Since as far back as I can remember the media has been trying to impose certain stereotypes into our minds in almost all forms of media from commercials to movies. I’m sure you all have seen a commercial or can even think of a specific commercial that does this. Right off the top of my head I can tell you that women are portrayed as delicate, sensitive, and domesticated while men are portrayed as strong, aggressive and assertive. Because of this it made it easy for me to find the perfect video to demonstrate this and I’m sure you have also seen it before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIutgtzwhAc&feature=fvst
Robert Entmann defines framing as “selecting aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in which such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.” In this case men are being portrayed as obsessive of beer in a bit of a feminine way. In a more stereotypical commercial one might see them men in the beer closet watching a football game or eating a large steak or something. Do you think that this commercial was more taking a shot at how women usually act or do you think they did not even think of that part of it? Most sensible people can see that this is just supposed to be a funny commercial and not how men really are and probably would not have any adverse affects on men who watch it but there are definitely other similar commercials that do affect the issue of framing.
The example of the beer commercial is typical in the way that there are almost no commercials featuring women as the beer representative besides maybe the bud light lime ones. In my experience I found that men are the usual beer drinkers and women prefer a mixed drink with a little better flavor to it. Do you think that these commercials or advertisements have anything to do with that?
I was never so aware of framing and media influence until becoming a media studies major but now that I have been shown these things it is hard not to notice them. Because of this I noticed how the women in the commercial were portrayed. They were all excited over a large closet with lots of clothes and shoes. Do you think the writers of the advertisement did this on purpose or do you think it was just supposed to be funny about how the men reacted?
Can you think of any beer commercials that do not directly focus on men? If so, why do you think they went with women in the commercial instead of men? After hearing what Erving Goffman said how the media has homogenized how women are publicly depicted do you think that men are also publicly depicted?
Will media ever become neutral in gender roles or will things always stay the same?
I think that alcohol advertisements are an excellent example of gender framing. As Matt said, it is hard to think of a beer commercial off the top of one's head that is marketed towards women. Usually in the beer commercials that I have seen, they are targeted towards men. The men appear as either rugged, football watching manly-men, or as an unnoticed dork in a bar, who gains the attention of a beautiful woman because of the beer in his hand. Essentially, in most alcohol advertisements, women are framed to be sex objects.
ReplyDeleteIn the Baran and Davis readings, this notion is reinforced "There are many subtle and not-so-subtle messages in these ads. 'Consume the product and get the girl' is one dominant message. Another is that physically attractive women are sexually active and fun-loving....The specific messages each of us gets from the ads will be different, but their long-term consequences may be similar---dominant myths about women are retold and reinforced" (page 318).
In other words, these advertisements could potentially reinforce negative images of both men and women.
I definitely think that the writers of the ad that Matt posted, intended for the men to act like women. It is another commentary on how women are portrayed as clothes and shoes obsessed. I have also noticed several commercials that portray men as incompetent and somewhat buffoonish. I suppose that it all depends on the product being advertised.
According to Entmann there are four locations of communication process for framing. The fourth of which is the culture, which he defines as "The culture is the stock of commonly invoked frames; in fact, culture might be defined as the empirically demonstrable set of common
frames exhibited in the discourse and thinking of most people in a social grouping." (page 3). In regards to the beer commercials, the culture contributes to the framing of gender roles.
I do not think that the media will ever become neutral when it comes to gender roles. Granted, the media has come a long way, since say the stereotypical housewife image of the 1950s, but there is still room for improvement.
I like the question you posed in the beginning of your post questioning the ‘intent’ so-to-speak of the commercial. You asked if we thought that a point of it was to make fun of how women usually act, and I think the fact that you phrased the question in that way shows how successful framing can be. I think a large aspect -with respect to the point of the commercial- was to just be funny, but it also ties in a notion that Baran spoke of in the textbook when he stated, “We don’t operate with a limited or fixed set of expectations about social roles, objects or situations.” (316). The fact that our expectations aren’t fixed, or permanent, allows us to be influenced by the way the media frames different things. This commercial in particular I think exemplifies that really well, in that watching the men react to beer in a more feminine way was both something we could laugh at, but in my opinion, wouldn’t be THAT out of the ordinary to see. I think this because of framing and because our expectations aren’t fixed.
ReplyDeleteDue to the amount of framing we’ve been exposed to, especially within the beer industry, we associate men with beer, and we’re basically told to think it’s something important to them. Due to this, seeing them react this way can be both funny and a possibility- even if it’s more the exception than the rule.
