Essay: Structure

Introduction (Discussing about the discussions about gender and sex and how these exist within advertising.

First Paragraph - Introducing the different theories of gender, e.g Cognitive development, Gender Schema, Social Learning.

Second Paragraph - Discussing the differences between social constructionism and biological determination.

Third Paragraph - The different opinions and quotes which are for biological determination.

Fourth Paragraph - The opinions for social constructionism and beginning to discuss the different views embedded within this.

Fifth Paragraph - Social, discussing the opinions that support the theory of role models and children taking after their parents.

Sixth/seventh Paragraph - More theories about social constructionism.

Eighth/Ninth - Beginning to discuss the role of media and advertising and the different quotes and opinions that support this. 

Image 1 - Kinder Egg

Image 2  - Rigamajig

Image 3 - Nerf Rebelle

Image 4 - Moschino Barbie

Conclusion

Essay: Text 5 - Cas Holman

• Design is a means to an end.
• Empowering children through play.
• Work together, open minded, creative.
• Pile of sticks, mud, sand and water.
• Glorified pile of 2 by 4s.
• Designing an experience.
• One kid can’t play alone.
• Design in a way that the kid’s are designing.
• Level of invention 
• They made it do that.
• There are no rules.
• hand a prototype to kids as soon as possible.
• Will it sell, where will it fit in the market?
• I design for play
• becoming who you are is a playful process
• identity is something we design
• I design out of frustration with what exists.
• Makes me angry to see girl versions of other toys.
• Let’s just help anybody become the best versions if themselves. 
• shouldn’t give them toys with a story already built into it.
• they need to make the story themselves
• kids are inventing things that i didn’t think of
• helpful to have models, but you don’t have to pick options from what you see, you can create your own
• make what you can imagine and what feels right. 

As educators, we must keep in mind that the toy’s purpose is to encourage children to be creators, problem solvers, to work cooperatively, and to illustrate their ideas in a practical and concrete way.

Essay: Primary Research

Ethics

- Any research using human participants needs to be approved (by a tutor) in advance.

- Any research using vulnerable people must be approved by the ethics sub committee. 

- Must be anonymous. 

Empiricism vs. Rationalism

- Something is only true if it is observed or experienced using senses, it can be observed and recorded on multiple occasions. 

Thoughts, feelings and opinions.

- Truth can be grasped intellectually using logic and reason. 

- Secondary research, how you make sense of this. 

Empirical Research

- Start with questions, preferably questions that have not already been answered. 

- Questions will identify what methods you need in order to get the right answers. 

Qualitative and Quantitive

- Data collection and analysis.

Data Collection 

- Focus groups, surveys (interviews/questionnaires).
- Ethnology (Study of people and cultures).
- Content analysis, looking at trends within advertising. 
- Creative explorations, Gauntlett, 2007 (Using creative techniques as a means of gathering subjective data.

Data Analysis and Organisation

- Numerical Data
- Hypothesis
- Cross Referencing
- Statistically significant
- Deductive Analysis
- Inductive Analysis

Essay: Study Task 04 - Social Identity Theory

Essay: Study Task 05 - Structure of Essay

Things to Discuss

Do children get their gender identity from others around them?
Do children grasp a meaning of gender from advertisements?
How much do advertisements affect children's development and thoughts about gender?
Different Theories
How has it begun to change if at all?

Essay: Text 4 - Controversy in Contemporary Advertising

Advertising is likely to generate some kind of change in the way we think or feel.

Intended effects of consequences are planned and somewhat controlled by the advertisers and their agencies. 

Making sure the message reaches a certain number or demographic of people. 

Unintended effects are not specifically planned but may occur among some members of society. 

Generating consumer reactions to the appropriateness of the message, reactions to specific messages and advertising content and influencing the overall view of individuals such as the development of distinctive perceptions of others in society or attitudes towards consumers in general. 

Dunn and Barban (1966)

Consumers create meaning from advertisements. 

Individuals create advertising and so their personal development will affect the messages they create. 

Younger consumers care more about entertainment.

Address objections from people who do not share your views about the messages you create. 

Stereotyping within Advertising 

Advertising is subliminal, it works beneath the conscious level of individuals. 

Role of stereotypes in advertising messages and society. 

Most stereotypes originate because some proportion of a specific population is reflected in the stereotype. 

Stereotypes convey characters and images quickly and clearly. 

Some people say that stereotypes are problematic  because they have the ability to reduce people or objects to classes based on inferences that are made from an individual or social context. 

If you have knowledge of how others stereotype people who are part of your own demographic group, you will start acting that way. 

If no-one reminds you of a stereotype about your specific group, you will not be affected by the stereotype. 

George Gerbner’s cultivation theory.

‘has a profound effect on the way we are socialised into our roles’

Social identity theory - individuals adopt the identity of a group with which they identify, everyone strives to belong to a group. 

Expectancy theory, certain individuals will begin to act that way because it is expected of them. Specifically with stereotypes within advertising, people will copy. We develop a worldview of different groups of people who are not like us. 

Such stereotypes can affect how each of us feels about ourselves, whether we are doing what is right, whether we will be accepted by others and whether we are fulfilling the roles expected of us in society. 

Recursive advertising - turns stereotypes on their ears. 

Gender within Advertising 

‘The emotional, sexual and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says ‘it’s a girl’ - Shirley Chisholm.

Men think linearly and therefore only respond to the primary message of the advertisement. 

Women thin non-linearly and therefore over think and infer messages. 

Women will use and respond to imagery that is masculine however men will not respond to feminine imagery. 

Women and men use different parts of their brains when processing information. 

Stereotypes are created by the continual, extended exposure of consumers to patterns of imagery. 

