REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN
FEMALE MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
The Degree of Magister Humaniora
By:
SYARIFAH
Register Number: 8116111021
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
ABSTRACT
Syarifah. Representation of Women in Female Magazine Advertisements. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School. State University of Medan. 2016
This study analyzes women representation in 12 printed advertisements of Cosmopolitan magazine in edition of January 2016 that used women as the participant models from linguistic and semiotic point of view. The analysis is centered on the verbal and visual texts that may have particular strategies that are used by the product companies and advertisers to persuade and also exploit the potential consumers, especially women. The analytical tools of this study is based on Leech’s linguistic devices in advertisement, Barthes’ semiotic sign system namely denotation and connotation, and also Lacey’s theory about the categories of women representation and their stereotypes in media. A qualitative research design is suitably used in this study to give in-depth description and result of analysis. The findings of the analysis about the women representation in the advertisements are: 1) the advertisers selectively and creatively use particular linguistic features such as the major use of adjectives, noun phrase, and disjunctive clause that seem to have strong and persuasive effect to influence the potential consumers; and nonverbal features such as the major use of sexy attires, body gesture, colors, direct gaze, smiling facial expression, and other things which symbolized something that are compatible with the textual meanings; 2) the combination of such linguistic and semiotic aspect in analyzing the advertisements are able to reveal the myth or ideology of femininity and beauty such as being beautiful is sexy and slim in order to look attractive; 3) the advertisements mostly stereotype women as being beautiful and having attractive physique within narrow perspective such as object of sexuality and the most desired kind of beauty that is not all women have. Thus, advertising language and image is used to influence people’s minds.
ABSTRAK
Syarifah. Representation of Women in Female Magazine Advertisements. Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris. Sekolah Pascasarjana. Universitas Negeri Medan. 2016
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillah, all the praise, honor and power belong to Allah SWT, for
giving the writer blessing, mercy and endless love, especially in the process of
accomplishing this thesis. In writing this thesis, the writer was helped by many
beloved people and therefore the writer would like to express her greatest
gratitude to :
1. My parents (Irwady Aska & Kasmawati), my siblings (Endang Lestari,
Trijadi Handayani, Bobby Dewantoro), my husband (Zulfikar), and my
daughter (Rifka Azzahra).
2. Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd, her first thesis advisor and Dr. Syahron
Lubis, M.A., her second thesis advisor for their guidance, advices,
suggestions, affection and patience in supervising and guiding the writer to
finish this thesis.
3. Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed., the Head of English Applied Linguistics
Study Program and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum., the secretary of
English Applied Linguistics Study Program for the assistance in providing
the academic administration while the writer studied in the faculty,
especially in the process of completing this thesis.
4. Her thesis examiners, Prof.Amrin Saragih, M.A, Ph.D, Prof.Dr. Sri Minda
Murni, M.S., and Dr. Siti Aisyah Ginting, M.Pd for the valuable advices
and suggestions.
5. All of her lecturers in English Applied Linguistics Study Program who
6. The Head and the employees of digital library and reading room of
postgraduate of UNIMED, for providing an opportunity for the writer to
conduct the research and helping her in the administration.
7. Her beloved friends: Juwi, Sutarsih, Erwin Syahputra Sembiring, and her
classmates, English Applied Linguistics XX-A for the prayer, support,
love, laughs and friendship.
8. Bang Farid, who has helped her in providing the academic administration.
9. Those whose name cannot be mentioned one by one for their help and
support. Thanks for everything. May Allah bless us. Amin.
Medan, 27 Juli 2016
Syarifah
i
2.1 Representation & Stereotype of Women in Media ... 8
2..2 The Depiction of Female Stereotypes in Advertising ... 12
2.3 The Role of Semiotics and Linguistics for the Analysis of Advertisements ... 15
2.3.1 Semiotics and Paralanguage in Advertisements ... 15
2.3.2 Semiotic Denotation and Connotation in Advertisements ... 17
2.3.3 The Relation of Advertisement with Semiotics and Ideology ... 21
2.3.4 Linguistic Devices Used in Advertising Language ... 23
2.3.4.1 Lexical Aspect ... 24
2.3.4.2 Syntactic Aspect ... 27
2.3.4.3 Semantic Aspect ... 30
2.2.4.4 Cohesion Aspect ... 37
2.4 The Role of Language & Image in Ads... 35
2.5 The Relation between Language & Sexism ... 36
2.6 Relevant Studies ... 39
CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS, RESEARCH FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 4.1 The Data ... 47
ii
4.3 Research Findings ... 88
4.4 Discussions ... 91
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION & SUGGESTION ... 92
REFERENCES ... 94
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Nowadays it is easy to find popular magazine that is dedicated for female – young
and mature women –with a look of “lux” and “modern” which price is not exactly cheap.
