A comparison of gender role portrayals in magazine advertising

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to try to determine to what extent differences and similarities in sociopolitical, cultural and economic backgrounds are reflected in gender role portrayals in magazine advertisements in the USA, China and Thailand.Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis is used. Five different magazine categories are selected from the USA, China and Thailand in 2007: news and general interest; sports; entertainment; women's and business. The coding system employed is modified from Courtney and Lockeretz.Findings – Overall, the paper finds that advertisers in Thailand, China and America shared some gender stereotyping. In addition, Chinese and Thai magazine advertisements show more gender stereotyping, while US advertisements show more egalitarian representations. These findings are consistent with their respective culture backgrounds.Research limitations/implications – The use of content analysis is limited because it is mainly descriptive in nature and adequate causal explan...