Biomedical subjects

L B Coutts

Publications and source records attributed to L B Coutts.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Virginity and tampons: the beginner myth as a case of alteration.

Using an inductive analytical approach to the portrayal of menstruating women in menstrual product advertisements, we discovered that tampon advertisements directed to adolescents provide a unique case of myth alteration. The beginner myth contends that tampon use by young women threatens virginity. With considerable deftness, the tampon advertisements we analyzed addressed the beginner myth, both dispelling the myth and at the same time retaining it to the degree that it sustained the need for specialized tampons.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The portrayal of the menstruating woman in menstrual product advertisements.

Because menstrual product advertisements act as mediators of a subset of meanings of femininity linked to menstruation, we performed a comparative conceptual analysis of these advertisements to explicate media-constructed realities of contemporary women. We sought to understand the portrayed women's definition of menstruation and their status as menstruating women. Textual and conceptual analyses led us to conclude that the portrayed women, in an attempt to avoid others' discovery of their menstruation, employed a complex menstrual management system, which often includes feminized menstrual products, to act as an antidote to a tainted state of femininity.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The extended curse: being a woman every day.

Inductive analysis of the portrayal of menstruating women in contemporary menstrual product advertisements revealed a profound shift in the meaning of feminine hygiene over the last few decades. The phrase sanitary protection has been replaced by a more euphemistic phrase, feminine hygiene, to refer to menstrual management products. What first appeared to be mere euphemistic substitution, on further analysis, was revealed to involve considerably more than semantics. In the case of panty liners, it was found that the marketing of these specialized products involves the invocation of negative definitions of femaleness and a concomitant subscription to altered definitions of femininity. These altered meanings, conveyed in recent menstrual product advertisements, have serious implications for contemporary women's self-images.

Advertising↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Extracted image analysis: a technique for deciphering mediated portrayals.

A technique for analyzing print media that we have developed as a consequence of our interest in the portrayal of women in menstrual product advertising is reported. The technique, which we call extracted image analysis, involves a unique application of grounded theory and the concomitant heuristic use of the concept of ideal type (Weber, 1958). It provides a means of heuristically conceptualizing the answer to a variant of the "What is going on here?" question asked in analysis of print communication, that is, "Who is being portrayed/addressed here?" Extracted image analysis involves the use of grounded theory to develop ideal typologies. Because the technique re-constructs the ideal types embedded in a communication, it possesses considerable potential as a means of identifying the profiles of members of identifiable groups held by the producers of the directed messages. In addition, the analysis of such portrayals over time would be particularly well suited to extracted image analysis. A number of other possible applications are also suggested.

Female↗