I think the fact that we associate beer with men and women more with fruity drinks has a lot to do with framing in the media. So many of these advertisements are framed to reinforce the above notions, that we essentially begin accepting them as true depictions of society. When Baran discussed the concept of “Hyperritualized Representations “ he defined them as when “media content is constructed to highlight only the most meaningful actions” and he found examples within advertisements ( Baran, 317). We learn our social cues from these different ads. Since we have been subjected to so many of these commercials, it is essentially framing our thought process and how we perceive actions such as these within our daily lives or through different media outlets.
In terms of creating an ad that will persuade consumers to buy the product, I think framing the commercial in the way they did was very effective. They used how we as a society view both women and men, included the types of drinks we associate with either gender, and then added a humorous element- but to me it was only funny because of how our minds have already been framed to think. You asked if we could think of any commercials geared towards women, and then why we think they choose to here. Personally, I can’t think of many commercials where women are used in the ads to sell beer -aside from being where their bodies are shown off as much as the beer- but I don’t think they were really used any differently here- they still served a similar purpose.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone has said so far and think that the media does stereotype just to increase influence. Beer commercials for as long as I can remember have done a very blatant job at creating stereotypes and a lot of gender profiling.
ReplyDeleteI think that the way men are perceived( muscular, rugged, aggressive) really shows a huge impact in the beer advertisement industry and in almost every commercial men are looked upon that way. As far as women are looked upon (sensitive, delicate), they are put into wine commercials and clothes commercials like we saw some of in the Heineken commercial.
On page 315 in Mass Communication theory, framing is described as "developing and using expectations is a normal and routine part of everyday life. As human beings, we have cognitive skills allowing us to continually scan our environment, make sense of it, and then act on these interpretations." I agree with Matt that before I was a media studies major I would have never looked beyond the comedy of these commercials, but it is very hard not to notice.
I really do think that gender is a big issue in terms of media. Very rarely do you see men and women in the same terms and there is a lot of inequality of what is reality. I do think though that the way these images are framed is what makes them so successful. These commercials are primarily used as comedy and I really don't see anything wrong with them. If anything because of the way they are looked at in the media makes them more successful because of the attention they draw.
"According to Goffman's idea of social cues, we are always monitoring the social environment and waiting for signals for us to make a change.
I think this is the new era of framing as we saw in this commercial and other commercials. This beer commercial has us thinking one thing and then suddenly changes to what the true interest of the commercial is and in my opinion makes this very successful.
Like most people have suggested, the example Matt showed is a classic beer commercial. It has all the aspects a viewer would expect in such a commercial. It has good looking women, middle aged men, shows an unlimited amount of beer, portrays a “party” or gathering amongst middle to upper-class couples and includes humor. Why is it that we expect these attributes to be included in a commercial trying to sell beer? In Mass Communications Theory textbook, Baran and Davis explain the details of expectation in framing and how it impacts our social world. “(1) Expectations are based on previous experience of some kind…(2) Expectations can be quite resistant to change, even when they are contradicted by readily available factual information. (3) Expectations are often associated with and can arouse strong emotions…(4) Expectations often get applied by us without our conscious awareness…”
ReplyDeleteThe rules of expectations and how framing molds our expectations can be applied to Matt’s example of the Heineken commercial. Because we have all been exposed to beer commercials for many years our expectations of future beer commercials are based on our experience of past commercials. Since we have been exposed to so many commercials of this kind with the same message, our expectation is resistant to change. For example, if someone told me that it is scientifically prove that women buy beer more than men do, I still wouldn’t change my “stereotype” or expectation that men drink more beer than women. As far as emotions, mostly all beer commercials show the consumers having the time of their life which is a strong happy and joyful emotion. From experiencing that, we associate beer with a beyond real happiness and emotion. Lastly, having an expectation isn’t a conscious decision. It is embedded into your brain and thoughts and is used when the situation arises.
As far as this commercial, it is obvious that the purpose was to compare the strong emotion of happiness and excitement women feel over a luxurious walk in closets to how men should feel when they drink Heineken beer. Consciously or not, the makers of this commercial used salience to support their point. In the article “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm”, Entman defines salience as “making a piece of information more noticeable, meaningful or memorable to audiences.” This commercial used salience to make their brand more brand recognizable. The green glowing bottles, the humor and the actors excitement were all aspects of salience that were effective.
I don’t think it would be wise for the media to change their framing of beer commercials because we expect them to be this way. Framing beer commercials as being geared towards men has been successful, so why should they change it?
