Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1985

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Ron Taylor

Committee Members

Barbara Moore, Andrew Forman

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to describe the communications content of ads appearing in the legal profession's journals; assess the image of women pictured in these ads; and compare the media content to "real world" employment figures for women lawyers.

Content analysis was conducted on the top three legal journals/ reviews according to published circulation figures. The sample was drawn from a twenty-year time period, 1964 to 1984, to see if the way women were characterized in the ads has changed since the beginning of the Women's Movement. Coders examined the ads to determine what percentage of the ads pictured people, and the sex, race, and occupation of the people shown in the ads.

Study results indicated that although the number of women shown in legal magazine advertisements is small, the image of these women has improved over the past twenty years. There are fewer people shown in legal magazine advertising than in consumer magazine advertising, and pictures of men predominate even more in legal magazine advertising than in consumer magazine advertising. Very few of the ads examined pictured a woman who was any race other than Caucasian. During the majority of the time periods studied, the employment role in which most women were shown was office worker; however, in the most recent time period, 1984, the number of women portrayed as lawyers was greater than the number of women portrayed as office workers. Furthermore, during the earlier years, the only roles that the women in the ads portrayed were office workers and decorative models, but in the 1979 and 1984 ads, women were also shown as salespeople, clients, and judges. The percentage of women lawyers shown in the 1984 ads was comparable to the actual percentage of women practicing law during that year.

In conclusion, modifications for the way women are portrayed in advertising directed toward the legal market were suggested. Because the percentage of female attorneys is expected to increase during the next decade, the researcher recommends that the number of women shown in legal magazine ads increase at the same rate as the number of women in the legal profession, and any images of traditional sex stereotyping be eliminated.

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