Strong is beautiful(?): A multimodal analysis of strength and beauty in female and male sports commercials

Taking inspiration from Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, this major research paper examines the ways in which strength and beauty are constructed in female and male sports commercials. Building off of themes such as the sport-media complex, encoding and decoding models of communication, media representations of women and post-feminism, this paper is concerned with exposing the disparities between media representations of female and male athletes. Using the Women’s Tennis Association’s “Strong is Beautiful” ad campaign in tandem with AT&T’s “Paul George Strong” ad, the questions that guide this major research paper are: • How does strength act as a reductive concept? • How is the word “beautiful” encoded in the “Strong is Beautiful” ad campaign? • At what level (i.e. connotative or denotative) do the words “strong” and “beautiful” operate in the “Strong is Beautiful” television commercial? • At what level does the word “strong” operate in the “Paul George Strong” television commercial? And finally, what does the “Strong is Beautiful” television commercial and the “Paul George Strong” television commercial communicate about the beauty myth in sport? What do these commercials say about post-feminism in sport? Employing social semiotic theory and multimodal analysis, this paper concludes that strength is applied universally to the female athletes in the “Strong is Beautiful” commercial which solidifies the term as a male standard. As a result, the term has an oppressive connotation when used to describe female athletes thereby contradicting the very notion of what a female athlete should be: empowered.

Strong is beautiful(?): A multimodal analysis of strength and beauty in female and male sports commercials

Taking inspiration from Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, this major research paper examines the ways in which strength and beauty are constructed in female and male sports commercials. Building off of themes such as the sport-media complex, encoding and decoding models of communication, media representations of women and post-feminism, this paper is concerned with exposing the disparities between media representations of female and male athletes. Using the Women’s Tennis Association’s “Strong is Beautiful” ad campaign in tandem with AT&T’s “Paul George Strong” ad, the questions that guide this major research paper are: • How does strength act as a reductive concept? • How is the word “beautiful” encoded in the “Strong is Beautiful” ad campaign? • At what level (i.e. connotative or denotative) do the words “strong” and “beautiful” operate in the “Strong is Beautiful” television commercial? • At what level does the word “strong” operate in the “Paul George Strong” television commercial? And finally, what does the “Strong is Beautiful” television commercial and the “Paul George Strong” television commercial communicate about the beauty myth in sport? What do these commercials say about post-feminism in sport? Employing social semiotic theory and multimodal analysis, this paper concludes that strength is applied universally to the female athletes in the “Strong is Beautiful” commercial which solidifies the term as a male standard. As a result, the term has an oppressive connotation when used to describe female athletes thereby contradicting the very notion of what a female athlete should be: empowered.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of The Advertisement of Japanese Beauty Products

This research analyzes the advertisement of Japanese beauty products through perspective of the critical discourse analysis as stated by Fairclough (1995). The discussed issues are linguistic features used in the advertisement of Japanese beauty products and the strategies used by advertisers to manipulate consumers who are women. Through three dimensions of the critical discourse analysis, it is known that the choices of vocabularies, grammar, modality, and rhetoric serve to bring psychological effect to consumers. Besides, the strategies used by advertisers to manipulate consumers for purchasing or using the offered products are puffery (exaggerating the quality of product), social proof (showing that their products are popular), liking (posting the positive reviews by celebrities for the related products), scarcity (limiting the quantity of product), emotional appeals (playing with the emotion of consumers), and scientific evidence (showing the scientific evidence). Analysis shows the result that advertisement is made based on the beauty myth in society. Besides, advertisement plays a role in creating and propagating the beauty myth in society.

Citra Perempuan Di Dalam Majalah Popular (Analisis Wacana Terhadap Artikel Di Majalah Popular Edisi Mei 2019)

This study is entitled "Women's Image in Magazine Photos (Semiotic Analysis of Photos in Popular Magazine May 2019 Edition)". The object of this research is a photo in the May 2019 issue of Popular magazine. This study uses Rholand Barthes's semiotic analysis framework. The purpose of this research is to find out how the depiction of the objectification of women in the photo model of the May 2019 Popular Magazine and expose the myths contained in the photos. There is objectification in the sexual form which makes a woman's body an object to be observed, valued, and enjoyed by her sexual values. The myth that can be unearthed from the meaning of the sign in the photographs is the beauty myth that defines women's beauty in uniform criteria. Penelitian ini mengangkat tentang citra wanita dalam foto di majalah. Objek penelitian ini adalah foto di Majalah Popular Edisi Mei 2019. Kerangka analisis yang digunakan pada penelitian ini yaitu Analisis Semiotika Roland Barthes yang memiliki tujuan pencitraan perempuan dalam foto, serta menggali kebenaran tentang adanya pemaknaan tanda dalam foto-foto keanggunan wanita sesuai dengan porsi yang sama. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui bagaimana penggambaran objektifikasi perempuan dalam model foto di Majalah Popular dan memaparkan mitos-mitos yang terkandung dalam foto. Terdapat objektifikasi dalam bentuk seksual yang membuat tubuh wanita menjadi objek untuk diamati, dihargai, dan dinikmati oleh nilai-nilai seksualnya. Mitos yang dapat digali dari makna tanda dalam foto adalah mitos kecantikan yang mendefinisikan kecantikan wanita dalam kriteria seragam.