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Reproduction of Gender Ideology Through Russian Consumer Culture: The Case of Iconography of the ‘Mother’ in Russia

Abstract

Gender is one of the central topics of contemporary studies in marketing and consumer research. Since the introduction of Goffman’s schema on gender roles and portrayals in advertisements (Goffman, 1979), scholars continue adapting his method and reveal some of the hidden factors of gender roles, portrayals or inequalities in contemporary marketing practices (Bettany et al 2010). Noticeably, less attention has been given to the ideological aspects of gender portrayals and its unique value of producing and reproducing sociocultural meanings around gender. Thus, this research looks into the archetypal images of Russian mothers and proposes multiple ichnographic images of motherhood implemented in contemporary Russian print media. The study adopted critical visual methods (Schroeder, 2002) and qualitative content analysis (Schreier 2014) while analysing advertisements from three Russian and three Western origin ‘mother and baby’/’parenting’ magazines. The study is positioned within the theoretical spectrum of Consumer Culture Theory and contributes to the field by unpacking the role of ‘symbolic power’/ (ideology) (Bourdieu, 1979) around the motherhood that persists in contemporary Russian consumer culture

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