Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
DOI 10.1007/s11199-007-9261-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Caught Between East and West? Portrayals of Gender
in Bulgarian Television Advertisements
Elza Ibroscheva
Published online: 31 July 2007
# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract This study conducted a content analysis of
Bulgarian television advertisements in 2004 to examine
the prevailing portrayals of gender in the media environ-
ment of the postcommunist, consumer-based Bulgarian
society. The study addressed the research questions of
how gender was depicted in Bulgarian advertising and what
possible social implications these gender portrayals can be
for explaining gender relations in postcommunist societies.
In examining a sample of 127 ads, the study found that
content was highly stereotyped, portraying women in
depending roles and in sexually suggestive appearance,
similar to results from other European studies. Observations
are made about the differences between the current study
and previous sex roles studies, recognizing the specific
cultural environment in Bulgaria.
Keywords Advertising . Bulgaria . Gender portrayals .
Postcommunist culture
Introduction
Advertising holds a powerful sway over the cultural and social
beliefs, attitudes, ideas and values of consumers, giving them
“cultural form through its signifying practices” (Sinclair
1987). As Schudson (1984) pointed out, the promotional
culture of advertising has worked its way into “what we
read, what we care about, the way we raise our children, our
ideas of right and wrong conduct, our attribution of
E. Ibroscheva (*)
Department of Mass Communications,
Southern Illinois University,
Dunham Hall, Mailbox 1775,
Edwardsville, IL 62026, USA
e-mail: eibrosc@siue.edu
significance to ‘image’ in both public and private life”
(p. 13). This is particularly true in the case of portrayals of
gender roles, which are often presented, validated through
frequent exposure, and ultimately, adopted by the general
population as acceptable norms of behavior (Goffman 1979).
The process becomes even more evident in societies and
media systems in transitions, such as the ones in the former
Soviet bloc, where the boom of advertising and the gender
portrayals it presents parallels the transformation of cultural
norms of established gender relations. To study this trend,
the current study offers a content analysis of Bulgarian TV
advertisements aimed at exploring the prevailing portrayals
of gender and how these portrayals might influence the
process of cultural redefinition of gender roles in postcom-
munist society.
Advertising has become a necessary condition for the
economic success of any contemporary, market driven society
and has grown to define not only the potential success of a
given business enterprise, but also the cultural atmosphere it
tends to elicit (Manstead and McCulloch 1981). In the
context of the postcommunist transformation, particularly
interesting have been the developments in Eastern Europe
where a free market accompanied by a consumer-based
economy have changed the cultural landscape and affected
diverse areas of social life (Stulhofer and Sandfort 2005;
Kelly-Holmes 1998). In fact, as Barber (1998) pointed out,
some cynics might even suggest that some of the revolutions
in this part of the world had in their true goal not liberty and
the right to vote, but well-paying jobs and the right to shop.
This was well exemplified by the almost immediate influx of
East Germans who traveled to West Germany just to see the
display windows, abundant with coveted western goods,
such as Coca Cola and real chocolate (Barber 1998).
With the opening of the markets in Eastern Europe,
advertising has become an economic force in its own merit.
410
For instance, Bulgarian advertising expenditure rose from
$ 4.3 million in 1996 to $ 322 million in 2006, with the
highest growth recorded in TV advertising cost (World
Press Trends 2004). The exponential growth of advertising
spending, however, is only one noticeable aspect of the
new economic and cultural climate of these postcommun-
ist societies. As Sender (1999) contended, advertising
serves a twofold function—“to provide role models with
whom we can identify and through whom we can aspire to
appropriate constructions of ourselves as social beings,
and to guide us towards what the marketplace considers to
be desirable kinds and quantities of purchasing in an
increasingly commodified social environment” (p. 172).
Because advertising is one of the major “factories” of
visual and verbal images where children learn gender-
specific behavior (Manstead and McCulloch 1981; Rak
and McMullen 1987), studying portrayals of gender in
Bulgarian advertising will present a revealing look in how
postcommunist gender identities are being constructed in
advertising.
