Research Objects and Discussion Structure

By the approach of visual semiotics, this study examines images and cultural symbols of femininity, sexuality, gender relations, cultural diversity, and globalisation. Connecting advertising representations to periods of social changes which highlight the social norms and cultural ideologies in specific contexts have also been taken into considerations in this research. In order to make the research structure clearer, this

14 The reason for choosing Youku and YouTube as ad observation platforms is that these two video sites are very influential in China and the UK respectively (Wangyi, 2017; Sweney, 2010), and a large number of newly released TV ads are uploaded to these two platforms every year. This research not only observed the commercials broadcasted on TV channels but also observed the adverts uploaded on Youku and YouTube from 2015 to 2018.

study partly follows the research structure of Cortese (2015), on the basis of which the collected advert samples are sorted and organised. Cortese (2015) discussed women's advertising images from the following perspectives:

* Portrayed women, women's life; and multiculturalism, which lay the background information for women's representations, as gender representations are intricately linked to the power structure and social structures;

* Visual attraction, body display in advertising; * Lesbian advertising15_;

* Constructed bodies, gender representations and sexism in advertising;

* Ethnic considerations. Currently race and ethnicity have become important selling points for advertising industry, which could be discussed from three perspectives: ‘ethnic representations in advertising’; ‘the proportional representation of minorities in advertising’; and consumer behaviour effects of advertising on ethnic representations (Cortese, 2015: 180).

Based on the framework of Cortese's analysis of female advertising images, this study makes several revises and builds up the structure of discussion in the light of the literature review. This research discusses, analyses and compares women's advertising representations from the following seven perspectives:

15 _{Cortese (2015) puts lesbian advertising in considerations, however, although the socio-cultural and}

political-legal situation for gay men and women living in Chinese society has experienced diachronic changes and improved in the recent decades, homosexual communities' civil rights are frequently denied in China. The most recent example is the injunction landed on the mainstream traditional media agencies' desks aiming to representations of gay people which are issued by the State Administration of Radio Film and Television in China. This issues makes the cross-cultural comparison of lesbian representations become difficult. Therefore, this study does not discuss this issue for now.

* The Advertising Constructed Femininity

As discussed in Chapter 3.1, advertising representation is a complex, ideological, social product. Therefore, the first part of the discussion chapters will give an overview of the relationship between women's advertising images and the consumer society, which will pave the way for the following discussions.

Advertising industry is known for advocating fashion and accelerating fashion product consumption in today's consumer society. According to Jhally (2014), the profit-chasing nature of modern advertising determines its function in creating time value and cultural meanings of the advertised products, and using the sign and symbols of advertising texts to accelerate the update and transmission of meanings and values. In the process of information transmission, consumption has been given various symbolic meanings (Jhally, 2014). The drifting designation of this visual rhetoric gives advertising output a strong plasticity, which has been taken by the advertisers to add various updated commercialised imagination into the representations of the advertised products (Smith, et.al, 2004: 167-168). This function of consumption rest largely in their ability of creating, carrying and spreading cultural meanings and illusions (Sahlins, 1976; McCracken, 1986 & 2005). The primary purpose of fashion product advertisement, as a forefront and typical genre of modern advertising in consumer culture, is to form a variety of illusions and make the mass audience feel 'not materialistic enough' (Williams, 1980: 185). These illusions have been encoded with diverse seductive or stimulating connotative symbols and myths, which will be transformed into the fashion product containing social values and format exchange values through the circulation of fashion symbols and information. Therefore, the first chapter of the discussion will look at how fashion advertisements construct femininity in our consumer societies.

Femininity is a fluent and complex concept. As reviewed in Chapter 5, the previous research find that the current advertising constructed femininity shows two seemingly

opposite types: the traditional home-related femininity which is constructed by patriarchy ideology, and the non-traditional/modern femininity which is co-shaped by feminist discourse, social norms, political factors, etc. This chapter will focus on the new modern femininity for two reasons: first, traditional femininity has been discussed and criticised by researchers while the modern femininity is a new but worthy researched topic as it could reflect the social changes in specific contexts; second, as the feminism has become a global and mainstream discourse, the non-traditional and new femininity will unavoidably dominate advertising representations of women within the globe, therefore, the cross-cultural comparison of the modern femininity could reflect different levels of development of feminism and modernity in different countries.

* Woman and Family

Family and motherhood are argued as two keywords related to the representation of femininity; they are also the critical arena in which the dilemmas and contradictions of contemporary femininity are constructed, navigated and struggled with. By contrasting the shaping of women in families, we can see changes of women's roles in families and alterations of the structure of modern family in different cultures.

* 'New Woman'

Cortese (2015) discusses gender in culture in the context of the United States, so she uses multiculturalism to describe the cultural context in which the ads are located. However, the setting of cross-cultural comparison of women's representations is more complicated.