I like beer commercials. Why? I think the represent the funniest parts of my reality with "beer moments." Besides Budweiser's sometimes use of animals..horses and frogs(?)... the example Matt gave is dead-on.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion of those ads are rather than advertise the beer, they advertise beer sentiment and attitudes. The Heineken ad definitely makes women appear AS superficial as men. I don't think it was necessarily pointing fun at women, just how ridiculous both habits can be. I have definitely seen fellow guy friends get just as excited over an abundance of booze.
In the 1981 version of Baron and Davis they featured a Framing Process Diagram which they also featured on page 315. They ask how errors may occur. The error we and Matt noticed is the lack of women representing beer drinkers. I think the error occurs between steps "Attention directed towards cues used by media professionals in media representation" and "Decoding of media representations of everyday communication." These cues tend to neglect women, and therefore so does the representation part. A video I found very similar to Matt’s was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEWtTVaIH0M&p=369E908315A04E33&playnext=1&index=21.
While in terms of drinking habits I am not concerned with this representation “hyperritualiaztion” is more concerning in terms of the cues it “gives off,” such as attractive women being more sexual. Entmann’s definition of “framing” describes all of its goals through “promoting.” Advertisements need to recognize exactly what they “promote” in ads despite humor, and need to “promote” more equality, as always.
First, I just wanted to say the commercial Matt posted is great. Matt also posted a very interesting question in his blog which was: "Will media ever become neutral in gender roles or will things always stay the same?" I personally feel as though the media will never become neutral in gender roles. The reason I think this is because our society is so embedded with these gender roles from all different types of media it would be almost impossible for people to have neutral feelings for gender roles.
ReplyDeleteIn "Mass Communication Theory," the authors state this about our expectations: "Expectations can be quite resistant to change, even when they are contradicted by readily available factual information" (Baran & Davis 315). We are so exposed to gender differences in the media that it would be very difficult to change our views on gender roles for sports. For example, we see women to be used as sex objects in sports. NFL teams are expected to have cheerleaders who are extremely good looking and do not wear very much. I am not saying this is right, but this is how it is.
These gender roles are also seen in this commercial which was posted in the lead blog. Simply put, the commercial shows the men having an obsession with beer and the women having an obsession with clothes and shoes. In an article titled, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” the author defines framing by saying, “To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman 52). This commercial does just that. It uses perceived reality (gender roles) and shows them in a communicating text.
Overall, I feel as though this use of gender roles in the media is a never-ending cycle. It starts in the media. The viewer sees it in the media and begins to gain an opinion towards it. It starts to become a comical area for the viewer. We begin to see comedy in gender roles. Because we see comedy in gender roles, the media uses these gender roles to attract more viewers. As you can see, this is a never ending cycle and this is why I feel like the use of gender roles in the media will never be neutral.
One interesting question that Matt posed in his blog that not too many people touched upon is whether or not these commercials/advertisements affect the perception we have with products such as beer and gender roles? I, for one, happen to believe that yes many people including myself have grown up watching beer commercials and coming to the conclusion that all men kick back after a long day and crack open a cold beer. That is something that is “normal” and “accepted” within our society. The classic image from those Budweiser commercials of middle-age guys sitting back on the couch, watching the game and having a Bud.
ReplyDeleteBaran and Davis discuss sociologist Erving Goffman’s primary, or dominant, reality. They define this reality as “a real world in which people and events obey certain conventional and widely accepted rules” (318). I maintain that one of these rules or widely accepted conventions is that men drink beer and women tend to prefer other forms of alcohol including mixed drinks. Let’s face it, you don’t see too many Bud Light commercials during Sunday afternoon football games displaying a group of women drinking beer at a sports bar. That image just doesn’t make sense in our preconceived “dominant reality”.
I thought Allie brought up a really interesting point when it comes to our expectations with various forms of media such as beer commercials. Robert Entman explains how “an increase in salience [or notoriety], enhances the probability that receivers will perceive the information, discern meaning and thus process it, and store it in memory” (53). I can think of the TV phenomenon which is the Super bowl and how so many people look forward to the new commercials each year. It is widely recognized that some of the funnier ads come from beer companies and thus people have a given set of expectations when one airs during Super bowl Sunday. We expect them to extremely funny, entertaining, and contain all of the gender stereotypes that everyone has already talked about. But most importantly these commercials have a significant effect on our culture and help to shape the many conventional social norms that we accept in our everyday lives.
Firstly, I'd like to thank you for choosing my favorite commercial for this blog. Secondly, I'd like to point out that framing in commercials is MUCH different than framing in other types of media.
