Gender stereotypes in Italian television advertisements

The present study attempted to replicate and extend American, Canadian and British studies on the portrayal of men and women in television commercials using advertisements broadcast in Italy, Three hundred and thirty‐three daytime and evening commercials were content analyzed by classifying the attributes of their central figures into eleven categories: gender, mode, credibility, role, location, reward, product price, argument, background, humor and comment. Gender stereotyping in Italy was constant across time‐of‐day and more apparent than in America, but as frequent as in England. The implications of results for the development and maintenance of gender roles are discussed.