women's portrayal in print-advertisements by Virginia Slims

[Aigerim]

Hello all,

Could anyone please help me with finding a relevant RQ for Category 3 EE in English?

My current topic is women's portrayal in print-advertisements by Virginia Slims cigarette brand.

The idea was to discuss how advertisers exploit women's aspirations to sell their product.

According to the guide, topics in cat3 must be presented in context of specific culture/cultures or media, and here I am a little stuck. Also, I am not sure what kind of argument I could develop with that topic.

All the help will be much appreciated.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Aigerim

[Lisa Rowe]

I'm also doing a cat3

Do you think you can write 3000 words body( take 400-500 word introduction and 400-500 word conclusion) on a single ad? Think of this again. Though it's narrow enough you might get caught in the a psychological analysis rather than a Language analysis.

I suggest you compare how women and men are presented in ads with stereotypical roles OR you stick to women by choose 2 or 3 ads form different brands

Hope this helps.
Good luck May2014

[Infested]

It's better to have a time-based parameter rather than one based on brand when you're assessing advertisements as a Language EE is one where you'll have to commit yourself to extensive research and if you do not have the sufficient content to analyse and research on you're going to have problems with producing a substantial essay.

As you've said, your rough topic is to examine advertisers (which, by the way, is too broad a scope, as I've said you could try adding a time-frame or several time-frames if you're doing a comparison of trends) and how they manipulate women. Since you're formulating a research on advertisers as a whole, there is no advantage to confining yourself to one single advertiser when you could be conducting your research on advertisers in the 1920s, for example.

Edited August 3, 2013 by Infested

[Aigerim]

It is a helpful advice. Thank you, Infested.