This condition certainly gives an indication of the magnitude of the market opportunity
that is still available to use magazine to advertise or promote some company products by
involving women as model participants in their advertisements. More and more
magazines from “outside” published in the Indonesian edition, such as Cosmopolitan,
raise the theme of modern women’s lifestyle. The discussion on the lifestyle in women
magazine would indirectly affect the lifestyle of its readers. As one of the agents of
socialization that plays an important role in society, the message delivered by the
advertisements in the popular magazine, either expressed or implied, will shape the
perception and mindset of the readers. In this context, women magazines through the
advertisements will be able to form the image of women that are considered “ideal” in
society as modern cultural phenomena.
As it empowers some big companies to specifically set their sights on young
women for promoting their products through advertising, this makes the advertisements
has been able to dictate what women should look like, what is sexy and desired which
unconsciously causes the consumer continues to blindly consume without taking a good
look at what is being sold and what messages are being sent.
Such indications of phenomena become the reason of this study as the reality of
2
come up with an “ideal” for the perfect woman. It is supported and proven by a research
performed by Kilbourne (2000) that the “ideal woman” represents what five percent of
women look like, yet this body type represents 98% percent of the women seen in the
media. As an illustration, media reconstruct beautiful woman as of woman who has fair
skin and slender body through cosmetic and diet products. For those who do not meet
these criteria are not pretty, and to them supplied the product that can make their skin
white and body slim. In fact, the skin color pigment formed due to the gene factor that
cannot be eliminated that she rightly carries. In addition to such subjects, female bodies
are still used as sexual objects in advertisements of magazines. This can be seen from
various advertisements that use sexy bodied female models through clothing, perfume,
jewelry accessories, etc. Not only does advertising send these messages, according to
Kilborne (2000) advertisers also glorify and perpetuate stereotypes and make ideals out
of images of models with vacant expressions and wasted bodies. The advertisers create a
concept of image that conformed to a product that woman carries out. For examples,
product of foods and drinks that portrays woman as a loving and caring figure, product of
beauty cosmetics and fashion which portray the beauty of woman’s physical appearance
which sexy and desirable for men, and so on. Thus, it generates different views of ideal
images of female.
The ideal images of Indonesian females are adhered to patriarchal culture that
demands female in family sphere and also the social roles that necessitate them only in
work fields suitable with their womanhood natures of maternity, tenderness, and
uncompetitive. In other words, good female are those cling to domestic sphere that must
be responsible for household matters even if they work. However, such representations
are scarcely found or slightly omitted in most of women magazine contents, for example
3
been known pervasively that Cosmopolitan is a commercial female dedicated magazine
that provides worldly issues of modern lifestyle for modern-minded women ranges from
beauty and physical appearance, sex, celebrity, fashion, and career. The issues are
somehow also obviously portrayed in advertisements inside of it. Although women are
depicted as modern with high class fashion and smart looks, they mostly appear in
“ideal” physical appearance that do not represent the average looks of women and also
very revealing yet provocative dress. Consequently, what can be seen in the magazine is
there are representations of women as perfect creature with the “ideal” body shape, being
sexual object and having sexual appeal under the name of modern life even though it
doesn’t match to Indonesian culture.
As the reality problems related to this study explained above, it is expected that
young women, especially Indonesian ones, should be more aware and smart in
understanding and evaluating any advertisements that promotes some products shoved to
them in order to not be psychologically influenced which could impact their dignity as a
woman. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine women’s representation
in Cosmopolitan magazine advertisements and how they portray the culturally gendered
stereotypes. In other words, this research focuses on the social construction and cultural
representation of young women who are in control of their sexuality through language
and image. That’s because advertisements do not only contain with visual codes which
culturally has potential meaning (based on facial expression, gesture, way of dress, and
the choice of color) but words as well which linguistically has particular aim or interest to
influence the viewers.
Images can mainly function to persuade, while words then become only
informative supplement (Macario and Boyte, 2008). It means that images are able to
4
the amount of information contained in images is limited, above that it is impossible to
transform certain words or sentences into images. Thus, images are used to capture
consumers’ attention whereas words are used to convince them. In the other hand, when
language is used in terms of social context, the language itself is ideologically and
subjectively driven based on particular interest through some linguistic aspects such as
passivization, nominalization, lexicalization, emotional adjectives, rhetorical questions,
and even negation in which they must have certain meaning.
To conduct such purpose, an in-depth research by combining textual and semiotic
analysis will be employed to explore females’ representation in advertisements of
cosmopolitan magazine as they are tightly and socioculturally pertinent to women’s
representation. As advertisements contain many signs and sometimes symbols, semiotic
approach is suitable to interpret the advertisements in a broad way in order to obtain the
hidden meanings within the advertisements. Thus, advertisements are message systems
designed to organize perceptions and create structures of meaning (Williamson, 1997:
12).
To make it clear, a data example is provided here through the application of
semiotic and linguistic aspects which can be observed in this perfume advertisement
taken from a page of Cosmopolitan magazine which suggesting sexuality. From the
visual or nonverbal aspect in the image, the model is being less dressed that makes her
breasts as the center of attention and exposed in an attractive position with a seductive
sexual look and invitingly opened lips, also the dark blue night color of atmosphere.
