Advertising has a powerful role in today’s society, especially since we are constantly surrounded by it. Advertisement does not only encourage people to make decisions about their purchases but has a big impact on the culture (Lin & Yeh, 2009; Lindner, 2004). Hence, it is a big factor of creating norms and ideas of what is feminine and masculine; thus affecting the perception on gender within societies. Unfortunate is however that to be able to cut through the enormous advertising clutter that people are exposed to daily, advertisers tend to use sexual content and portrayals as tactic, leading to an obscure ideal (Dahl, Segupta & Vohs, 2009; Cortese, 2008; Connell & Pearse, 2015; Butler & Almqvist, 2007). This quantitative and qualitative study examines from a Gender and Feminist theory perspective how women are portrayed sexually and stereotypically in advertisements within Mexican fashion magazines. The advertisements found within the seven biggest fashion magazines in Mexico are being studied both through a quantitative content analyse and qualitative text analyse using a semiotic approach. The result of the study shows that the content of advertisements in Mexican magazines frequently portray females in a sexualised and stereotypical way. Within our qualitative result six different stereotypes could be found. Furthermore, our quantitative result shows that the most commonly portrayed female within the advertisements are White. Henceforth, our result shows that a female ideal where the most crucial attributes are: to be sexy, beautiful, obtain an attractive appearance and to be White.

The adverse effect of the exposure to images of attractive females on women's body image and mood has been well-documented in studies conducted in various western and westernized nations. However, research designed to determine the effect of exposure to attractive female images on men has been rather neglected. Past findings indicate that after being exposed to exceptionally attractive female images, males report less satisfaction for a current relationship, rate average-looking females as less attractive, and express less affection for their significant other compared to those men exposed to control images. It is currently not known, however, whether a psychoeducational intervention might prevent the negative media exposure effect. Additionally, it is not known if the exposure effect might be moderated by dispositional characteristics of the participant. This study was designed to determine if a psychoeducational manipulation consisting of information regarding the unrealistic appearance standards currently required of women would mitigate the ratings men give of average-looking women following exposure to attractive images. Additionally, two dispositional measures were included (appearance-schematicity and female-ideal internalization) in order to evaluate whether these trait levels would moderate the effects of the exposure manipulation.the participants were 159 male undergraduate students between 18 and 30 years of age. The majority (57%) of them were Caucasian, followed by 19% who were Hispanic/Latino and 11% who were African-American. Their mean age was 19.80 (SD = 2.06) and mean BMI was 24.90 (SD = 4.20). Most of them (42%) were not seeing anyone currently, whereas 39% of them were in a committed relationship. The findings partially supported the hypotheses. The males who were exposed to the attractive female images evaluated average females less physically attractive than those exposed to a control condition (inanimate objects); however, the psychoeducation did not reduce the adverse exposure effect. Instead, the combination of neutral audio-information and control exposure condition resulted in the most favorable ratings of average females. Regarding dispositional characteristics, female-ideal internalization was associated with the loss of interest in dating average females and the overestimation of a current partner's weight after the experiment. The limitations and implications of the study findings are discussed.

This research aims to make evident the importance of films serving as a relevant arena for political struggles within a society, struggles that concern highly important concepts such as the nation and the state. This goal is accomplished by building upon the theory of cinematic nationhood and using the method of relational constructivism combined with insight from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. The research regards films as forms of communication as well as forms of fantasy. The case this research focuses on is Romania. The case was selected because for a certain period of time the myths of nation and state had been strongly embedded-or nested-- within the social contexts-or commonplaces--specific to Marxism, namely work, equality, and the bourgeois enemy, followed by a swift and radical social discourse change that triggered changes within the topography of commonplaces. The films analyzed represent these changes in order to understand the specific ways in which the myth of nation and state are reflected within films produced during radical economic, social, and political transformations. This research reveals that, despite the social, economic, and political upheavals from the pre- to post-transition eras, the underlying national structure of fantasy remained remarkably unchanged, while the nation and the state changed their social relevance with changes in their position occupied within the structure of fantasy.

Varje dag refererar och associerar individer till reklambilder i sin vardag (Fagerström och Nilson, 2008). Syftet med examensarbetet är att undersöka hur Gina Tricot konstruerar en karriärkvinna i sin reklamkampanj Power suits starring Bianca. Vi undersöker reklamkampanjen utifrån två huvudteorier: representationsteorin av Stuart Hall (2013) och genusteori utifrån Melin (2015) och Gill (2009). Genom en semiotisk textanalys undersöker vi Gina Tricots reklamkampanj Power suits starring Bianca. Vi fann att Gina Tricot konstruerar reklamkampanjen på ett ohälsosamt och skadligt sätt genom att marknadsföra ett ätstört, objektifierande och sexualiserande ideal för unga kvinnor. Studien kommer även fram till att kritiken mot Gina Tricot inte var tillräcklig eftersom företaget inte bara marknadsfört ett sjukligt ÄS ideal utan även bidragit till att upprätthålla patriarkatet och att objektifiera kvinnor på arbetsplatser. / Individuals refer to and observe advertising images in their everyday lives (Fagerström and Nilson 2008). The aim of the thesis is to investigate how Gina Tricot has constructed a career woman in their advertising campaign Power suits starring Bianca. We examine the advertising campaign from two main theories: the representation theory by Stuart Hall (2013) and from two main gender theories by Melin (2015) and Gill (2009). By applying a semiotic text analysis to the thesis, we aim to find the elements that Gina Tricot's advertising campaign is built upon. We found that Gina Tricot constructs a career woman in an unhealthy and harmful way by promoting eating disorders and by objectifying and sexualizing the female model in the campaign Power suits starring Bianca. This also concludes that the criticism aimed against the company wasn’t enough. Not only did the company promote this unhealthy eating disordered ideal, they also contributed to maintaining the patriarchy and objectifying women in their commercial campaign.