OUGD401 - Study Task 3 - Reading and Understanding a Text

This task asked me to read and analyse a body of text in conjunction to the module question I have chosen for my essay. We were given 6 questions that we were to choose from:

Module Questions -

·       “To what extent have Modernist design principles influenced contemporary Graphic Design?”

·       “How did Postmodernism impact on Graphic Design practice?"

·       "To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?"

·       “Discuss the role that Graphic Design can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."

·       “What is the relationship between branding and The Consumer Self?”

·       "What is the role of print media in the digital age?"

I decided to choose "To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?" as this sounded most appealing and interesting to me. There were a number of pieces of text that I could analyse to help with the research for this question that were found on estudio but found the most relevant was David Gauntlett’s 2008 piece on Media, Gender and identity.

Gauntlett uses a rather informal tone-of-voice as often sounds like he is speaking to the reader however he is clearly passionate about his view on sexism within advertising as often remarks on how things are advertised in the 21^st century and how they often sound like they were created fifty years ago. This is one of the key points raised by Gauntlett throughout the piece of writing; for example, he uses a slogan used by Iceland that states: “that’s why mum’s go to Iceland” portraying women as the ones that shop and do any domestic activities.

David Gauntlett also raises the point that these stereotypical jobs are still shown on tv advertising to be done by their desired sex such as anything domestic being shown done by women and anything not, being done by a man. Especially in the modern day this shouldn't be happening.

Another idea aforementioned in this book is how it is no longer just women that are idealised within the public eye. With advertising they are usually characterised as skinny, healthy and beautiful but also men as they are shown as being strong, tall and athletic. He suggests that culture constantly puts this pressure for perfection on all people and that it is not just women as previously thought. Despite this he adds that these advertisements often patronise 


He notes that the women in todays ads are usually strong and independent which completely contrasts previous use of females within advertising. Although generally being a good thing he adds that ad agencies often use this for their own gain. They sell something as a product for todays idealised, strong women with the intention that it will be bought due to their feminist advertisements.

"women are twice as likely as men to be in commercials for domestic products, and men were twice as likely as women to appear in ads for non-domestic products"

"Certainly, the very obvious stereotypes from the past have mostly gone (although today's sexism may just be more subtle)"

"Feminist discourses were thus cunningly 'co-opted' by the advertising industry and used to sell stuff to women"

"Women who were unselfconscious and unmade-up thirty years ago', she says are now 'infected' with the need to conform to certain images of beauty"

"women are still cast as younger, supportive counterparts to men, and older women are still the most underrepresented group"