Semiotically, they must mean something! The perfume advertisement is in general
presented with the product and the model picture; while from the use of language or
words, the brand name Ghost with the verbal text Deep Night and the slogan The
5
message about the advertisement if textual analysis is conducted. The model’s suggestive
sexual position is stronger than words themselves. Based on the deep semiotic and
linguistic investigation, it can be proposed that she was engaged in taking off her lingerie
as if she was ready to give pleasure before sleep. Therefore, this image is exaggerated
and provocative in the Indonesian context where the majority of people are Muslims in
which the woman’s private part of the body that should be covered is exposed in public.
Picture 1. Woman as sexual object in a perfume ad
Mainstream and liberal women’s magazine like Cosmopolitan boost millions of
subscribers every year and each of these magazines are packed with messages that
women need to “improve” themselves as “modernly sexy” as possible. This is an
important study because as these messages become more and more prevalent, young
women are becoming affected by these messages. Only through awareness of what these
messages are truly saying and symbolizing can the consumer understand what they are
being sold and it is rarely merely a product.
1.2 Problems of the Study
1) How are women represented verbally and visually in the advertisements of
6
2) What myth or ideology is semiotically implied in the advertisements of
Cosmopolitan magazine?
3) What are stereotypical representations of women which appear in the
advertisements of Cosmopolitan magazine?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
1) To describe how women are represented in the advertisements of Cosmopolitan
magazine through verbal (linguistic) and visual (semiotic) aspects
2) To discover and reveal the myth or ideology in the advertisements of
Cosmopolitan magazine from the perspective of semiotic.
3) To find out the stereotypical representations of women in the advertisements of
Cosmopolitan magazine.
1.4 Scope of the Study
This study involves both linguistic and semiotic aspects. The linguistic features
covers lexical, semantic, syntactic, and cohesion; while semiotic features cover visual
aspects such as appearance, gesture, facial expressions, color and environment settings.
They help the researcher to figure out the current society’s dominant ideology about
women attributes and behavior that are valued most in our society.
The samples that will be used as data consist of 12 advertisements that use woman
as model participant from Cosmopolitan magazine in the edition of January 2016. The
rationale for choosing the magazine is that it is a popular franchise magazine from USA
that is published as Indonesian version. In addition, the chosen January 2016 edition can
be considered as representative of the previous and coming editions as it is the beginning
7
alone the original version, American one, so this makes the writer cannot get the latest
edition to analyze due to her financial and time limit.
The image of Cosmopolitan as a magazine for young independent women is very
strong. Thereby, it will be worth-observing the women stereotypes either in general or
specific.
1.5 Significances of the Study
This study is expected to be useful theoretically and practically in some respects
as follows:
1) Theoretically, this study will be additional resources in learning studies about
advertisement from the perspective of semiotics and linguistics, especially for
students who want to observe hidden strategies and message in print
advertisements as it is known that every print advertisement has particular
concept.
2) Practically, this study is expected to be useful resources for other researchers who
are interested in analysing meanings such as ideological and cultural values that
strategically hidden in advertising discourse that is printed advertisement, as we
92
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
5.1 Conclusion
After analyzing the whole data deliberately, the conclusions are drawn:
1. Advertising language and image is used to influence people’s minds. It can be
investigated by analyzing the linguistic features and semiotic aspects to uncover or
reveal the message and meanings of advertisements to persuade and create
particular perspective such as implicit ideology to influence the perception of
viewers, especially women.
2. The most used linguistic features in the advertisements that use women as model
participants that seem to have strong influence and role in informing and persuading
viewers are noun phrase, adjective, and disjunctive clause.
3. Advertisements tend to use women as product representative, part of social life in
passive role, and also to sexualize them in promoting particular products regardless
what kind of product that is promoted. It is because many people believe that
women are the beautiful creation of God, and their physique and appearance are to
enjoy especially by men.
4. The role of image in depicting women in advertisements show different or various
representations, whether positive or negative. By using semiotic as tool of analysis
to investigate the denotation and connotation meaning, the myth or ideology can be
revealed. And from there, it is easy to determine whether there is stereotype or not
in the advertisements.
5. In the advertisements that promote particular products such as cosmetic, apparel,
93
representation of women and their physique and appearance that tend to be
stereotyped as object of sexuality and what beautiful should be like within narrow
convention.
5.2 Suggestion
In line with the conclusions that have been stated, some suggestions are offered to
the readers, especially for those who are interested in doing further study on women
representation and stereotypes in any discourse as follow:
• It is suggested for anyone who read this research, especially the female readers, to
be more mature & aware in realizing how women are represented and whether
there is particular stereotype in order to understand and filter the implied ideology
assumption.
• It is suggested for other researchers to study about the linguistic and semiotic
aspects used in other advertisements to reveal and uncover the hidden message
that may be harmful to our perception.
• It is suggested for other researchers who want to conduct a research by using
94
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