Representation of gender in advertisement through voice and speech characteristics

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – WE 5757/6-1, 529274597

Project Description

Advertising often relies on simplified and easily perceived representations—stereotypes. This raises the question of whether these stereotypes accurately reflect reality or merely perpetuate outdated assumptions. This project focuses on changing gender roles and considers the current discussion on gender diversity. Despite social change, dichotomous and often stereotypical gender constructions remain relatively constant: masculinity is associated with competence, strength, assertiveness, and ambition, while femininity is linked to warmth, expressiveness, and community orientation. These concepts often imply the dominance of one group over the other, which is increasingly criticized.

In this research project, we examine the extent to which stereotypes about gender roles are present in today's advertising through the voices used and whether these stereotypes reflect the values and attitudes of modern society, especially considering audience diversity.

The first objective is to systematically describe gender stereotypes regarding voice and speech characteristics in purely auditory radio advertising. We conduct a content and phonetic analysis and clustering of male and female sounding voice-overs in radio commercials, examining spectral parameters such as mean fundamental frequency, its variation, vowel space, and voice quality. The content analysis will explore aspects such as advertising context and gender-specific connotations.

The second objective is to analyze the perception and reception of these identified voice types, taking into account various listener characteristics such as age, gender, sexual orientation, traditional gender role concepts, and gender conformity. We use advertising stimuli alongside manipulated speech material based on the results of prior cluster analysis. Various explicit and implicit perception tests will be employed to analyze the activation of stereotypical concepts and the acceptance of advertisements featuring different voice types.

Publications

• Henneberger, I., Weirich, M. (2024) Vocal- and speech-transported Gender Representation in German Advertisements, Proc. ICLaVE 12, Wien.
• Henneberger, I., Weirich, M. (2023) „Musik in meinen Ohren“ – zur Untersuchung von phonetischen Korrelaten mit Hintergrundgeräuschen oder Musikbett-Unterlegung im medialen Kontext, Proc. P&P 19, Bern.
• Henneberger, I., Weirich, M. (2023) Stimmliche und sprecherische Genderrepräsentationen in der Werbung, Proc. P&P 18, Bielefeld.
• Henneberger, I. (2021a): Stereotype Werbestimmen – Untersuchung von geschlechterspezifischen Stimm- und Sprechtypen in der deutschen Primetime-Werbung anhand phonetischer Parameter. (Master Thesis, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)
• Henneberger, I. (2021b): Stereotype Werbestimmen – Untersuchung von geschlechterspezifischen Stimm- und Sprechtypen in der deutschen Primetime-Werbung anhand phonetischer Parameter. Proc. P&P 17, Frankfurt a.M.
• Henneberger, I. (2018) Die weibliche Stimme in der deutschen Werbung – Zur Entwicklung des weiblichen Stereotyps anhand phonetischer Parameter. (Bachelor Thesis, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)