Reading Gender by the Column Inch: Analyzing Gender Representation in Philippine Print Advertisements

Abstract

The bulk of literature on reading gender in print advertisements studies magazines, which are a media form tailored for specific audiences. By analyzing gender representations in Philippine newspaper ads, this study aims to provide a reading of gender portrayals published in a more general interest medium. Results of the content analysis performed on 256 ads that appeared in top local publications revealed that while gendered inequalities did not strongly manifest in terms of character count and gender distribution, a closer reading of characters and their gendered differences with specific ad elements in terms of contexts, roles, and physicalities evidence the persistence of stereotypical gender representations in print ads.