ReplyDeleteAn advertiser's job is to construct an image and convince you to desire that image and, in turn, make you buy something. It has been proven in various studies that, yes, advertisements tend to stereotype people. Women are almost always portrayed as the weaker sex, while men are always portrayed as strong and manly. Take for example Burger King's "I Am Man" commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGLHlvb8skQ). This commercial basically feeds into all the stereotypes about men. However, this is done because, for most men, the image of rugged manliness is desirable. Yes, there are some men out there who may not want to be seen as a stereotypical manly-man, but unfortunately, the whole point of advertisements is to appeal to as many people as possible. Therefore, they use these preconceived stereotypes to their advantage in order to sell a product.
Now, this leads us to a chicken-or-the-egg type of scenario. Do you believe that advertisements are intentionally "framing" and therefore imposing these stereotypes on our society, or do you think that they are using stereotypes that were already there? I, personally, believe the latter, and until this method proves to be ineffective for sales, I doubt that advertisers will stop.
Baran and Davis point out that "Developing and using expectations is a normal and routine part of everyday life. As human beings, we have cognitive skills allowing us to continually scan our environment, make sense of it, and then act on these interpretations" (315). This is exactly what advertisers are doing, and I've actually come to think that, in cases such as male and female stereotypes, our nation has become a bit too sensitive. It's biologically true that, in most species, men are the strong, protective, dominant sex, while females are programmed in their genetic coding to care for and nurture their young. Are there exceptions to this rule? Of course. But we can't expect people to throw away gender generalizations that are based on biology. The vast majority of people on Earth are going to respond to their instincts, so why not advertise in such a way that convinces men and women to feed into their natural, biological roles as male and female? Advertisers often aim to market their products as a way to satiate primal desires.
So, while this is technically "framing" by Entman's definition on page 52, I feel that it is more important to look at the WHY of this particular scenario (52). In cases where marketing is involved, it's no wonder we're going to find more overt, extreme cases of framing. And in any event, the general public is more skeptical and critical of advertisements, so although these ads are "framed," most thinking adults can say to themselves, "This isn't real, this is a commercial." However, when it comes to news, it is much more difficult for people to make that distinction.
Kieran Wheeler
ReplyDeleteThere is no question that framing plays a major role in alcohol advertisements- particularly for beer. In most alcohol commercials that I have seen, women are only portrayed as sexual objects, while the men are often shown surrounded by women or in pursuit of women. In beer commercials, specifically, men are often portrayed watching sports, hanging out with the guys, or surrounded by women. I found the topic of beer commercials very interesting, because I have found that the portrayal of women tends to differ in these commercials.
It often seems that women who we are meant to believe are married to the men are often portrayed nagging their husbands about something, causing their husbands to want to get away from the woman and drink beer. However, when we are meant to believe that the men and women in a particular commercial are single, the women are usually portrayed as sexual objects that the men will be able to “get” if they drink the advertised beer. These women are often portrayed dancing around, wearing skimpy clothing, etc. In the Baran and Davis reading, it says, “Goffman showed how women in many ads are presented as less serious and more playful than men. They smile, place their bodies in nonserious positions, wear playful clothing, and in various ways signal deference and a willingness to take direction from men” (318). This is a perfect description of how the supposed single women in alcohol advertisements are portrayed.
In the Entmann reading, it says, “Frames call attention to some aspects of reality while obscuring other elements, which might lead audiences to have different reactions” (55). While some might feel that the Heineken commercial is simply funny, I also realize that the commercial is taking a shot at the behavior of women. In the Heineken commercial, it is pretty evident that they are showing the differences between what men and women enjoy. Through the mass media’s different portrayals of men and women, I have been led to believe that women enjoy large, walk-in closets, while men enjoy drinking beer. I have also been led to believe that women are very emotional, while men usually mask their emotions. This is why I feel that although the commercial is funny, the producers of it were also taking a shot at women by having the men jump around and scream when they enter the walk-in fridge full of beer, because this is typically a “female” reaction.
It is funny that women are hardly portrayed drinking beer in these commercials. Most of the women I know drink beer, but you would never think that this would be the case after watching all of the different alcohol commercials on television. Women are rarely portrayed drinking beer in these commercials, unless it is a flavored beer like Bud Light Lime, as Matt stated. I cannot think of any beer commercials where there are women depicted instead of men. The only commercials that I can think of where women are not portrayed as either nagging or sex objects are the Miller Lite commercials that have women bartenders. However, these commercials also use framing as they depict the men in the commercials who do not care about the taste of their light beer as being “girly.”
