Adolescent Evaluation of Gender Role and Sexual Imagery in Television Advertisements

This study examines gender role and sexual content in television advertising messages, and the cognitive elaborations of adolescents processing these messages. Adolescents viewed and commented on television advertisements of beer and non-beer products in the contexts of sports and entertainment programming. Results found that a majority of the ads contained traditional gender role content. Fewer ads combined sexual with traditional gender role content. The adolescents' comments criticized female imagery, while their comments on male portrayals were relatively neutral. More than half the respondents challenged ad content, including product claims, realism, and production techniques, with females counterarguing more than males.