Gender Stereotypes in Media and Advertising and Their Impact on Adolescent Identity Formation

Amy Zhu

doi:10.54691/km1td363

Authors

Amy Zhu Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/km1td363

Keywords:

Gender stereotypes, advertising, adolescent identity, mixed methods, media effects.

Abstract

Adolescence is the core stage for individual identity construction, during which media content and commercial advertising can serve as important carriers that influence the socialization process of young people when they are growing up and forming their understanding of the world. Currently, attention to the gender equality is rising. However, mainstream media and advertisements still contain many gender stereotypes, which may affect how adolescents see themselves and also their choices about future goals, and in fact daily behavioral patterns can be influenced by these representations. We use a mixed-methods approach in this study. The participants are adolescents aged 13 to 19 years old. We look at advertising content on both traditional and digital platforms, focusing on gender stereotypes in the content and how they connect to the group's identity construction process, which is expected to reveal the intrinsic connections between media representation and adolescent development. This study uses a sequential design. In the first phase, we completed quantitative content analysis of 200 advertising samples, and at the same time questionnaire data from 400 adolescents were collected so that we can understand the general situation of how they perceive these advertisements. Then, the second phase used qualitative research. It includes focus groups with selected participants and semi-structured interviews. The gender presentation framework from Goffman (1979) is used together with various contemporary media theories, and these form the theoretical basis of this study that can support our analysis of the advertising content and the interpretation of adolescent responses. The study will review prevalent types of gender stereotypes. It will analyze the impact of such content on adolescents' self-awareness and we also look at development goals, while the active negotiation process of these youths regarding such information is explored too so that we can get a full picture. The expected outputs include journal articles and policy briefs. Also, we will develop media literacy toolkits for educators. It is worth noting that existing research still has significant gaps, and this study compares traditional and digital advertising platforms, relying on qualitative methods to highlight adolescent autonomy and this can help fill gaps in existing research.

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