Advertising and Promotion Management Commons^™

A Quantitative And Qualitative Analysis Of The Use Of Sex In Advertising In American And British Women’S Magazines, Kathleen Ruddy

Honors Capstone Projects - All

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 …