Virtual Violence: Gender and Aggression in Video Game Advertisements

Video games are increasing in popularity and use, with 42% of households in the United States owning a video game console (Interactive Digital Software Association, 2001a, 2001b). Children and young adults are frequent users (Roberts, Foehr, Rideout, & Brodie, 1999). Yet social scientific investigation of the advertising messages used to promote the games is rare. This study attempts to fill that gap with a quantitative content analysis of 1,054 advertisements for video games appearing in large-circulation video game magazines. The study examines the portrayal of gender and violence in the images and text of the ads, as well as the representation of race and ethnicity, the genre of the game, the rating/label, and the use of advertising appeals such as user identification. Results show that 55.8% of the games contained violence, an average of 2.5 weapons appeared per ad, and males outnumbered females by more than 3 to 1.