Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2005
Capstone Advisor
Prof. Sue Westcott Alessandri
Honors Reader
Prof. Sherri Taylor
Capstone Major
Advertising
Capstone College
Management
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Social Sciences
Subject Categories
Advertising and Promotion Management | Public Relations and Advertising
Abstract
Sex and decency in advertising is an international issue, and different nations allow different degrees of sexually explicit material (Boddewyn, 1991). This study compares the use of sex in advertisements in American and British editions of Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, and Marie Claire. The degree of sexual content in the advertisements was analyzed using measures of nudity, sexual behavior, sexually attractive models, sexual referents, and sexual embeds. The variables of nudity and sexual behavior were examined in a content analysis, and the variables of sexual attractiveness, sexual referents, and sexual embeds were examined in a qualitative analysis. Analysis of variance between the US and UK editions of the magazines determined that there was no significant difference in the amount of nudity or the amount of sexual behavior in the US and UK advertisements. This study did not find a difference in the amount or use of sexually attractive models in advertising in the two countries. However, sexual referents were used more often in British advertisements, and the language in these referents was more risqué than in American advertisements. Sexual embeds were also used more often in British advertisements.
Recommended Citation
Ruddy, Kathleen, "A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of the Use of Sex in Advertising in American and British Women’s Magazines" (2005). Honors Capstone Projects - All. 689.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/689
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