It is important to note that despite the rapid growth of
the advertising industry in the countries of Eastern
Europe, academic research on the topic has been very
limited. With a few exceptions (e.g., Feick and Gierl 1996;
Kelly-Holmes 1998; Millan and Elliot 2004), there is no
published research on advertising in Central and Eastern
Europe after the introduction of market reforms. One of
the very few studies that shed light on gender portrayals in
Eastern Europe is Skoric and Furnham’s (2003) compar-
ison of gender role stereotyping in British and Serbian
television ads that found Serbian ads were less stereotyp-
ical in nature when compared to those in Britain.
However, it should be noted that during the communist
rule in the Eastern bloc, Serbia maintained a relative
cultural and economic autonomy from the influence of the
Soviet Union compared to the rest of the Eastern and
Central European countries, where the Soviet cultural
presence was much stronger.
This study is a content analysis of gender portrayals in
Bulgarian TV ads which aims to describe what type of
gender stereotypes were present in Bulgarian TV advertise-
ments in 2004, 15 years into the cultural and social transition
of postcommunism. Television advertising was chosen for
analysis because as Skoric and Furnham (2003) contended,
is has been widely studied and recognized as the most
widely watched medium by all kinds of people, regardless
of race, ethnic origin, social status, age or sex. This study
addresses some very important questions: How is gender
depicted in TV advertisements? What are some differences
in the way in which gender is portrayed by TV advertise-
ments? What social implications can these portrayals have
for the formation of identities for Eastern Europeans within
the context of the postcommunist transition?
Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
Gender Relations and Gender Stereotypes in Eastern
Europe
In the midst of the profound political and economic turmoil
following the collapse of communism, many scholars
turned their attention to gender relations in Eastern Europe
(Einhorn 1993; Funk and Mueller 1993; Moghadam 1993),
discovering that the process of economic transition clearly
impacted the general well-being of the postcommunist
society, but more importantly, had lead to a visible
deterioration of gender relations, both in the public and
private spheres (Stulhofer and Sandfort 2005).
One of the first noticeable transformations in gender
relations in Eastern Europe was the collapse of the “full
employment ideology.” As Mamonova (1989) pointed out,
that Soviet state considered the participation of women in the
work place mandatory and in various ways propagandized
the active role of women in production. “As a result, women
bear a double burden, and, taking stock of patriarchal
morality, far from having been eliminated in Eastern Europe,
it has, in many ways been strengthened; a female laborer,
underpaid in most cases, is also the victim of pornographic
language, which is spreading at an epidemic rate and
discriminates against her as a sexual object” (p. 19).
Apart from the realities of sexism and the return to
traditional patriarchy, women in Eastern Europe faced harsh
economic realities in the immediate postcommunist transi-
tion. Reports and discussion on the economic status of
women in Bulgaria demonstrated that economic hardship
and more specifically, unemployment, has a strong impact
on the women’s position in society and their satisfaction
with life (Kostova 1993; Anachkova 1995). For instance,
the female employment rate for population aged 15–
64 years in 2004 was only 50.6% (Bulgarian Statistical
Institute Annual Report 2006). More importantly, the
gender pay gap in 2004 between men’s and women’s pay
was 18-percentage point, meaning that on average, women
earn 18% less than man holding the same or similar
position, placing Bulgaria at the top of the list of European
countries with the largest gender pay gap (Statistical Office
of the European Communities 2005).
In a discussion of the changing nature of gender relations
in Bulgaria, Panova et al. (1993) argued that the contem-
porary Bulgarian woman has inherited three different
models and traditions of women’s role: the Oriental, the
patriarchal Eastern Orthodox, and the totalitarian–socialist,
and this complex heritage transforms her into a “strange
hybrid of idiosyncratic features, influences and world
views, hence the difficulty in identifying and accepting
herself” (p. 15). The authors argued that this intricate
mixture of male dominated influences has forced the
Bulgarian woman to take for granted and even internalize
the condescending male look at her. Her identity is, in many
Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
ways, double. “Her body is both a decorative object and a
draught animal, her consciousness both that of mother and
wife and that of wage earner and intellectual, her free will
submitted both to the family status and state chains” (p. 19).
In a similar vein, Kotzeva (1999) argued that while
Bulgarian society was under communist rule, two conflicting
images of women were constructed—the socialist Amazon—
a woman–android, the mechanical woman, woman heroine
of a socialist modernization project—and woman as mother
and caregiver of children. Her study demonstrated that
despite general abstract approval of gender equality and
emancipation, women predominantly identify themselves
with motherhood and caring for the family, and women’s
perception of self-esteem, sense of dignity, individual
emancipation or unfair treatments get passed over in silence
by an overwhelming number of Bulgarian women.
