The ways in which advertisements can affect social and brand-related aspects is an area of interest for both companies and society at large. The aim of this study is to examine and identify differences in the production and interpretation of advertisements on Instagram, targeted towards men versus women. There are two research questions: (1) How can the production of Gillette and Gillette Venus’ advertisements on Instagram targeted towards men and women differ? (2) How can the interpretation of Gillette and Gillette Venus’ advertisements on Instagram targeted towards men and women differ, based on the gender of the interpreter?  The study includes a gender perspective and Goffman’s theory on gender and advertisements has been applied. To answer the second research question, Hall’s encoding/decoding theory has been applied.  The study consists of two research methods, a semiotic photo analysis and semi-structured interviews. The photo analysis was used for RQ1 and consisted of six photos, three from Gillette’s Instagram account and three photos from Gillette Venus’s account. The semi-structured interviews helped answer RQ2. A total of ten interviews were carried out, with an even distribution of male and female interviewees. A comparative analysis was used for both research methods to enable comparison between the two genders.  The results showed that there are three main differences in the production of Gillette and Gillette Venus’ advertisements on Instagram. As for RQ2, it was concluded that the gender of the interpreter affected how the advertisements’ overall message was interpreted.

The aim of this study was to find out how the war in Afghanistan is framed both in national and international context. This was conducted by comparing the national tv channel TOLOnews from Afghanistan with the international tv channel SVT Nyheter from Sweden. A qualitative text analysis as well as a semiotic photo analysis were implemented on four news articles and two photos from each channel respectively. Framing theory, agenda setting, and news values provided the theoretical background to be able to carry out the study. The significant findings of the study show that SVT Nyheter uses various secondary foreign sources for their articles in comparison to TOLOnews which uses only first-hand sources as can be expected of international and national tv channels. Furthermore, SVT Nyheter concentrates mostly on facts such as the number of people killed in attacks whereas TOLOnews concentrates more on the personal stories of the local people affected by the attacks. Finally, the study discusses what could be the underlying reasons of the findings of the study and thereby the differences of the framing of the war in Afghanistan by the two tv channels.