Gender stereotyping in television advertisements: A study of French and Danish television

Two similar, but not identical, content analyses of the portrayals of men a nd women in French and Danish television advertisements are reported. By pa rtially replicating and extending past investigations conducted in America, Australia, Britain, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, and New Zealand, i t was predicted that there would be more gender stereotyping in French tele vision advertisements and less gender stereotyping in Danish television adv ertisements. In the first study, 165 French television advertisements were analyzed by following established coding categories (A. Furnham & E. Skae, 1997; L. Z. McArthur & B. G. Resko, 1975). Contrary to prediction, the resu lts showed that traditional gender role portrayal on French television was no different from that found in other countries. Separate statistical analy ses were carried out for visually versus aurally classified central figures , yet this yielded relatively few significant differences. In the second st udy, a sample of 151 Danish advertisements was analyzed; results showed tha t Danish television was generally less gender stereotypic than French telev ision in its portrayal of women. Exactly half (5) of the coding categories showed significant differences. Finally, an international statistical compa rison between these two studies and similar research in Australia, Britain, and Italy was carried out. The methodological implications of these result s are discussed as well as the theoretical issues arising from other studie s of this sort.