This study investigates the representation of gender in technology-related video advertisements. This thesis quantitatively and qualitatively examined 54 of the most recent commercials by the top nine Fortune 500 technology companies. A total of 407 characters were coded and quantitatively analyzed while the videos themselves were qualitatively assessed with particular attention given to the videos' themes and the interactions between the characters and the technology products and services. Results of the analyses showed that there were more male, Caucasian characters than any other character type based on gender and race/ethnicity. Females were mainly characterized according to traditional stereotypes, such as being linked to the home and expressing emotions. On the other hand, males were most often presented outdoors and conveyed confidence. Overall, the advertisements targeted upper class, Caucasian males while technology itself was associated with power, speed, and progress. These findings have important implications for understanding the persistence of gender inequality in the field of technology and in existing cultural beliefs surrounding gender and technology.

Prescription drug advertisements are commonly seen in magazines and on television, and as a result, the public is familiar with them. Many drug ads are targeted toward older adults, who tend to use more medications, because they suffer from more chronic conditions than younger adults. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of drug advertising at persuading older adults to ask physicians for specific medications remains uncertain. Older adults’ explicit memory for drug ads is poor, but their implicit memory for drug ads may be better. Therefore, older adults may be implicitly persuaded by drug ads even when they cannot explicitly remember seeing them. The current study measured implicit memory with an incidental ratings exercise and an indirect test of preference; explicit memory was measured with intentional studying and a direct test of recognition. The purposes of the study were to compare implicit and explicit memory for drug ads in older and younger adults, to determine whether age differences in memory are affected by salient information or anxiety, and to demonstrate that a test of implicit memory may be useful in estimating advertising effectiveness. The results showed no age difference for implicit memory for drug ads, but an age difference was found for explicit memory for drug ads. However, contrary to hypotheses, neither salient information nor anxiety had an effect on implicit or explicit memory. The results were consistent with previous research demonstrating implicit memory in the absence of explicit memory. Although older adults had slightly worse explicit memory, both implicit and explicit memory for drug ads was generally good in both groups. The results were also obtained within the everyday context of prescription drug advertising, which extends memory research to an important real-world setting. Ethical considerations for research on aging and advertising are discussed. Drug ads are designed to be persuasive, but ads should be carefully designed to inform consumers, rather than to manipulate them. The implicit memory manipulation succeeded in demonstrating that ads are persuasive, suggesting that a complete assessment of advertising effectiveness should include a test of implicit memory.

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This thesis study takes a mixed methods and black feminist approach to find out how black women are represented within the beauty advertisements of women's fashion magazines.

Advertisements (ads) in social networking sites (SNSAs) have been considered by many researchers as a crucial area of research. However, the scope of the existing studies on consumers’ assessments of SNSAs has been very limited. Most of the existing studies on assessing SNSAs have focused on Ducoffe’s (1996) model with its three variables, and they have ignored other related variables like the credibility value and interactivity value of the advertisement, which are more logically related to SNSAs than the traditional ads. Moreover, most of these studies have been skewed towards younger users and have ignored the social networking site (SNS) users from other age categories. Finally, previous studies about the assessment of SNSAs have depended on data collected from users of popular SNSs and ignored active users from the brand communities (fans of brands on SNSs). In this thesis, the present author has emphasized these three points as the major gaps in the literature about assessing SNSAs. Moreover, to deepen our understanding of how SNS users assess SNSAs this study presents the research findings of three published papers with three different purposes and with different levels of analysis. The first article aimed to extend Ducoffe’s (1996) model – which was used in the previous literature in assessing SNSAs – by considering the ads’ credibility and interactivity values in addition to Ducoffe’s (1996) three variables of information value, entertainment value, and irritation value. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the modified model, and based on the regression analysis of testing the five predictors, the model without the irritation value had the best coefficient of determination (R2). Moreover, coefficient analysis to test the given hypothesis and to determine the coefficients of the predictors was used. According to this survey study, the four primary variables that predicted the consumers’ assessment of the SNSAs were the information value, entertainment value, credibility value, and interactivity value. As perceived by the SNS users, the interactivity value was the strongest among the four predictors. Based on the unexpected result ofthe irritation value of the first paper, the second paper focused on testing the extended model of the assessments of SNSAs as perceived by a different research population, in this case, brand communities’ consumers (BCCs). Based on the regression analysis of testing the five predictors, the model with the five predictors had the best coefficient of determination (R2). The coefficient analysis was used to test the given hypothesis, to determine the coefficients of the five predictors, and to form a construct equation for assessing the SNSAs. Based on this survey study, the four variables with significant positive effects on the consumers’ assessment of SNSAs were informativeness, entertainment value, credibility value, and interactivity value, while the fifth dimension (irritation value) had a significant negative coefficient on the consumers’ assessment of SNSAs. Moreover, that study provided a deeper understanding of how the BCCs assess SNSAs, and it contributed to identifying the main characteristics ofthe BCCs on an SNS. The third paper focused on exploring the effect of national culture on the consumers’ assessment of SNSAs. The cultural features of the respondents in that study gave additional evidence about how a nation’s cultural characteristics can influence the consumers’ assessment of SNSAs. This study helped to identify how SNS users from Egypt, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom assess SNSAs. In this study, one-way analysis of variance with post hoc tests was used to compare the assessments of the three nations. Based on the empirical findings of this survey study, the three groups had significant difference F-ratios for their perception of four of the five variables for assessing SNSAs. Their perceptions of the entertainment value did not significantly differ between the three groups while the interactivity value had the strongest F-ratio. The overall purpose of this study was to deepen our understanding of how SNS users are assessing SNSAs in different settings by considering SNS users, BCCs, and others from various nations. All of the studies presented here have focused on variables for assessing the ads that have been used by other researchers in different research contexts.

