Abstract:
Although there are many studies on gender-role portrayals in television advertising in the world, in the context of Ethiopia media descriptive study are clearly lacking.This study is a study of the portrayal of women in television advertisements in Ethiopia. For this purpose, the content analysis method was employed to analyze 200 advertisements that were collected from commercials aired at prime time on EBS(Ethiopian Broadcast Service.) and Kana TV over two months period. It was achieved by seeking to determine which type of products and services that women are included mostly in television adverts, whether there are gender inequalities in regard to roles depicted in the commercials, and what type of portrayal of women is greatest prevalent in television ads. The study adopted a descriptive research design. A code sheet was used to enter the data which were analyzing the gender of the primary character, voiceover, as well as age, occupational categories, location/work setting, the working role of the primary character, and product categories by gender. The study found that the central figure in an advertisement indicated more men than women are appearing as central figures in television advertising. Another finding of this study is the presence of male voice-over dominance in Kana TV and EBS commercials. Moreover, the study found out that male characters were portrayed as "high-level business like executives, supervisors, managers and so on. Additionally, Male and female characters were portrayed almost equally for professional roles. The study revealed that more men are portrayed as an entertainer than women. The researcher, therefore, recommends that the media in Ethiopia should reflect the unbiased and genuine portrayal of women.
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