gender portrait in media

Gender roles

We all have heard about the gender roles in our society. They are the roles given to men and women by the society. In fact, the social roles and also the importance of these roles in our daily life. But do these roles change with some TV commercial showing the mere opposite of our culture.

What is needed? And what is being delivered? What is wanted? And what is being shown? There are some positive sides of these advertisement like the promo of DALDA, which perfectly portraits a family, wife cooking in kitchen, husband returning from job and kids playing. Moreover, the ads of cellular company like JAZZ or INDIGO giving their packages in cultural limits. A mother talking to her son abroad or a business using their package for business promotion.

Another TV commercial of a product DAIRY MILK portraits a scene of marriage of a sister which is quite good and shows the perfect cultural values of our society. But where there is good, bad is always there to spoil it. TV commercials not only promote products, they also promote relations, vague fashion statements and complexity between the upper and lower society people. An ad of WARID GLOW or TELENOR DJUICE promotes unclear relations or to be more appropriate showing youth of society to interact with each other in a loving or romantic mood. These products never respect the values of a particular culture.

A shaver ad should remain to the person‘s face and not his half naked body. The only relation between a boy and a girl is not love. Some ads do not emphasize on the product, the try to show students of a university or college always chatting and messaging on their cell phones. The ad of chilli milli for instance shows a student boy getting a girl just by offering her a chilli milli. I mean what is this ? what are they trying to promote. Isn’t  chilli milli a kid type product? The why show such a strange commercial for it.

Is there a need to revive this type of attitude. It is entirely up to you, whether you want to see a girl offering peki in her college or a bunch of people dancing around to sell their tarang. Whether you want positive minds of society or a lady wandering around in desert to find a molty foam.

1.  Merits of advertisement….!!!

          Today I am going to talk about Merits of Advertisement by putting Gender of infront. as we all know that television commercials have become one of the most effective, most persuasive,& most popular methods of selling products of any sort. We absorb that commercials become a most attractive thing in our society, as it was not 4 5 years back.

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·       Public service messages:-

              The messages given through public service messages have a good impact on our society. Like in commercial

Of (AC) we all see that a man is in a lift,& a lift stops due to load shading, he calls to his employer & ask him to keep an AC temperature at a certain degree centigrade to cover up the gap of load shading. In commercial official members (Boss & employer)are male. we have a concept of male for out door work, this shows male gender regarding our society. Now talk about other advertisements, which try to intellect us with procegger of  vaccination,& try to be aware society through the progress in medical field.

·       Awareness In society:-

                  Mostly people have changed their way of awkward living style through admiring a well managed life style of advertisement. Both male & female specially youth took a great impact of the well nourished life of boys & girls. they have tried to make their selves pretended like them, they try to dress up like them ,try to walk like them,& try to talk like them. for example in Djuice commercial some boys & girls are shown to advertising their sms package they all are well dressed & talking in a well mannered way, so youth try to copy them, their dressing sense,& their conversation style)

·       Scientific topologies:-

                      Different electronic topologies companies have introduce their appliances. Which are advertising through females & males. eastern females are usually taken as a house job woman so in exceptional commercial cases, women are putting as a leading role, like in Dawlence Advertisement, a girl tried to advertise the appliances like dry washing machine and a working of microwave. In this commercial she is loving to her kids and managing her house job.

·       Moral Values:-

In some commercial you see that they are promoting our moral values e.g. in Jazz commercial a baby born and baby’s grandfather saying Azan into the ears of new born baby. Though they are showing their charming package, but according to our moral values. In another commercial of Dalda a mother is cooking in a kitchen & her daughter observing her & try to copy her like her daughter puts Dupatta on her head & serves food in front of her father and grand parents with great love and all the family become happy that she tries to become a Mertha Stewart. This commercial puts a good impact on young girls  that they tried to become a good girls.

·       Cultural Values:-

     In some advertisements they elaborate family gathering like in Olpers commercial they all are shown in a gathering party of a Aftari , females are serving eatable items to their families and the children who had their fast shown  happy and loveable through others and it also shows unity of different countries like in first they show Pakistani culture and a celebrity Atif Aslam saying Natt and then a Lebanon man saying a Natt and then another celebrity. They all are paying same kind of job at a same time, which shows an attachment to our religion. In Dalda commercial the lady is cooking in Kitchen and serving food showing love and affection to her in laws  and taking them as her parents, showing love and sacrifice to her husband and showing motherhood to her children.

                                     Annimations

The fiction stories present through cartoons makes for attracting kids. They show a good &  bad behavior of different personalities. If some one does a good deed & care for others become a hero or a heroin. The attitude of good animations puts a positive affect on children. & they try to put their selves in that structure.

·      Learning Process:-

 These commercials also give an opportunity of learning like in Tetra pack animation they told a procedure of containing milk in a proper manner. They told a milk taken by cows  store in a small container and took into a process unit and then to UHT (Ultra High Temperature)  where it has a temperature of  4 degree centigrade which is very high temperature and sealed in many packets .

Up given data shows a very qualitative knowledge for kids.

·       Scientific Technology:-

Now take animations of safeguard, they show scientific technologies that a bad man made a jarsoma to spread a disease in kids and same work is done in tetra pack animations, & than a good man entered in a story he has informed through e-mails  & by getting messages of many researchers & doctors with in a little bit time of period. He talked to kids through television & gives them some suggestions to keep them away from hygienic’ and kids obeyed hurrily started using safeguard  

·       Gender Role:-

in both animation good and bad roles are divided equally  between female and male characters like in
Tetra pack  leading role is given to a male and a female and show women as a  serving person as we have usually in our culture of middle and lower society .  