This dissertation explores how institutional settings regulating the media and campaigns affect voter participation. The broader question is what types of political communication systems are likely to produce the most engaged and participatory citizens as well as equal participation. Assuming that political participation is affected by its underlying costs and benefits, I hypothesize that political communication systems that lower information costs for voters have higher turnout levels and reduce upper class bias. Political communication systems are measured by media systems, access to paid TV advertising, and campaign finance laws. In the country-level turnout models, investigating seventy-four electoral democracies, I find that public broadcasting systems increase voter turnout, while changing the effect of paid advertising. Public broadcasting systems that allow paid TV advertising have a higher turnout levels than those that ban paid advertising. Conversely, paid advertising in private broadcasting systems have a negative marginal effect on voter turnout. On the other hand, campaign finance laws that allow more money to enter election campaigns increase voter participation. So campaign contribution and spending limits depress turnout and public finance increases it. The hierarchical models in Chapter 6 show that political communication systems also change the relationship between individual socioeconomic status and voter participation. Generally political communication environment that lower information costs for voters reduces socioeconomic bias for voters. Public broadcasting systems, access to paid TV ads, and free TV time, thus, mitigate the effect of education on voting. Additional investigation also shows that the age gap between voters and nonvoters is conditioned by different types of political communication systems. Both partisan press and public direct funding promote younger citizens’ participation, thus decreasing the generation gap. In contrast, campaign contribution/expenditure limits enlarge such gap. Broadcasting systems also affect the effect of age on voting. Because older people spend more time watching television than younger ones, the type of broadcasting system has a disproportionately larger impact on older citizens. / text

This study aimed to find out the effect of type of advertisement &amp / number of advertisement manipulation on memory for and attitude towards advertisements. Type of advertisement was manipulated via embedding either superimposed advertisement(s) or traditional commercial(s) in a movie. The number of advertisement manipulation was made through embedding either 1 or 7 advertisements for both types of advertisements in the same movie. With respect to type of advertisement manipulation, it was hypothesized that, both superimposed advertisements and traditional commercials may have an access to LTM for later recall and recognition. However, it was expected that, the recall and recognition scores of the viewers exposed to superimposed advertisement(s) will be lower compared to traditional commercial viewers due to the shorter duration and background distraction characteristics of superimposed advertisements. Regarding number of advertisements manipulation, it was hypothesized that, regardless of the type of advertisement, the recall and recognition scores of the viewers exposed to 7 advertisements will be lower compared to viewers exposed to only 1 advertisement due to retroactive and proactive inhibition. Secondly, it was hypothesized that, for both types of advertisements the viewers exposed to 7 advertisements will be able to recall at most 5 advertisements concerning that, at most 4 or 5 chunks (advertisements) could be processed in STM at one time (Simon, 1973). Further, it was expected that, the processing capacity of STM for viewers exposed to 7 superimposed advertisements might be reduced due to simultaneous view of the advertisements with the ongoing program, which may result in less processing of chunks (advertisements) and therefore lower levels of recall as compared to viewers exposed to 7 traditional commercials. In the present study, in addition to attitude towards the embedded advertisements, viewers&rsquo / attitude towards to program was also measured concerning the potential effects of program environment related variables on attitude towards advertisements. However, in relation to both attitude towards program and attitude towards embedded advertisements, it was proposed that, the variations will be on an individual basis / thus, no main effect was expected with respect to both aspects of attitude measurements. 60 undergraduate students from METU participated in the study. Data gathered via administration of 2 different attitude scales and 3 different memory scales. The results of the present study confirmed some of the hypothesizes. However, some were only partially confirmed and for some, no evidence could be obtained. On the whole, it was concluded that, the effectiveness of traditional commercials are superior compared to superimposed advertisements with respect to memory for advertisements. However, when individuals are exposed to multiple advertisements (7 in our case) this difference was negligible between traditional commercials and superimposed advertisements. The implications of the study were discussed.

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Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Xiaochen A. Zhang / Most of the models in Chinese fashion magazine advertisements are Caucasian women today. White skin, as one of their Caucasian characteristics, is particularly emphasized. Millions of Chinese women are bombarded with the advertising’s message of “having white skin is beautiful” every day. My research suggests that this kind of adverting depicts white skin as a beauty ideal; the prevalence of Caucasian models in whitening products’ magazine advertisements constructs body-esteem, self-esteem, and purchase decision-making of Chinese women. The Social Judgment Theory is employed in this research as a theoretical framework. It is a way to explain when persuasive messages are most likely to succeed and how people make judgments about them. Understanding this phenomenon will ultimately provide insight into addressing the effects of the promotion of fashion magazine advertisements on Chinese women. It is further anticipated that future researchers will expand and improve the knowledge of the Chinese advertising market.