Mamonova (1994) offers yet another interesting look at the
sexual identity and objectification of the Soviet and Eastern
European woman. The eroticization of the female body by men
has become the patriarchy’s international norm, the author
argued, and the opening of the former communist society for
this kind of expression of male dominance has allowed sexism
to move on to a more blatant, visual form. Beauty contests,
Mamonova asserted, which are grown exponentially in
popularly in the former Soviet bloc, are the ultimate testimony
to this change. Roman (2001) offered another interpretation of
the postcommunist developments in theories of gender and
representation in Eastern Europe. Roman describes the
complex and often, contradictory myriad of influences which
women in Eastern Europe become exposed to—rise in
traditional Orthodoxy, precommunist village values, and more
importantly, “a provocative feminine mystique of Western
origins stressing beauty as a paramount goal,” one which
becomes widely distributed and accessible through the media
(p. 56) (emphasis by the author). This conflicting factors of
influence, Roman argues, have led Eastern European women
to a rather unexpected turn—the women of postcommunism
have adopted a new understanding of being feminine and that
includes rejection of modernization and all the turmoil that it
brings, and with it, rejecting the ideas of Western feminism.
“If, for feminists following the Western model, emancipation
means autonomy and taking a public job, for the average
woman emancipation means dependency and the right to be a
housewife, thus return to the private sphere” (p. 56).
Gender Stereotypes and Sexual Appeal in TV
Advertising
Research in advertising has documented that sexually oriented
appeals are widespread, commonplace and increasing (Soley
and Reid 1988), and a number of advertising studies have
emphasized the potential harmful effects of the highly
411
sexualized images in advertising (Soley and Kurzbard 1986;
Courtney and Whipple 1983; Belch et al. 1987). However, as
Reichert et al. (1999) argue, few communication studies exist
that quantify sexually oriented appeals. “Women invariably
are portrayed in more sexually explicit ways than men, and
there is evidence to suggest that both genders are portrayed in
more sexually explicit ways in the media” (p. 9). In Eastern
Europe, this has become a particularly visible trend, where
beauty is hailed as the utmost “feminine” gender characteristic
and sexuality has been embraced as a common technique in
advertising and the local entertainment industry (Nikolic
2005). As Nikolic (2005) pointed out, the young attractive
woman in Eastern Europe becomes “a status symbol of the
new economic elite, in accordance with the phenomenon of
the ‘sponsored girl’” (p. 134). More important, as Hughes
(2005) argued, some women in Eastern Europe deeply believe
in the fantasies portrayed in advertising and film, making
them vulnerable to a growing industry of flesh trafficking and
prostitution. “The promotion of Western glamour in the media
has had a profound psychological effect on some women in
Russia” (p. 225), suggesting that images of idealized lifestyles
as presented in the media can potentially lead to victimization
of female members of the population.
In addition to the recorded growth in sexual explicitness in
advertising and its potential impact, research has also
provided evidence that women are consistently portrayed
engaged in specific roles and social circumstances, often
supportive of the dominant view of gender roles and
responsibilities in society. In the area of gender portrayals,
researchers have demonstrated that women are depicted as
dependent and decorative (e.g. Courtney and Lockeretz 1971;
Goffman 1979; Bretl and Cantor 1988) and as unemployed
homemakers and caregivers (e.g. Culley and Bennett 1976;
Tuchman 1979; Leppard et al. 1993), as less knowledgeable
than men and confined to the home. Such pictures of gender
roles have not changed over the past 25 years, although new
studies, predominantly from analysis of international adver-
tising, are starting to show a noticeable shift in sex role
portrayals around the world. Specifically, researchers have
noticed that advertisements are much less sex-stereotyped in
Western Europe, and in particular, in Britain (Furnham and
Skae 1997). Gunter (1995) noted in his examination of a
number of studies of gender stereotypes in advertising that
“more advertisements emerge featuring women in central,
independent roles, assuming greater degrees of control over
the immediate situation in which they are depicted and more
generally over their lives. As yet, this new pattern in gender-
role portrayals has been visible in advertisements aimed at
adults, while recent research indicated that advertisements
aimed at children remain gender stereotypes as ever” (p. 50).
