Ricerc@Sapienza

Deforming Mirrors and Optical Illusions. Gendered Advertisements in the Practitioners’ Reading. The relationship between gender and advertising is a classic object of socio- communicative research (Goffman 1977), investigated more in content than in public or production. Many articles have focused on sexual stereotyping (Barthel 1988; Belkaoui, Belkaoui 1976; Furnham, Bitar 1993; Furnham, Schofield 1986; Furnham, Voli 1989; García-Muñoz et. al. 1994; Livingstone, Green 1986; Gilly 1988; McArthur, Resko 1975; Mazzella et. al. 1992; Rak, McMullen 1987; Zayer, Otnes 2012.), neglecting other dimensions and finally producing a state of analytical exhaustion. Hence the intention to investigate the advertising production processes that lead to certain representations, analyzing where the ideas for gender portrayals come from and who determines how and what gender-based advertising should be. Forty in-depth interviews with practitioners in management roles, working in national and international advertising agencies based in Italy, equally divided by gender and professional roles (twenty women and twenty men, twenty creative directors and twenty account manager/director), have been carried out. Results have revealed the existence of shared cognitive patterns and recurring production processes. In particular, the respondents recognize the rigidity, poverty and low quality of gender images in Italian advertising and are critical towards them. At the same time, they believe that distortions in gender images are inevitable, due to (apparent) technical issues such as brevity, marketing constraints, reference to large audiences. They appreciate the most innovative gender portrayals, but they believe that Italy is not the best country to innovate. They all recognize the power of advertising in influencing audiences, but they are divided, by gender and role, both in terms of the most questionable images and in relation to their personal and professional responsibilities.