CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Shields, V. R. (1999). Advertising to the gendered audience: Using Sense-Making to illuminate how audiences decode advertisements of idealized female bodies. The Electronic Journal of Communication [On-line serial] 9 (2, 3, & 4).
© The Electronic Journal of Communication (1999).

ABSTRACT:
This essay examines the contribution of Sense-Making, both as a methodology and as a meta-theoretical framework, to a line of empirical audience research focused on the decoding of “the idealized female body” in advertising by women and men. By doing so, the essay claims that audience reception theory in both cultural studies and feminist media studies can be advanced through empirical investigation of audience decoding that employs Sense-Making. The essay presents a case study focusing on the research design and major findings from demonstration studies. The author argues that although audience reception work has been successful in finding patterns in audience responses, a stockpiling of findings has emerged, rather than the emergence of an integrated picture of “reception.” In order for this kind of theorizing to happen, cultural studies audience research must rethink its methodologies and address its own meta-theoretical contests

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OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See:http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistshieldsv.html.