Observation Journal Essay Discussion

 

SCS 100 Theme 2: Project 2 Exemplar

 

Article Choice

I chose the advertisements that I did because I was interested in how they related gender to

food. Each advertisement is marketing a certain food: gelato, candy bars, or ice cream. Each

advertisement depicts either females alone or females in specific gender roles. I was also

intrigued by the advertisements because I am female and I enjoy eating chocolate. When I have

had a hard day I enjoy coming home and indulging in dessert to comfort myself. Some of the

advertisements portray women as having a desire for sweets, which made me question my own

tendency to desire sweet foods after a hard day at work. Observation Journal Essay Discussion

Assumptions and Observations

 

Audience. Each advertisement has a specific audience to which it appeals. Each

advertisement depicts mostly white actors and actresses. The intended audience of these

advertisements are people who use food as reward. The audience for these advertisements

would most likely be people from a westernized civilization who have excess food to use for

pleasure or reward. For example, people who live in countries where there is not easy access to

plentiful amounts of food would not have the same relationship to food as the people depicted in

these advertisements. There are other aspects of the advertisements that make me think the

intended audience is white and westernized. For example, the marriage in the Milky Way

advertisement appears to be a traditional Christian wedding, based on the presence of a priest

and the decoration of the church. The Freddo Ice Cream advertisement depicts children, all of

them white, and represents a democracy in which people are elected to government positions.

The Celebration advertisement is also showing individuals—all of whom are also white—who

again are using food as a way of celebrating. Finally, the Antonio Federici advertisement is

depicting a white nun being sinful by eating chocolate, which again seems to be portraying a

relationship between indulgence and food. I believe the relationship of food as indulgence is a

more westernized and privileged notion. Based on my observations, I believe the intended

audience for most of these advertisements are middle-class, white women.

 

Message. The message the advertisements are sending all seem to be about the

relationship between people and food. For the Federici advertisement, the message is that

women use rich, sweet food for indulgence and as a “guilty pleasure.” The advertisement even

seems to relate the indulgence of this sweet food with sin by showing a nun who is pregnant.

The Freddo Ice Cream advertisement is also showing a relationship between food and people.

In this advertisement, I observed that the girls are the ones serving food, while the boy is the

one running for office. This advertisement seems to portray a stereotype of women serving

men. It also is showing a relationship between women being the ones to handle the serving and

maybe even the preparation of food. The Celebration advertisement’s message again appears to

show a relationship between women celebrating with food. The ad even shows the girls

celebrating other’s misfortune, thereby seeming to portray females as selfish. The Milky Way

advertisement also depicts a woman as being selfish by indulging in chocolate, which makes

her late for her own wedding. A common message is showing gender stereotypes as they relate

to women and food. Observation Journal Essay Discussion

 

Relationship between people. I believe that in most of these advertisements, the most

important relationship depicted between people is the relationship between sinful females and

others. For example, in the Antonio Federici advertisement, one thinks of an innocent nun who

has sinned. Females are supposed to be innocent and this advertisement taps into the hidden

desires of females. I believe these advertisements also show women as weak compared to their

desires; for example, the women in the Celebration advertisement care only about winning and

do not care about their injured competitor. Although the Freddo Ice Cream advertisement

depicts a different type of gender stereotype, it is still important. The Freddo advertisement

shows females serving males and acting in less important or secondary roles. The relationship

between genders is the most important relationship I observe in these advertisements.

 

Relationship with product. In each of the advertisements, the relationship that I chose

to focus on is the relationship between women and food. The Freddo Ice Cream advertisement

shows females in the traditional secondary role of serving and preparing food, while the male is

in the primary role of running for office. The other three advertisements all portray women as

being selfish and indulgent when they engage in eating sweet food. The relationship is that a

woman cannot help herself and indulges in the guilty pleasure of a sweet food. Observation Journal Essay Discussion

 

Effectiveness. For me, the least effective advertisement is the Celebration

advertisement, because it depicts females acting in an obviously selfish way by showing them

celebrating when their competitor is injured. The Milky Way advertisement also shows a

woman acting selfishly, but the ad does it in a less obvious way; the consequence of her selfish

behavior is not celebrating another person getting hurt, but that people have to wait for her

wedding. Therefore, the Milky Way advertisement is more effective than the Celebration

advertisement. I also believe the obviousness of the message impacts the effectiveness of the

Antonio Federici advertisement, because if the nun were not pregnant, the message of indulging

and being sinful would be less obvious, and would therefore be more effective for me. Finally,

the Freddo Ice Cream advertisement very obviously depicts stereotypical gender roles; for me,

it is hard to look past that and focus on the product. Overall, the advertisements that make a less

obvious attempt at getting their message across seem to be the most effective.

