The Portrayal of Women in Indian Television Advertisements and its Impact on Indian Women

Abstract

Since the beginning of the liberalisation process, television advertisements have made a massive impact around the world. Especially today, television advertisements play a major role in entertainment and information in Indian society. But from the past few decades, Indian television advertisements have been not only providing information about the product or services and, but also directly and indirectly, also forcing the audience to buy their product, in different ways, especially by affecting the psychology of the people as viewers or consumers. If observed closely, TV advertisements continuously objectify women’s bodies, sexuality and pornographic image for the sake of their products and services, for them, women are merely a commodity to attract viewers' attention towards their product. In India, almost three decades have passed since the beginning of globalisation in 1990, but despite the many positive changes in society, economy, and politics, Indian commercials are still very regressive towards women. The content analysis and interview methods have been used under the qualitative approach to collect accurate data. By using these two methods I have examined and explained how the commodification of women is more often shown in television advertisements to sell anything and this objectification affects women's capabilities as a person