Gender ideologies and practices in contemporary advertising in Sri Lanka

Sajitha Lakmali Hewapathirana

Lecturer, Department of Mass Media, Sri Palee Campus, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Although there are some significant studies done on gender, nationalism, and cultural ideologies, the ideo-
logical function of advertising has not sufficiently been examined and analyzed within the conventional
social science research in Sri Lanka. On one hand, traditional gender ideologies and images have se-
verely been used within the advertising industry in the country, celebrating Sri Lanka’s traditional history
and culture. On the other hand, libertarian life styles and values also seem to have used to address the
needs of contemporary consumer culture. In this sense, the advertising industry symbolizes Sri Lanka’s
deep anxiety and ambivalence toward its own cultural ideologies and materialist culture of global capital-
ism. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the way in which advertising industry functions as an
ideological apparatus of sexual conservatism. The study focused on advertising viewers in Sri Lanka uti-
lizing focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. According to the preliminary data analysis, it was
found that the advertising industry is basically led by the purpose of widening markets for selected prod-
ucts and services; it makes use of cultural and traditional ideologies not to change the status quo but to
manipulate consumers’ demand in a strategic manner. It is this inherent pragmatic characteristic within
the advertising industry that transforms it into an ideological apparatus of gender conservatism.

Key words: Gender, Advertising, Capitalism, Ideology

Introduction
The researcher mainly focused on how the traditional gender ideologies and hierarchies are being repro-
duced within advertising industry in contemporary Sri Lanka, disregarding the different target consumer
groups. Advertising is one of the tools in global capitalism according to which advertising culture will
reshape. The advertising is some kind of banalities between the original and well known ideas. Thus ad-
vertising is everyday used as a motivational strategy to affect every day human life without their con-
sciousness. Advertising is the sign of political economy in postmodern society. That means that it works
with the postmodern ideology. But in a contemporary advertising, ideology is created with the contradic-
tory. Gender ideologies are created within the liberal and capital social context but the definitions of gen-
der does not change in the contemporary advertising industry. Each and every time advertising maker uses
gender as the motivational factor in a traditional view. Most highly valuable or class product uses the
same strategies. Why should this happen at the same time with different target groups? Capitalism works
with the liberal; the liberal tries to create a transnationalism that meant individual human. When we think
about it we can identify transnationalism has no economy, religion and moral ethics and values. Not only
that, but also nation and the state are lost concepts of that theory. But contemporary advertising industry
works paradoxically within the same social context. That meant that Sri Lankan contemporary adverting
industry is still in the pre traditional society. If it is needed to work with capitalism, it should have to work
with the positive view and freedom to flow of gender ideologies within the contemporary Sri Lankan ad-
vertising industry.

This paper examines how Sri Lankan advertisers include concepts of both gender ideologies and transna-
tionalism in recent Sri Lankan advertisements. I situate my research in the context of Sri Lanka’s search
for modernity, and its historical and contemporary relations with the West. I argue that the marketing of
gender ideologies and transnationalism represent contradictory concepts of Sri Lanka as a nation and a
state. It also symbolizes Sri Lanka’s deep anxiety and ambivalence toward its own tradition and global
capitalism. On one hand, Sri Lanka advertisers sell gender ideologies by celebrating Sri Lankan tradition-
al history, contemporary events, and Sri Lanka lineage. On the other hand, Sri Lankan advertisers use
Western symbols and values to elevate the status of advertised products in the same target groups. Sri
Lankan advertisers also sell a hybrid form of gender ideologies and transnationalism in an attempt to rec-
oncile ‘Sri Lankans with global capitalism. To some extent, capitalism has to work with the culture there-
fore social domain ideologies will effect for the contemporary advertising industry. The researcher has to
examine why gender ideologies are reproduced with the global culture with the mood of the traditional.

Research Problem
How are the traditional gender ideologies and hierarchies being reproduced within advertising industry in
contemporary Sri Lanka?

Hypothesis
The advertising industry is basically led by the purpose of widening markets for selected products and
services. It makes use of cultural and traditional ideologies not to change the status quo but to manipulate
consumer demand in opportunistic manner. It is this inherent pragmatic characteristic within advertising
industry that transforms it into an ideological apparatus of gender conservatism.
Methodology
This research is based on qualitative approach for gaining more in-depth knowledge and to get a clear
picture by describing the existing data and analyzing the traditional gender ideologies within the televi-
sion advertisement. Another reason for choosing qualitative research method is the variation in number of

consumers in Sri Lanka. The total population of Sri Lanka is approximately 21.2 million with television
subscription of around 70%. In one study, most respondents were influenced by television mostly (56%)
followed by newspapers (20%) and the Internet (21%). There is a trend among the younger

generation to turn to the Internet as a source of advertising and notably radio’s trust level is very low
among this sample (Secretariat for Media Reforms, 2016).

Yin (1989) described five strategies for conducting research which are surveys, experiments, archival
analysis, case studies and history. In this research, the question under observation contains “how” factor
and the purpose of the research is to get better understanding of gender ideologies and practices in con-
temporary advertising. Therefore content analysis and focus group discussion have been adopted to an-
swer the research question. Data for the study were gathered in qualitative nature via focus group discus-
sions with viewers; field observation; in-depth interviews with opinion leaders who were likely to influ-
ence the decision-making process in the community such as advertising creators and media practitioners
which will create a space for articulating diverse viewpoints, approaches, and opinions.. Similarly, review
of reports, studies, and evaluations were used to distill the lessons learned. In addition, the study focuses
on advertising viewers who are living in Sri Lanka. It will be included 20 focus group discussions and in-
depth interviews.

Findings and Discussion

According to the preliminary findings, the advertising industry is basically led by the purpose of widen-
ing markets for selected products and services. It makes use of cultural and traditional ideologies not to
change the status quo but to manipulate consumer demand in opportunistic manner. It is this inherent
pragmatic characteristic within advertising industry that transforms it into an ideological apparatus of
gender conservatism. As this is an ongoing research, further in-depth analysis will done according to the
relevant research method and implications will be given based on the findings.
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