However, while this might be a noticeable trend in the
Western world, the same change of pattern has not been
detected in other, more traditional cultures (Neto and Pinto
412
1998). For instance, current studies of gender-role portrayals
demonstrate that sex stereotypes are not declining, but on the
contrary, are much stronger in Asian cultures than in Europe
(Cheng 1997; Furnham et al. 1999). Similar patterns of
continuing gender role stereotyping have also been reported in
studies of advertising in Africa (Mwangi 1996), leading to the
conclusion that gender role portrayals as well as portrayals of
sexuality in television advertisements are closely related to the
sociocultural environment of a given country (Gilly 1988;
Mwangi 1996; Neto and Pinto 1998; Uray 2003).
In view of the current status of women in Eastern Europe,
the exponential growth in popularity of advertising both as a
revenue generating industry and a culturally influential visual
arena as well as evidence from other Europeans studies of
portrayals of gender roles, this study poses the following
hypotheses. If advertisements reflect the dominant culture of a
given society, then this study postulated that advertisements
will portray genders in clearly stereotypical ways and those
ways will reflect the postcommunist, transitional gender roles
characteristic of the Bulgarian culture. Therefore, the follow-
ing hypotheses is postulated:
H1 Female characters in Bulgarian ads will be more likely
to be visually present portrayed as users of products,
placed in the home and using mostly domestic
products, and advertising self-enhancement and social
approval products compared to male characters.
Bulgaria exhibits a mix of cultural and social factors
which place the country within a more traditional, patriar-
chal tradition, similar to those of Portugal, Turkey, Serbia,
while at the same time, showing cultural similarities to
some countries of the West based upon results from The
Global Gender Gap Index, which places Bulgaria in overall
gender gap ranking next to countries like Austria, Spain,
and Luxenburg (Lopez-Claros and Zahidi 2005).
H2 Female characters in Bulgarian ads will be more likely
to be younger, featured in intimate contacts and in
sexually suggestive dress, compared to male characters.
The general tendency to sexualize media content docu-
mented by scholars of gender and sexuality in postcommunist
countries (Stulhofer and Sandfort 2005) serves as grounds
for expecting a higher degree of sexual suggestiveness (in
dress and contact) in the portrayals of female models
compared to those of male models.
Method
Sample of Commercials
The sample of television commercials was selected from
three and a half hours of prime-time television from 6:30 to
Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
10:00 P.M. every day for 2 weeks beginning in July 2004.
This time frame was selected because it is considered prime
time according to the scheduling blocks of the three biggest
TV stations with over-the-air national coverage in Bulgaria—
the state-owned Bulgarian national TV channel Kanal 1,
Rupert Murdoch’s bTV, and the third largest national TV
channel, Nova TV. These channels were selected based upon
the July audience numbers reported by Alpha Research and
Media Sviat magazine rating supplement, according to
which bTV was viewed by 86.3% of the Bulgarian TV
audience, followed by Kanal 1 with 54.9% viewership, and
Nova TV with 37.9% (TV Ratings 2004). In addition, these
three channels were selected because they generate the
biggest advertising revenues among all media in Bulgaria.
Specifically, according to the latest advertising revenues
numbers made available for the month of May 2004, bTV
was in the lead, accounting for 18.2 million Bulgaria leva
(roughly 12.8 million US dollars), followed by Nova TV
with 7.4 million Bulgaria leva (roughly 5 million US
dollars) and finally, by Kanal 1 with total advertising
revenues of 2.1 million dollars (1.5 million US dollars).
Coding Procedure
The coding procedures for gender roles were modeled after
and adopted from Furnham and Voli (1989), Furnham
(1993), and Mastead and McCulloch (1981), and the coding
procedures for sexuality as expressed in dress and contact
were adopted from Soley and Reid (1988). The following
variables were coded: mode, credibility, role, locations, age,
reward type, product type, contact, and dress.
The gender-role data was collected only on the central
figure(s) in the advertisements. Adult male and female
characters that appeared on camera either speaking or
having a prominent exposure for at least 3 seconds were
defined as the central figures for this study (McArthur and
Resko 1975; Schneinder and Schneinder 1979). In the case
where there were more than two central figures, the most
dominant characters were coded as the central figure. Voice
over was considered central figure unless they appeared
visually in the commercial in which case they were coded
as visually appearing. Commercials with inanimate charac-
ters were excluded from the analysis. In addition, repeat
advertisements were also excluded, allowing for a specific
advertisement to be recorded only once.
