Women’s Portrayal in Egyptian TV Channels Advertisements and its Impact on Female University Students Self-Perception

Abstract

Annually, hundreds of millions of pounds are spent on advertisements in order to convince consumers to purchase products and services. Therefore, advertisers produce adverts that effect consumers, making them believe by purchasing these products or using these services, they will gain certain personal qualities or certain lifestyles. The rapid development of media became an unavoidable part of people’s social setting where media and specifically advertisements has had an effect on people’s lives since advertisements became one of the main socialization platforms.

Advertisements can be considered as an evaluative stimulus before a purchasing decision is made, therefore, the main drive of advertising practitioners is to affect people’s subconscious and get them to assure customers thoughts prior to purchase. Hence, advertisements effect many facets of people’s lives and can stimulate various behaviors that if mismanaged, can produce damaging results (Melgar & Elsner, 2016).

Advertisements plays an essential role along with other socialization methods like family and education in presenting role models, imageries and morals that people use in the progression of developing their social individuality. While viewers can either consent or decline to the content of advertisements, it is this advertising structure that has the most control by choosing which gender roles will be portrayed and which ones will not be. Thus, the role of advertising plays a strong part in shaping people’s social reality (Brodolini et al., 2013).