Representation of Women Power in TV Commercials: The Use of Super Heroes

Authors

  • Nurdan Akıner
  • Murat Birol

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33831/jws.v17i1.71

Keywords:

TV commercial, representation of women, super hero, ideological re-produce, myth

Abstract

In Turkey, in recent years, representation of power is presented on various ways on mass media. Related to power of media, this situation is ‘most symbolically’ confronted on TV commercials. The power is mostly presented to the audience by the channel of a certain representation. Advertisement contents mostly convey their messages by referring to people in the society and with the channel of ‘real people or created super heroes’. The contents are based according to the role of woman and man in society. Within the context of gender mainstreaming— especially on modern democratic social systems stratification related to gender —inequality and discrimination affect women badly. Employing such advertisements reproduces the disadvantaged role and also further weakens women’s relative position the modern patriarchal-structured societies. By referring to the position of women in the society,pacificated women’s representations are reflected on the TV commercials similarly just as in their daily lives. Since the ‘house’ is seen to belong to women during the socio-cultural, economic and-political developments of societies, house duties are mostly offered in particular to the world of women. In this framework, the most obvious examples of the representations concerning the house take place especially on the cleaning product advertisements. Moreover, in these advertisements it is possible to mention the usage of a real or imaginary hero who use the product or represent the product. Since the target-market of cleaning products are women, advertisement contents are also designed according to the world of women. In this study, representation of women’s power and usage of super hero on the TV commercials of cleaning products Cif, Mr. Muscle, Ace were analyzed with the semiological analysis method. Even, it seems that different cleaning brands using representation of power on similar ways, there are some sort of differences on content and visuality when they were analyzed. 

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Published

2019-06-28

How to Cite

Akıner, N., & Birol, M. (2019). Representation of Women Power in TV Commercials: The Use of Super Heroes. Kadın/Woman 2000, Journal for Women’s Studies, 17(1), 103–119. https://doi.org/10.33831/jws.v17i1.71

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 1 (2016): Kadın/Woman 2000, Journal for Women's Studies

Section

Articles

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