To establish inter-coder reliability, another coder, who is
fluent in Bulgarian, was trained and conducted content
analysis simultaneously with the researcher on a sample of
sixteen randomly selected TV advertisements. Reliability
was calculated as percentage of agreement on each coded
variable. For the nine coded variables in this study, inter-
coder reliability varied from .84 (reward type) to .92
Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
(location). For variables that showed reliability lower than
.90, coding categories were further refined and coders
underwent more training. Two variables specifically (cred-
ibility and reward type) recorded a higher reliability after
further training, resulting in final overall reliability of .95,
with lowest levels occurring among variables as a result of
individual assessment rather than unquestionable fact (for
instance, credibility versus mode of presentation).
Variables
Mode
Mode recorded the type of appearance for the central
figures as appearing in the TV commercials. The variable
was coded for the following possible categories: (1) voice
over; (2) visually speaking; and (3) visually not speaking.
Credibility
Credibility was conceptualized as the degree of credibility
in which characters are seen to engage when the advertised
product. The coded categories were: (1) user of product; (2)
authority, providing testimonial for the quality of the
product; and (3) other, if the lead figure’s credibility is
not as user or authority figure.
Role
This variable was conceptualized as the occupational role
of the central figure. The variable was coded for the
following categories: (1) autonomous, such worker, profes-
sional, celebrity; (2) dependent such as stay-at home parent,
caretaker, and (3) unknown, if the role of the lead figure
cannot be determined.
Location
This variable was coded using the following categories: (1)
home; (2) occupational/professional; (3) leisure; and (4)
other or unknown.
Age
Age was recorded as (1) young, 35 and younger; (2)
middle-aged, 35–65; or (3) old, 65 and over.
Reward Type
This variable was recorded to examine the type of reward
which the central figure projects as a result of the use of the
advertised product. The following categories were adopted:
(1) social approval, using the product to gain approval by
413
others; (2) self-enhancement, using the product to improve
one’s well-being; (3) practical, enjoying the efficiency or
practicality of the advertised product; (4) pleasure, stress-
ing the use of the product for simple individual enjoyment;
and (5) other, any other category of reward which can be
extracted from using the advertised product.
Product Type
To establish the type of product advertised by the central
figure, the following categories were adopted: (1) domestic,
a combination of body, home, medicine and food product;
(2) away, products used in places other than home; (3)
home and away products that can be used at home and
elsewhere; (4) auto; (5) sports; and (6) other.
Contact
In order to evaluate the level of intimacy which occurs
between models while engaged in contact, the following
categories were established: (1) no contact; (2) basic
contact, e.g. holding hands, talking in close proximity; (3)
intimate contact, e.g. kissing, embracing, holding hands; (4)
very intimate contact, e.g. depiction and clear suggestion of
a sexual relations or behavior.
Dress
The dress of the models was conceptualized the type of
clothing in which the central figure is featured in the
advertisement. The dress variable was comprised of the
following categories: (1) demure, defined as everyday
dress, such as walking shorts, but excluding short-shorts
and underwear; (2) suggestive, including clothing which
partially exposes the upper body, such as tight shirts and
unbuttoned blouses, and short-shorts; (3) partially clad,
including underwear, bathing suits or workout outfits; (4)
nude, including actual nudity or suggested nudity, such as
holding a towel or linen so that genitals were concealed.
Results
The data collection procedure yielded a total of 127
advertisements. Ninety of the ads featured females as the
central character and 37 ads featured males as the central
characters in the ad. Of the recorded advertisements,
roughly 76% featured a young male or female model and
only 24% featured middle-aged and old models. The
majority of advertisements did not feature any contact
(60%). Dress in the advertisements was mostly demure
(51%), followed closely by sexually suggestive dress
414 Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418

(49%). The predominant location for the advertisements
was leisure setting (48%), followed by home setting (32%),
occupational (15%), and unknown (5%). The predominant
type of reward expected from the advertised product was
self-enhancement (37%), followed closely by pleasure and
other (30%) practical rewards (27%), and finally social-
approval (6%). The most advertised products were domes-
tic products such as hygiene, detergents, prescription drugs
and food (64%), followed by products used both at home
and away from home, such as electronics, mobile phone
services (29%), followed by away from auto, sports and
other (all collapsed in one category at 4%).