Social Science Evidence

 

To back up my observations about the relationship between women and food, which in these

advertisements I observed to represent gender stereotypes of women in servile roles and as

being weak and unable to resist their desires, I looked for evidence within the course so far.

My interest in the portrayal of the women in these advertisements seems to fit both within the

psychological and sociological fields. In Theme 1, we learned that gender stereotypes can be

examined through the idea of the “social construction” of these topics, meaning that society

creates and reinforces the category of gender. In Theme 1, we learned that psychology is the

study of the mind and behavior (American Psychological Association, n.d.) and even though

gender roles may be socially constructed, the behavior of engaging in those gender roles is

very interesting to me. Observation Journal Essay Discussion

 

We learned about perception in Theme 2. Perception plays a big role in these advertisements

because it helps to explain why we perceive what we do from these advertisements. The halo

effect is described as “a bias in which our overall impression of a person (a figurative halo)

 

colors our judgments of that person’s character” (Baumann Foundation, 2013). The halo effect

comes into play in multiple advertisements. For example, in the Antonio Federici

advertisement, we see a nun who has sinned and we start to make assumptions about all the

other choices in her life. We also do this with the Celebration and Milky Way advertisements.

The depiction of females choosing to indulge within the advertisements leaves the audience

making assumptions about the females’ overall weaknesses and tendency to give into their

desires. Confirmation bias can also be used to describe why we perceive what we do from these

advertisements. Confirmation bias is described as seeking and/or interpreting evidence in a way

that is congruent with one’s existing beliefs or expectations (Nickerson, 1998). Gender

stereotypes already exist; therefore, we are more likely to interpret the advertisements in line

with the gender stereotypes with which we are familiar. According to confirmation bias, we see

the Freddo Ice Cream advertisement as confirming societal gender stereotypes that women are

secondary to men. Even though these cognitive biases happen automatically, we learned in

Theme 2 that they influence our opinions and emotions about situations.

Question

 

The Theme 1 overview describes one of the big questions in psychology as “What motivates

individuals to act in certain ways?” I used this question, along with the evidence about cognitive

biases, to help inform my own question about gender stereotypes. I am also using my own

experiences because in my household I do more of the cleaning, while my husband does the

lawn work. These behaviors fit into stereotypical gender roles of women doing more of the

cleaning and cooking and men doing more of the yard work. Although my experience is

different than the gender stereotypes portrayed in the advertisements, these behaviors still fit

into the theme of gender stereotypes. I created a question a social scientist might ask using both

the information from the course and my own experiences. Based on this information, my social

science question is: How do cognitive biases influence our behaviors to adhere to gender

stereotypes? Observation Journal Essay Discussion

 

References

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Definition of psychology. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/about/

The Baumann Foundation. (2013). The halo effect: Why angels and devils walk the earth. Retrieved from

http://www.beinghuman.org/article/halo-effect

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General

Psychology, 2(2), 175–220.

 

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND ADVERTS 1

 

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND ADVERTS 2

 

