these ads. Would they even change at all? Would men, eventually begin to loose clothing and women begin to put some on? I’m willing to bet that the creators of most of these ads aren’t women.


References:

Jennifer A. Schlenker A feminist analysis of Seventeen magazine: content analysis from 1945 to 1995 . Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. Jan 1998. FindArticles.com. 06 Dec. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_n1-2_v38/ai_20816296.

Vanity Fair, December 2007.

Vogue, December 2007.