The general profile of Bulgarian TV advertisements
seem to indicate that the central figures in TV advertise-
ments are predominantly female, who appear for the most
part visually, but not speaking. Both male and female
models were also overwhelmingly young, placed in leisure
or home setting, and advertising mostly domestic and
leisure products, used for self-enhancement and pleasure.
To establish gender differences, this study conducted a
series of chi-square statistical tests to compare the observed
distribution of the examined variables with those expected
by chance. One chi-square comparison was run between the
categories of gender and every categories of each variable.
The result of the chi-square test for all coded ad factors
are displayed in Table 1.
As the results in Table 1 clearly demonstrate, all but one
ad factors recorded a statistically significant difference
between the two genders. The ad factor in which no gender
difference was detected was location. Female models were
presented more frequently as young than middle-aged and
old compared to male models. However, it is important to

Table 1 Distribution of advertising factors by the gender of the central character.

Ad Factors Male Female Total Chi Square

(χ2)
Number Percentage Number Percentage Number Percentage
(N) (%) (N) (%) (N) (%)

Mode Voice over 8 21.6 0 0 8 6.3 27.486**

Visually speaking 18 48.6 30 33.3 48 37.8 (df=2)
Visually not speaking 11 29.7 60 66.7 71 55.9
Credibility User of product 17 45.9 71 78.9 88 69.3 20.887**
Authority 17 45.9 9 10.0 26 20.5 (df=2)
Other 3 8.1 10 11.1 13 10.2
Role Autonomous 31 83.8 27 30.0 58 45.7 32.641**
Dependent 1 2.7 41 45.6 42 33.1 (df=2)
Unknown 5 13.5 22 24.4 27 21.3
Location Home 8 21.6 33 36.7 41 32.3 6.320
Occupational 9 24.3 9 10.0 18 14.2 (df=3)
Leisure 17 45.9 44 48.9 61 48.0
Other or unknown 3 8.1 4 4.4 7 5.5
Agea Young 23 62.2 73 81.1 96 75.6 5.103*
Middle-age and old 14 37.8 17 18.9 31 24.4 (df=1)
Reward typeb Social-approval 5 13.5 3 3.3 8 6.3 9.541*
Self-enhancement 18 48.6 29 32.2 47 37.0 (df=3)
Practical 7 18.9 27 30.0 34 26.8
Pleasure/Other 7 18.9 31 34.4 36 29.9
Product typec Domestic 22 59.5 59 65.5 81 63.8 6.708*
Home and away 9 24.3 28 31.1 37 29.1 (df=2)
Away from home/Auto/Sport/Other 6 16.2 3 3.3 9 7.1
Contactd No contact 28 75.7 49 54.4 77 60.6 4.952*
Physical contact 9 24.3 41 45.6 25 39.4 (df=1)
Dresse Demure 28 75.7 37 41.1 65 51.2 12.537**
Sexually suggestive 9 24.3 53 58.9 28 48.8 (df=1)

N=127 *p<.05 **p<.01

a
Collapsed categories for age includes both middle age and old
b
Collapsed categories for reward includes both pleasure and other
c
Collapsed categories for product type includes away from home, auto, sport and other
d
Collapsed categories for contact includes basic, intimate and very intimate contact
e
Collapsed categories for dress includes suggestive, partially-clad, and nude dress
Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
note that a significantly larger number of female models
(76%) are coded as young, compared to male models, 37%
of which are middle-age and old.
This study found significant gender differences for all
but one ad factors, yielding support for both stated
hypotheses. Location was the only ad factor that did not
record a significant difference between the two genders.
Both male and female central figures advertised the
featured products most frequently in a leisure environment.
While more men were seen advertising products in
occupational settings and more women were seen advertis-
ing products in domestic settings, the difference was not
statistically significant. Product type recorded a significant
difference between female and male models. Women
advertised more domestic products and products used home
and away than men did, while at the same time, men were
featured advertising auto, sport and products used away
from homer more often than women did. In other words,
when presents sport and auto ads featured exclusively male
models (16%) compared to only 7% female lead characters
in ads featured sport and auto products.