	Ad 1: Revlon: Charlie	Ad 2: V20 pure grain vodka: phone	Ad 3: Land rover: Maasai tribe	Ad 4: Bureau of civil affairs: T-shirt designs for orphans
1. Question(s) related to how individuals are represented in the ads	Why did it have to be the woman to does that advertisement of Charlie? Has the woman been used to show how scent attracts one to her date? Is it just all about the scent or even the date? What should we learn from this woman, from her moment of arrival, throwing her cap and scrawling her one name signature?	Have women in this advert been used to promote the idea that sex sells going by the scenes in the advert? Or is it pure about pure grain vodka? Why does the advertisement make us believe individual women have to be present for a party to go on? Why not just individual males alone? Why do some individuals look so serious in the party?	Why does the advertisement show the maasai putting on tires for shoes? Was that a good idea? Do the individuals in tires for shoes depict poverty?	Why do I feel like the idea of a baby’s picture printed at the back of t-shirts shows sympathy more than the campaign for individuals going through the same? Can this advertisement affect an individual psychologically by watching it? Can it change the personality of an individual that is suffering from the same idea? Or rather the orphaned?
2. Questions related to how groups and group behavior are represented in the ad	Why is it that the rest of the crowd is males? There are many males in the hotel what should this teach us as consumers? Is it that the advert is gender based on the fact that males stay up in some places different from women? Are women in this advert seen as less superior? From the man standing on the door, to the man singing the song of the advert, does this depict gender inferiority?	Why does the advert seem to be ethic based? Why are some ethnic groups not featured in the advert? Was the group at the party necessary? Was it really important to feature the scene on the party? Why are there more females in this advertisement? Were the many women intentionally featured and does this show the place of women in the society? Does the group of females in the advertisement make consumers want to know more about the drink? What is this unique idea about women and party in the advert? What about the males? Does the group, both men and women show so much intimacy in their interactions? Are they depicting a good show in the scenes?	How does the group of maasais tell us more about the land rover? How do the two relate? The advertisement contains more males than females, is there any form of feminism in it? What was the importance of featuring a lion together with a land rover and the group of maasai people? What are we supposed to take in from the group of people? Is there a difference in the way males and females should be featured in this advertisement? Does the group of people show or mean difficulty in their lifestyle? Does it show naivety? Is it right in the society?	How do campaign adverts like this tell us about the real world life events that take place? Was it a great idea for the group to make this t-shirts a work wears for the stuff of public campaign? Is it too much exposing? How about the orphan babies? How are they viewed by the society?
3. Questions related to how culture and cultural identity are represented (or not represented) in the ad	Does the dressing code of every individual in the advert represent a certain type of culture? What type of culture is this? Does the setting of the advert and the place it happens change the way we as consumers view the advertisement? Does this advertisement show how different cultures view women differently? Does it explain the culture and identity of some societies? Why do some social processes persist over time in the society? How should some be overcomes?	How should the social gap between men and women be reduced in different cultures like in the advertisement? What should be done to bring cultures together? What should some adverts like this do so as to feature different ethnicities with different cultural backgrounds together? Why are women still viewed as different from everyone else because of the different cultures? Did the setting of the advertisement add more taste to the drink pure grain vodka that was being promoted? How else can different people be induced into trying the new despite their differences in the societies and cultures? Is culture all that has been used to show the importance of the drink? Is there any other thing about the advertisement?	Is this advertisement viewed in a different manner by the members of different cultures that are not maasai? Does this advertisement show negativity or positivity from the maasai culture? Is it worth being criticized by the rest of the society? Is this ethnic based? Does it show racism from the scenes in the advertisement? Does the maasai culture necessarily mean putting on certain type of attire? Could something else be used to represent their culture? What does the lion have to do with these people’s culture? How do they go hand in hand with the advertisement? How does this advertisement bring together every other culture in the society? Is it just meant to promote the product? What can we as consumers from different cultures learn from this advertisement?	How have people in the society changed the way they view a certain group of people? To be specific the orphan babies, do some cultures still make it look like some people should not live? How has the advert been received by different cultures? Has it created a positive impact? How would this advertisement be perceived by members of different cultures who do not support adoption but instead have other ways of dealing with issues? What impact does this advertisement have on the self-esteem of this babies and group of people in the regions that the campaigns took place? Do people from other cultures feel the same way? Does this advertisement have anything to do with culture?