·      Objectives:-

When advertising consumer products like children’s toys, chocolates, candy bars, tooth paste etc. Study shows that Pakistani children are very much aware about TV commercial’s features like: truthfulness, annoyingness, taste and influencing characteristics of the ad.

·      Economic Development:-

Pakistani economy is progressing fastly due to advertising companies and companies which make these ads like network connection companies gives many charming and cheaper packages which are fastly adopted by people, e.g. U fone, Teleonor, Warid and Jazz commercials in which they show low call rates and cheaper sms packages and get huge amount of money and as much tax pay which handles economy.

According to a survey Pakistani economy relies on a network connection companies.

Multinational companies have survey which says 70-30 rule.

Which states that 70% of investment is for ads and publicity and 30% is for growth of industry or products? This rule helps economic development. It all started when the makers of Pepsi sold its product free for 2 years. Then this 70-30 rule followed after.

Disadvantages of Ads

As of my group members have explained the need and advantages of the ads we see on television or listen on radio. I would like to discuss about the demerits of those promos.

In my opinion, what they are trying to show is vulgarity, indiscipline in society and unclear relations. Straight up we talk about some of the famous ads of current time. Like if I want to sell a network connection I would not really like to dance around in expensive clothes like they did in “Telenor’s” ad. I would not also like to show that these packages of “D-juice” or “u-fone u^th” or “jazz sms bundles” are only for the young generation and the only use of these calls  and messaging packages are for promotion of a relation called love between a boy and a girl. Is this what we really demand for?

Are we forgetting something? Yes we are, our culture and our morals. We really don’t like ads which show students of a university always on their cell phones. Does this really happen?

Are we crazy about some package that much where we don’t realize that we came here to study. Why do these ads promote fashion, why do they create social imbalance? Why do they use girls to promote products? Why there is such a gender imbalance in our media?

I mean why is there a lady dancing in front of a “orient” refrigerator to sell it? Why not show the advantages of such product? Through these a T.V commercials the only thing which they are promoting is showing what we are not.

Impacts of advertisements on society

The advertisements in electronic media are far more effective in leaving an impression on the minds of viewers and listeners than other programmes and items. Advertisements do not only sell products; they sell concepts, values and beliefs too. They tell us who we are and what we should be and how we should govern our lives.

Ø      Constructive impacts:

·      Making the minds broader:

If we see few years back, communication was not fast as much as today. Irrespective of the specific gender, majority of people have their own cell phones. There are good packages of network connections like jazz, talkshawk, glow, Djuice etc.  In ads, we see a good thing that such facility has not been shown just for boys but for girls too. This has made the minds of people of our society broader. They also make no difference as girl or boy in facilitating their children with cell phones. They think it beneficial for the girls and boys equally.

·       Urge the girls to cook:

We see girls in ads showing interest for cooking. These ads urge girls to try something their own. There are some ads like ads of “National”,  “Shan”, “Bake Parlor “ products  and all these types of ads are liked by women and they show great interest in buying them as these types of products make their cooking easier and save the time.

·      Ads of fertilizers:

There are some ads of fertilizers like “Urea” and “Sona”. Such ads are although very rare and we see these ads only on PTV in a specific time. Such ads increase the knowledge of men of villages who are farmers and are not aware from these useful products.  Through these ads they came to know their new related product and get benefits from it in their practical lives.

·      Ads of detergents and paints:

The advertisements of the new detergents with up-to-date formulas are helping the women in maintaining cloth in perfect conditions. These include the ads of “RIN”, “SURF EXCEL” and “BONUS” etc. Ads of paints including MASTER PAINTS and BERGER are also seen on television.  After viewing these ads, men and women, both have the opinion to have a change in their houses like houses shown in the TV ads.

·       Ads of home appliances:

Ads are very helpful in having information about new or extra features of home appliances like fridge, washing machines, microwave ovens and air conditioners etc. Work related to these appliances is stereotypically thought for women. And a woman living in a village is also taking benefits from these appliances by knowing about them through these ads.

Ø Destructive impacts:

·      Fall in complex and lack of confidence:

There are ads of cosmetics like fair & lovely etc. Fairness creams do not perform as claimed by the sellers through TV advertisements. After viewing of such ads black or dark coloured girls could have the feelings of inferiority, social disapproval, lack of confidence, family and friends jokes aimed at their skin colour and other psychological problems like falling in complex.

·       Causing harm for women:

In ads, we see models or actresses. Girls or women get impressed from their fitness and try their best to get fitness as that of the models in the advertisements. The number of real life women and girls who seek a similarly underweight body is epidemic and they can suffer devastating health consequences.

·       Eroding self-esteem of women:

Women are frequently used to sell the products that they have nothing to do with. Using women to add glamour to the scene and equating them with purchasable commodities erodes self-esteem of women, reinforces their intellectual

and constructive role in the society.

·       Losing trust of parents:

The way of advertising of network connections is creating problems in the society especially for youth. The network connection companies are not just telling their packages through advertisements but also conveying the message to youth in a wrong sense that how they can use these packages.

                      In the Djuice TV commercial, a young guy who is apparently losing his day just because he did not sleep last night because he was texting and calling his friends the whole night. This ad suggests the youth that there is nothing bad not to sleep at nights just because texting and calling. And our youth is actually doing this and becoming a cause of worry for their parents.

                 Secondly, there are a lot of ads promoting flirtatious ideas. Especially university is targeted for this purpose. This type of ads suggests that this is happening in the universities. This thing causes the parents to become extra conscious and may be they do not trust their university going children.