As predicted, in mode of presentation, women were
visually present, but not speaking on the screen roughly
56% of the time, while men were seen on the screen and
heard as voice over more than 70% of the time. A
statistically significant difference was recorded for credi-
bility of the central figure in the ad, supporting the stated
hypothesis. Women were seen 79% of the time as users of
the advertised product, while men were seen equally
engaged in speaking as authority on the use of the advertised
product (46%) and as an informed user of the advertised item
(46%). Similarly, approximately 84% of the time, men were
portrayed in autonomous roles, such as a professional and
vocational occupation, while in more than 46% of the ads,
women were portrayed as dependent, namely, either as
mothers, caregivers, housewives, etc.
A statistically significant difference was also noted in the
type of reward that the leading figure of the ad project. Men
were seen more frequently in social-approval reward types,
while women were seen more frequently associated with
practical rewards. In Bulgarian TV ads, the most frequent
association of males was with products rewards that lead to
self-enhancement (49%), while women are equally seen to
engage in rewards that lead to pleasure (34%), self-
enhancement (32%), and practical rewards (30%). These
results also demonstrated a significant gap in how women
and men are portrayed to engage with products that lead to
social approval—14% of the ads featured male models
using products that lead to social approval, while female
leading characters were seen in social-approval scenarios
only 3% of the time.
Finally, this study hypothesized that women would be
portrayed in more sexually explicit situations and sugges-
415
tive physical appearances than men. The results of the chi-
square test clearly support this hypothesis. In terms of
both contact and dress, there was a statistically significant
difference between the physical appearance of the male
and female models. While for both men and women the
prevailing level of contact was no contact at all, men were
more frequently depicted in no-contact circumstances
(76%) while women were seen in no-contact situations
only 54%. On the other hand, after the remaining
categories of contact, namely basic, intimate and very
intimate contact, were collapsed into one category called
physical contact to improve the statistical strength of the
chi-square test, female model were seen engaged in
physical contact 46% of the time compared to only 24%
for male models.
Even more telling are the statistical results of the cross-
tabulation of gender on dress. Men were portrayed dressed
in conservative (demure) clothing 76% of the time, while
women were portrayed in such attire only 41% of the time.
The prevailing dress for women in 59% of the ads was
sexually suggestive, showing women in partially, clad,
suggestive and nude dress (collapsed together) twice as
often as men who were seen in such dress only 24% of the
time.
Discussion
This study offered a preliminary insight in the growing
advertising industry in one former communist nation,
Bulgaria. TV advertisements were chosen not only
because of their powerful and attractive visual and verbal
messages, but also because of their potential to define the
cultural trends of consumer-driven societies, including
those of the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.
While advertising is a relatively new form of media which
only made its commercial début after the collapse of
communism, the exponential growth of consumption and
the increased level of popularity of advertising as an
effective marketing technique make it a particularly
interesting phenomenon to study in Eastern Europe
(Millan and Elliot 2004). This study also postulated that
depictions of gender roles in TV advertisements would be
fairly stereotypical and discovered that overall, sex role
stereotypes and sexualized depictions of women dominate
Bulgarian TV ads. This is a particularly important finding
considering that only one other study has attempted to
provide an insight in Eastern European gendered advertis-
ing content (Skoric and Furnham 2003).
This study employed a coding scheme based closely
upon those used in analyses of both Western and other more
traditional cultures in an attempt to reveal patterns of
gender stereotyping and their possible effect on emerging
416
gender identities. The results of this content analysis
indicate that certain similarities exist with gender role
stereotypes reported in a number of international studies of
sex role portrayals in Western Europe (McArthur and
Resko 1975; Manstead and McCullough 1981; Levingstone
and Green 1986; Harris and Stobart 1986; Gilly 1988,
Furnham and Bitar 1993, Furnham and Mak 1999).
However, certain trends recorded by the data in this study
also placed Bulgarian gender portrayals with gender role
stereotyping detected in studies of more traditional cultures
and nations (Cheng 1997; Furnham et al. 1999; Uray 2003).
Bulgarian women were predominantly showed as product
users, and not authorities, similar to findings in advertising
trends in Italy, Australia, and Portugal (Furnham and Mak
1999). Women rarely appear as voice-over compared to
men, a trend which has been confirmed by both European
and Asian comparative studies and are more frequently
depicted as dependent, confirming trends noticed also in
studies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy,
Hong Kong and France (Furnham and Mak 1999). This
study also found that a significantly larger number of men
are featured as middle-aged and old than women (e.g.