4. How do the ads compare to each other?	All the advertisements feature the concept of culture; the first depicts culture in the way of dressing and the fragrance that is being praised especially for single career women. The other depicts culture in the place that the advertisement takes place and the culture of people taking the new good drink, another depicts culture in the way of dressing of the people in the advertisement trying to explain about the land rover, the people in the advertisement themselves mean culture and the last advertisement depicts culture in the ways they use to create awareness by printing t-shirts of orphan babies that is culture on its own (Belch, 2004). Three of the four advertisements feature very little or no racial/ ethnic diversity. By this the three advertisements have shown very little or no ethnicity at all, while the other has featured ethnic diversity by the way the people in it are, it is more of an ethnic based advertisement with a group full of maasai people. (Dey, 2003) All the four advertisements feature women playing certain roles. The first shows a woman walking into a hotel full of confidence and beauty who finally meets her date, the woman has good fragrance with her, the second advertisement features women with beauty in a party that is all about a specific drink, the advertisement shows women in plenty, the other one shows few women in it with an aim of promoting a land rover and lastly we see women in printed t-shirts trying to explain about adoption due to things like earthquakes. Two out of four of the advertisements feature a celebration, for the woman with good fragrance and confidence enters the hotel dancing with different people until she rests on her date, it is a happy moment for her while the other advertisement shows celebration in the way people are in a party drinking what I feel is their favorite drink, men and women both enjoying the moments. Three out of four of the advertisements bring out the concept of the place of women in the society, women are used in this advertisements to show how they are good in certain places compared to others, they are used to make products sell because they are believed to be good charmers, this is seen in the advertisement on fragrance, the advertisement of the drink pure grain vodka and in the advertisement on printing of t-shirts to campaign for orphan babies. (Dey, 2003). Three out of four feature men as playing important roles in the advertisements. We see men actually a good number of men with just one woman being featured in a hotel, this explains so much more into details, we also see a lot of men in the party having women as part of them that still explains the major role they play and we still see men in the maasai land rover advertisement, different men in different positions wearing different attires to promote the product. Finally all the advertisements are aimed at promoting a certain type of product that is felt to be of good quality to the society at large. The advert on Charlie promoted fragrance that was widely sold back in the days, the advertisement of pure grain vodka is also aimed at promoting the drink that many people love, the advertisement on the land rover explains how it can go through tough places that a normal car would not go, it promotes the car and the advert on printing t-shirts is aimed at creating awareness on the people that should not be forgotten in the society.
5. What overall observations might a social scientist is interested in studying in relation to the themes present in these advertisements?   What larger questions about human interactions might they ask?	A social scientist might be interested in studying about the role women play in this advertisements, how are women used to promote the advertisements, apart from the way they are used, a social scientist might also be interested in further going deeper into how this women help in this advertisements. (Ewen, 2001). A social scientist might also be interested in studying the impacts this advertisements creates to the whole society at large, they might be interested in learning people’s or the public’s reactions over the advertisements. Do the advertisements impact the society positively or negatively? Are there values that people need to learn from them? Are there sciences that should not be seen by a certain group of people? The social scientist might be interested in going into deeper details about these advertisements and coming up with different conclusions. In addition to that, a social scientist might also be interested in studying about the role of men in this advertisements, it is not just about women and what they are or what role they play, a social scientist might want to know more about what roles men play and how they keep the advertisements going. A social scientist might want to study about the psychological outcomes of these advertisements, psychology is an important part in the society today and it has to deal with humans that watch the advertisements and humans that do the advertisements themselves, they are also important for study. (Borgatti et al., 2009). In the end, a social scientist might be interested in studying more about similar advertisements as the ones that have been discussed, adverts that are almost similar and coming up with conclusions on what they depict from their similarities and completely different advertisements. (Borgatti et.al, 2009). Other larger questions about human interactions that they might ask are: · How do these advertisements affect the self-esteem of both the men and the women? · Do advertisers try to create a division in gender by treating the females as the weak ones and men as the superior complex? · How does the lack of diversity in specific advertisements try to compare with other advertisements that are created for the same purpose? · How does the social come to get biological? · How can humanity come to increase its wisdom through the art of advertising?

 

References

Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2004). Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective,(6 Th. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill.

Dey, I. (2003). Qualitative data analysis: A user friendly guide for social scientists. Routledge.

Ewen, S. (2001). Captains of consciousness advertising and the social roots of the consumer culture. Basic Books (AZ).

Borgatti, S. P., Mehra, A., Brass, D. J., & Labianca, G. (2009). Network analysis in the social sciences. Science.