THE LINGUISTIC AND PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN ADVERTISEMENT LABELS AND SYMBOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The media's power and reach can unite and magnify women's voices, particularly in the fight for gender equality. The media's portrayal of women, in contrast, appears to have exacerbated the patriarchal disadvantage women already face and heightened the view that they are impoverished, weak, and sexual objects. To entice buyers, certain media advertisements use sexual objectification, subjugation, and stereotyping of women. Labelling and images used by advertisers may be sexist. Advertisers' language is closely linked to gender issues such as objectification, sexism, subjugation, and stereotyping, which the target audience does not recognise because of its subtlety and obscurity. Previous studies have not adequately accounted for how Anambra State's different linguistic and pictorial representations of women in commercial labels and symbols affect women's psychology and social status. Thus, this study examines the effects of pictorial representation of women in print, bill board and other electronic advertisement on Nigerian women. The standpoint theory and visual semiotic theory were the underpinning theories for this study. The qualitative research method was used and implemented through textual analysis method. Ninety newspapers were selected purposively, all of which were published in 2019 (January-June). Similarly, periodicals published in the spring of 2019 (April-June) were analysed. Five billboards and two television stations were used in the study, while interviews were conducted with market women and men in Onitsha and Eke-Awka. The study revealed that advertising can lead to the subjugation of women because it can increase men's disdain for women, undermine women's confidence in themselves, and strengthen the forces that push women to the side-lines in this patriarchal society.