Furnham and Skae 1997; Mazella et al. 1992). Women
were also found to be advertising mostly domestic use
products, while more men were seen advertising sports and
auto products than women (Furnham and Mak 1999). Both
male and female central figures advertised the featured
products most frequently in a leisure environment, similar
to the Serbian ads analyzed by Skoric and Furnham (Skoric
and Furnham 2003). It is important to note, however that
the prevailing category for age for both men and women
was young, both advertised products for domestic use and
were both seen in home and leisure locations. While this
finding does not confirm the trends observed in other
European countries, this finding appears somewhat consis-
tent with the findings of Uray’s (2003) study of gender
portrayals in Turkish TV ads, where gender role portrayals
were found dissimilar to more recent examples of U.S. and
U.K. advertising. The demographic characteristics of the
main characters featured in both Bulgarian and Turkish
advertisements might be seen as indicative of the recent
trends of increasing buying power among the younger
generation in both postcommunist Bulgaria and modernizing
Turkey. Indeed, the study found that both men and women
were predominantly young in relatively equal proportion,
linking this trend to the growing numbers of young Turkish
and Bulgarian men and women with significant disposable
income, a desirable target market for advertisers.
This study’s results revealed an interesting departure from
previously reported trends also in the type of reward sought
as a result of using the advertised product by men and
women. In most existing studies originating in Europe, men
Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
are associated with rewards that were mostly practical, while
more women were seen depicted with products which are
aimed at self-enhancement (Manstead and McCulloch
1981). In Bulgarian TV ads, the majority of ads depicted
men associated with self-enhancement products and women
associated with products which almost equally bring
pleasure, self-enhancement and practical rewards. Even
more illustrative were the gender difference between dress
and contact for men and women in the sampled TV ads.
While men were largely depicted in demure attire, namely
every day clothing or business suits, women were more
frequently depicted in sexually suggestive clothes (in
varying degree) than in demure one. Similarly, women
were seen engaged in physical contact more often than
men. Men were also seen in no contact social interaction
75% of the time, while women were featured engaged in
physical contact close to 50% of the time.
Despite some contradictions, this study also demonstrat-
ed that gender stereotypes exist and are to a great degree
determined by the cultural peculiarities of the country of
origin, an argument which has been advanced by numerous
researchers in the area and becomes evident in the context
of comparative studies (Furnham and Mak 1999; Furnham
et al. 2000; Furnham and Farragher 2000; Skoric and
Furnham 2003). More important, while this study reveals
some illuminating patterns in gender bias in Bulgarian
TV advertisements, these findings should be interpreted
with caution. The sample size was relatively small and
restricted by the fact that advertising, although a growing
business in Bulgaria, is still a luxury only a number of
big multinational companies can afford, thus, limiting the
diversity of advertising content that could be gathered
and analyzed. More importantly, some variable had small
cell count and had to be further collapsed, making
categories less exhaustive and the analysis of the results,
more difficult. In addition, content analysis is the
common research method when studies of gender roles
and stereotypes are conducted and although the method
provides a sufficient insight in the stereotypical repre-
sentations and gender role portrayals that invade our
living rooms, it fails to provide an explanation for these
patterns of representation, and more importantly, patterns
of consumption and audience reception. In studying the
prevailing portrayals of women and men in Bulgarian TV
advertisements, this study provided a unique glimpse in
the gender role portrayals that inundate the TV space of
the Bulgarian consumer, but did not explain what social
factors and cultural phenomena might be responsible for
these trends. In this line of thought, analyzing the
underlying motives of the advertising industry to empha-
size certain gender portrayals and sex roles while ignore
others must be studied by future researchers, particularly
Sex Roles (2007) 57:409–418
in the countries of Eastern Europe, where a significant
number of women occupy important positions of leader-
ship in the advertising industry and are engage actively
in all stages of the industry, from its inception and
production to its distribution and consumption. Similarly,
it is vitally important to study whether the consumers of
visual images indeed tend to adopt in their own cultural
practices and incorporate in their identity the projected
stereotypical portrayals, populating the cultural space of
television advertising.
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