Combining literature review on modernity and postmodernism, it can be seen that the comparative study of advertisements involves many cultural and political issues in the context of the globalisation systems, including Orientalism, cultural imperialism, and post-colonialism and so on, which could not be covered by the single term 'multiculturalism'. So I turned my attention to the discussion of globalisation and the

cultural hegemony.

This research achieves this purpose through discussing images of 'new woman' in advertising. The reason to discuss representations of the 'new' female in our contemporary globalised moment for a variety of reasons. Although evoking the notions of globalisation may spark discussions from different perspectives. Nevertheless, it suggests a broader and more complex context related to the young women’s daily experiences and lifestyles. Adjustments regarding the empowerment, resilience, resistance, oppression, and manipulation of the young female generation when they are facing ideological, technological, social, cultural and economic structural transformations have provided background information for my discussion. Changes around the young female are noticeable in both the UK and China. In the British context, feminist projects such as 'Pink March' or 'Girl's Power' have taken hold in popular culture and declared the concomitant idea that women have all the opportunities and choices, which seems gradually banished the problematic discourse of gender into a distant and dullish past (Munford & Waters, 2014). In China, as previously modern Chinese thoughts on gender and woman are a complex agglomeration of ideas drawn from feminism, modernity, liberalism, socialism, and national cultural revivalism. The arguments of modern advert female images and identities can be fruitfully understood as the new chapter of gender concepts in British society and the rhetoric of China's project of globalisation and cultural resistance. * Body Display

* Body, Nudity and Sexuality

The usage of feminine symbols of the female body is argued as the important tool of advertisers to please male gaze and promote products. As previously discussed, the objectification and self-objectification of the woman caused by representations of the female body in advertising the have been criticised by feminist media research for more than 80 years. Following the approach of Cortese (2015), this study disassembles the discussion of the body display and the constructed body into two

chapters. The first chapter discusses how female bodies are represented in commercials of women's products and analyses how traditional gender surveillance system and feminist ideology worked behind these representations of the body. Based on theories of gendered gaze, the second chapter discusses how women's body is shown as the sexual appeal in advertising, to inspect how the contexts shape different levels of audiences' tolerance to the sexualised representations of the female body. * Image of ethnic/exotic woman

Why study the advertising representations of ethnic/foreign woman? According to Cortese (2016), first, the images of exotic femininity or ethnic women help to shape cultural attitudes about other culture or ethnic minorities. Second, advertisements are argued as reflections of contemporary global relations and social structure, they serve as a type of barometer of the willingness of 'we' to accept 'them', that is, ads are indicators of the global power structure and cultural flows. Third, the cautious evaluation of advertising representations of ethnic femininity ‘fosters critical media literacy’ (Cortese, 2016). Analytical reflection on representations of ethnic/foreign female empowers us to look at the configurations of gender and global power hierarchy, and significant social changes in the field of gender discourses.

We live in a time that doing the comparative studies of the gender discourses are not only possible but also necessary. The history of Western colonial domination and contemporary cultural imperialism have forced the China to be 'Westernised' to a certain extent, and the concept of gender in modern Chinese society is produced in such context. However, which should be noticed is that the global cultural interaction and communication have already become an indelible part of both the British and Chinese cultures and shaped the understandings of gender in both the British and Chinese societies today. In this context, it is necessary to discuss and compare the exotic women images in advertising in order to explore the impacts of globalisation and cross-cultural exchanges on the customary or new-born homogeneous and heterogeneous cultural phenomenon, and to outline the social-historical conditions

which govern the differences of the ethnic representations as well.

As far as the research objects, the British and Chinese advertisements contains women with other ethnicities are selected. I discuss the Asian women's images in the chosen British ad as well as the portrayed Caucasian women in the Chinese advert case. In addition, the re-creation of the subjectivity of these exotic women is another research point in my discussion, this kind of subjectivity surpasses the individual consciousness, and can be regarded as an effort of historical forces of multiculturalism and globalisation.

* Women's idealised male images

The discussion of women's advertising images cannot avoid talking about gender relations and gender display, as in many cases, the constructed meaning of gender identity in advertising is accomplished through strengthening or even creating a difference between masculinity and femininity (Jahlly, 2014; Cortese, 2015). Therefore, in order to understand the social gender discourse which constructed advertising representations, to some extent, it is necessary to discuss how advertisements build the meanings of both femininity and masculinity in the consumer-focused society. The female character's idealised male image on the screen can be regarded as the representation of the commercialised hegemonic 'masculinity'. Examining the relationship between female characters and the images/settings of their idealised men in television advertisements from different cultural backgrounds, I explain how different cultures and social customs are reflected at different discursive levels. Additionally, the represented ideal masculinities in commercials require female's participation in the construction process of masculinity, thus how the commercials identify the female characters' positions helps us to understand the culture and the discourse of gender behind representations.