I do not think that the media will ever become neutral about gender roles in our lifetime, because there are simply too many stereotypes out there about roles of men and women that if changed, may not be understood by the audience. This is why framing in the media is so powerful, because it is able to completely shape our views about certain subjects.
I definitely think that these commercials/ advertisements have to do with the fact that all we see for beer commercials are basically only men being focused on. One beer commercial that sticks to mind when talking about the framing for these types of commercials are the ads for the beer Dos Equis. I'm sure everyone has seen it, the commercial with the "most interesting man in the world." The guy who had just once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels, and the man who is able to speak french, in spanish. The point is that the advertisement take this manly, experienced, well-groomed woman-surrounded man and has him explain to the world why he will only drink this type of beer. What man doesn't want to crack open a nice cold Dos Equis after that commercial? In the reading for Baran and Davis, they say, "Goffman argued that our experience of reality is bound up with our ability to move effortlessly through daily life making sense of situations and the people in them" (Baran, Davis, 316). The main point in this quote, to me, was the mentioning of the word 'effortlessly', meaning it happens automatically, or without us even recognizing it consciously. Since everyone basically agrees that all we see on television are the commercials where the men are supposed to drink the beer, it then turns these messages into the social norm, and basically the expected behavior of the public to follow. These ads are pretty much setting the rules for us to follow, even if we don't recognize it.
ReplyDeleteGoing even further into the advertising commercials, not only is it crucial that the men order a beer to drink at a bar, but now it is important which beer to order, accoring to Miller Light. These commercials at the bar where they ask, "Do you want more or less taste?" and the man replies, "it doesn't matter, I don't care," the bartender gives the man a different type of light beer and calls him a pussycat. Yes, the guy is dressed in what he calls an 'outfit to support the team,' but to me there is a bigger picture in this ad. I think the message is pretty clear, they just found a way to add humor and a rediculous costume so they can disguise what they are trying to say and put the commercial all over the television.
In the article, Entman backs up these theories by stating, "analysis of frame illuminates the precise way in which influence over a human consciousness is exerted by the tranfer of information from one location- such as speech, utterance, news report, or novel- to that consciousness." (pg. 51,52). With this, it is no wonder why our view of males go with beer and football, and women go with clothes and mixed drinks.
There is one ad that answers the question regarding women being the main focus in a beer commercial. Its the most recent commercials of Corona and it involves 2 women in bikinis sitting on a beach with a bucket of Corona. They did, however, add the footballs dropping out of the sky, and the guy with the six pack walking over and smiling at the girl. I don't think their point was to make Corona come off as a woman's drink, but I think they are reaching out to both genders. They aren't taking the same path as Dos Equis saying only interesting men drink this beer, instead they are saying this beer makes a great refreshing drink on a perfect day on the beach, even if it is two beautiful women who don't look like the type to drink beer.
I agree with the point brought up here. I think that media has tried to persuade many people into certain stereotypes. Many commercials set the image that after a hard day of work men deserve to come home and enjoy an ice-cold beer. On the other hand when we look at commercials that feature feminine products there is a sense of delicate portrayed. These example fit Goffman’s definition of framing, “The term frame refers to a specific set of expectations use to make sense of a social situation at a given point in time.” I personally believe that the way media portrays groups of people influences stereotypes and reinforces prejudice in society. However, in spite of masculinity being associated with beer, I must say that in recent years, beer commercials are not featuring women in a way that it makes it more socially acceptable for women to enjoy these products. For example some of the Miller 64 commercials are featuring women to try to persuade the feminine audience that there are beers that take their weight into consideration.
ReplyDeleteThe commercial that matt posted was hilarious. When i first saw that commercial I was laughing so hard and definitely goes down as one of the best advertisements. Of course, i think it is some type of gender profiling ans stereotyping but something interesting to see would be what do you think would happen if the guys walked in to a closet of all clothes and the women walked into the one with beers. From this commercial you put beer with men and clothes and shoes with women. These are considered to be symbols in a way.
ReplyDeleteIn Baran and Davis it says " symbols mediate and structure all our experience because they structure our ability to perceive and interpret what goes on around us" (303). From the symbols in this commercial, we would perceive that men like beer and women like clothes and shoes, which is true.
I dont think gender roles will ever become neutral in the media, might get close to neutral in the future but that's it which is unfair but at the end of the day its all about money. This is how it is framed.
"Frames can determine what public opinion is" (Entman, 57). The public opinion from this commercial will probably be as i stated before that women like clothes and shoes and men like beer. It will also have an opinion that it is stereotyped also.