Society still clings to some of those values from the 1950s. 

Internationally, advertising still conforms to traditional gender portrayals. 

Starting to portray more non-traditional images of men. 

Promotions of the importance of an individual’s physical attractiveness, beginning in infancy and continuing through to childhood and adolescence. 

The fact that women tend to be portrayed in decorative roles much more often than men suggests that advertisements  do not render a realistic depiction of the female gender role - (Paff & Lakner, 1997). 

Women are also seen as more tactile than men.

As social beings we like to look at beautiful things, even as babies, we are more attracted to beautiful pictures than to ugly ones. 

Role-product congruity theory - advertising effectiveness can be increases when appropriate models are used. 

Gender portrayals do not reflect the range of roles than men and women undertake in the world today. Advertisements reflect a more limited representation. 

Negative stereotypes are created in a society where the portrayals not really exist. 

If mass media depict only a limited range of roles for men and women, the societal roles that people assume are appropriate for men and women will subsequently be limited.

Realistic portrayals, can have positive results and certain stereotypes and objectification and imagery can cause negative responses from consumers. 

Show both men and women in a variety of setting , this way the actual societal roles of men and women can begin to be presented in advertising. 

Children and advertising

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Younger children are becoming more attractive to marketers since they have their own disposable income through allowances and gifts. 

Pester power - children have influence over their parent’s purchase decisions.

Guilt factor, peter pan syndrome , Younger parents , do not want to be perceived as being boring to their children. Putting more emphasis on what is relatable to both parents and kids. Parents are in tune with the same things they are. 

Technology factor, children are often the computer consultants and help parents feel comfortable with the internet. 

The future factor, children will have future spending power. need to generate brand loyalty within children. 

Children are becoming more brand savvy at an earlier age than ever before.

Children can understand most advertising tactics, they are also developing brand preferences. 

Contributes to the development of consumer culture within children. Many children define their self worth with their possessions and prefer going to the mall than any other activity. 

Children will find it hard to recognise the value of non-consumer activities. 

Advergames - playing games increases brand enjoyment for children. 

Children are a vulnerable population  because they lack the sophistication and experience of adults.

Children have limited information sources, and a limited personal experience.

Social learning theory - Albert Bandura - A child’s behaviour is not biologically determined or inevitable but instead is of a result of day to day interactions between the child and their environment. Children observing other children and adults, interacting socially, imitating attitudes. 

Television - A specially constructed information system whose purpose is to influence, teach, train, or cultivate the mind and character of youth’

Television presents information about the world that helps children develop their own world views. 

Tv can be a vehicle of socialisation a source from which children learn about all types of social behaviour, including gender roles and expectations. 

The continual exposure to advertising will create the concepts children develop about the real world, what behaviour are appropriate and inappropriate. 

Government and self-regulatory functions monitor and regulate children’s media. 

Gender appropriate behaviours, how girls and boys behave. 

problematic role portrayals are often seen on television commercials. , fewer portrayals of girls to boys. girls in the home and boys outside the home.

More ads are aimed at boys than girls. 

Boys are seen driving vehicles, using building equipment, science and maths. Girls are seen playing with dolls, vanity products. 

When boys and girls play together, they play with boys toys. 

Girls are portrayed as gentle, serene and passive, whereas boys are active and often outside.

Deviations from the gender behaviour can appear but they are rare. 

Research does show that ads that show boys as empathetic and caring are just s effective as ads portraying them as independent and biostrous. and vice versa for girls. 

Commercials are edited differently whether they are aimed at boys or girls. Boys have frequent cuts active and exciting commercial, where as girls use fades dand dissolves to create a more passive and dream-like commercial. 

Children become confused as to what is fact and what is fiction.

Exposure to advertising imagery creates misinformation on gender roles. Children who watch more tv have amore stereotypical view of sex roles. 

As exposure to gender stereotyping increases so does sex-typed behaviour and sex-role stereotyped attitiudes. 

Children learn their value by seeing themselves reflected in culture. 

Essay: Text 3 - Documentary - No More Gender

These differences will define their lives as adults

Don’t believe that biology alone can explain these differences, they lie in the societies we live in. 

Stop treating our boys and girls differently.

From the moment they are born they are aware of gender, from the clothes that they wear, to the language people use.

They have set mind sets on what is acceptable for their gender. 

boys games give them better awareness of spatial awareness, which gives male dominance in maths, science, mechanics and architecture. 

Or is that male and female brains are structurally different. 

The brain is very plastic, mouldable and changeable. 

Brain of someone who did play with lego, did play with dolls etc. 

The world shapes the skills they develop.

Overwhelming avalanche of blue of boys and pink for girls.

Don’t necessarily have aisles made for boys and girls.

If children’s brains are moulded by the world around them then this total divide between what’s a boy’s world and what’s a girls world. 

What does the pink and blue world look like to a parent. 

If little girls play with certain toys, then it has a fundamental effect on how their brains develop.

Dress up dolls and craft sets won’t help girls become an engineer.

When we give children the presents we think they want, all’s it does is effect what they are capable of. 

Nerf and nerf rebel guns. 

Nature/nurture argument. 

Children occupy a world where children are giving them messages constantly about what it’s like to be a boy or a girl.

Parents say it’s in their child’s nature just to act a certain way or like a certain toy, it came from them. 

In clothes that parents buy for their children. 

We stereotype our kids.

Unisex toilets

Their offers are limited when there iso only a world that offers only blue for boys and pink for girls. 

Goes some way to explain why men and women follow much different paths in life. 

Toys with a mechanic and engineering focus were 3 times more likely to be focused at boys. 

Changing the environment, levelling out the skill difference through play. 

It is a preference that is in many ways learnt.