GENDER ROLE CONSTRUCTS OF BOYS AND GIRLS IN TELEVISION COMMERCIALS AIMED AT CHILDREN- A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

The current paper is a comparative analysis of two studies- one conducted by me two decades ago (2002) and the same study carried out again in 2022 that investigated the gender differences in television commercials aimed at children. Both the studies attempted to identify whether there are any patterns in terms of the production, presentation and editing techniques with reference to gender in television commercials specifically aimed at children; to probe the nature of relative patterns within and between sets of data and compare them. Hart (1991) suggested that the underlying meaning in a text, as intended by the producers, could be revealed by identifying and counting any significant textual features. The study attempted to compare the results of the previous study with the current one with the objectives: to (i) find out products associated with girls only, boys only and girls & boys commercials (ii) examine the depiction of boys and girls in these three categories of commercials and compare the results with that of the previous study (iii) dominant settings, activities and governing type of interactions associated with boys and girls in the commercials (iv) examine whether there are any differences in those representations in the current study and if they still continue to be gender stereotyped (v) identify the technical aspects used in these three types of commercials and if there are any changes in the contemporary advertisements when compared to 2002 commercials.