school

Macau Periodical Index (澳門期刊論文索引)

Author
Ding, Shaoyan
Title
Simulating the other: a semiotic study of female representation in American magazine advertising
Journal Name
中西文化研究(停刊)
Pub. Info
Jun. 2010, 總第17期, 第1期, pp. 92-102
Keyword
Representation in advertising;Women;Other;Power;Motivated;Representation
Abstract
Abstract : This study is a semiotic analysis of the represented meanings of women by decodint the sampled images in American magazine advertising in 2002. The results of the study show that women in Americanmagazine advertising are invariably othreized in relation to the factors of race, gender, age, career and sexuality, as demonstrated through the fetishization, sexualization, objectification and fragmentation of the female body, and the trivialization of working women, negation of mature women, raclialized representation and the marginalization of lesbians, amongst other things. The study also demonstates that these modes of representation are encoded with the mythic meaning of women: American women are constructed as the Other in magazine advertising. Therefore, bell hooks' view of media representation as 'motivated representation' is employed to critique this otherization of women, and discloses that the otherization of women is but a strategy to maintain and perpetuate the power domination of a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Paragraph Headings: 1. Simulating women as the other 2. The otherization of women as the 'motivated representation'