Illustrate and critically discuss the representation of masculinity in Marlboro cigarette ads.

Guidance

For general guidance see the guidelines for writing essays and reports.

What Key Features Do I Look For? Familiarity with relevant texts Evidence - the stronger the better Argument - coherent and balanced Theoretical discussion - relation to relevant theories Understanding of relevant concepts Reflexivity - reflections on methodology Examples - insightfully analysed Style - readability and effective presentation

Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text (not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher. Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this department, click here. For examples of essays by UWA students click here.

Advice for this particular assignment: The most extensive database of tobacco ads is the Stanford Tobacco Advertising Database at http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/search_adv.php?-link=Find. However, you can easily find additional examples. The choice of examples is of the utmost importance but it is ultimately down to your judgement. Consider both visual practices and rhetorical appeals. Comparisons between ads are often more fruitful than analyses of single ads in isolation. Careful and detailed comparisons and contrasts are expected. Focus on detailed analysis rather than on broad generalisations. Relate your account to any relevant existing studies. Do not slip into a naive gender essentialism (do not equate sex and gender). This is not a matter of 'political correctness' so it won't help to replace all references to 'sex' with references to 'gender'. If you mean 'male/female' or 'men/women' then say 'sex'; if you mean 'masculine/feminine'/'masculinity/femininity' then say 'gender'. For instance, if you are talking about how advertisers target males and females then you may refer to the sexes. If you are talking about how certain traits tend to be associated with masculinity and femininity (such as dominant notions of masculinity as 'active' and of femininity as 'passive') then you should refer to 'gender stereotypes'. Consult the relevant Powerpoint slides for the lectures touching on issues of gender. Back up all claims about gender with whatever relevant academic studies you can locate. While acknowledging the widespread recognition of gender stereotypes in ads and in culture generally, do not appear to blindly endorse gender stereotypes. Note also that this is an assignment for which the inclusion of relevant pictorial illustrations is important. Ads should, wherever possible, be dated and sourced (e.g. in which magazine(s) did the ads appear?). Print ads should be inserted as captioned Figures within the text.

Some suggested reading

• Archer, D., B. Iritani, D. Kimes & M. Barrios (1983) 'Face-Ism-- 5 Studies of Sex-Differences in Facial Prominence', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45(4): 725-35
• Barnard, Malcolm (2005) Graphic Design as Communication. London: Routledge
• Barthel, Diane (1988) Putting on Appearances: Gender and Advertising. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press
• Basow, Susan A. (1992) Gender: Stereotypes and Roles. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole
• Benwell, Bethan (Ed) (2003) Masculinity and Men's Lifestyle Magazines. Oxford: Blackwell
• Beynon, John (2002) Masculinities and Culture. Buckingham: Open University Press
• Chandler, Daniel (1998): 'Notes on "the Gaze"'. [WWW document] URL http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/gaze/gaze.html
  
• Chaplin, Elizabeth (1994) Sociology and Visual Representation. London: Routledge
• Costa, Janeen Arnold (Ed) (1994) Gender Issues and Consumer Behavior. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
• Courtney, Alice E & Thomas W Whipple (1983) Sex Stereotyping in Advertising. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books
  
• Crewe, Ben (2003) Representing Men: Cultural Production and Producers in the Men's Magazine Market. Oxford: Berg
• Dines, G. & J. M. Humez (Eds.) (1995) Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text-Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
  
• Emmison, Michael & Philip Smith (2002) Researching the Visual: Images, Objects, Contexts and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry (Introducing Qualitative Methods). London: Sage
• Goffman, Erving (1979) Gender Advertisements. New York: Harper & Row
• Heller, Steven (Ed) (2000) Sex Appeal: The Art of Allure in Graphic and Advertising Design. New York: Allworth Press
• Henley, Nancy M. (1977) Body Politics: Power, Sex and Nonverbal Communication. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall
• Hubbard, Rita (1994) 'Sex and the Selling of Male Fragrances', in Manca, Alessandra & Luigi (Eds.) (1994) Gender & Utopia in Advertising: A Critical Reader. Lisle, IL: Procopian Press, pp. 67-94
• Hupfer, Maureen (2002) 'Communicating with the Agentic Woman and the Communal Man: Are Stereotypic Advertising Appeals Still Relevant?' Academy of Marketing Science Review; [WWW document] URL http://www.amsreview.org/articles/hupfer03-2002.pdf
• Jackson, Peter, Nick Stevenson & Kate Brooks (2001): Making Sense of Men's Magazines. Cambridge: Polity
• Kervin, Denise (1987) 'Gender Coding in Magazine Advertisements', Journal of Visual/Verbal Languaging 7(1): 52-9
• Kervin, Denise (1990) 'Advertising Masculinity: The Representation of Males in Esquire Advertisements', Journal of Communication Inquiry 14(1): 51-69
• Kress, Gunther & Theo van Leeuwen (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd Edn.). London: Routledge
  
• Leiss, William, Stephen Kline & Sut Jhally (2005) Social Communication in Advertising. London: Routledge
• Leymore, Varda Langholz (1975) Hidden Myth: Structure and Symbolism in Advertising. New York: Basic Books
  
• Manca, Alessandra & Luigi (Eds.) (1994) Gender & Utopia in Advertising: A Critical Reader. Lisle, IL: Procopian Press
  
• Martineau, Pierre (1957) Motivation in Advertising: Motives That Make People Buy. New York: McGraw-Hill
• Mackinnon, Kenneth (2003) Representing Men: Maleness and Masculinity in the Media. London: Arnold
• Messaris, Paul (1997) Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising. Thousand Oaks: Sage
• Nixon, Sean (1996) Hard Looks: Masculinities, Spectatorship and Contemporary Consumption. New York: St Martin's Press
• Oakes, Penelope J., Alexander Haslam & John C. Turner (1994) Stereotyping and Social Reality. Oxford: Blackwell
• Pronger, Brian (1990) The Arena of Masculinity. London: GMP
  
• Prosser, Jon (Ed) (1998) Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers. London: Routledge
• Reichert, Tom (2005) Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
• Reichert, Tom & Jacqueline Lambiase (Eds) (2003) Sex in Advertising: Perspectives on the Erotic Appeal. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
• Scanlon, Jennifer (Ed) (2000) The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader. New York: New York University Press
• Schirato, Tony & Jen Webb (2004) Understanding the Visual. London: Sage
• Schneider, David J. (2004) The Psychology of Stereotyping. New York: Guilford Press
• Schroeder, Jonathan E. (2002) Visual Consumption (Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research). London: Routledge
• Schudson, Michael (1984) Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion. New York: Basic Books
• Shaw, Eric H. & Stuart Alan (2003) ‘Cigarettes’. In John McDonagh & Karen Egolf (Eds) (2003) The Advertising Age Encyclopedia of Advertising, Vol. 1, pp. 310-318
• Spencer, Stephen (2011) Visual Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Awakening Visions. London: Routledge
• Tungate, Mark (2008) Branded Male: Marketing to Men. London: Kogan Page
• Vaknin, Judy (2007) Smoke Signals: 100 Years of Tobacco Advertising. Hendon: Middlesex University Press
• van Leeuwen, Theo & Carey Jewitt (Eds.) (2001) Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage