“I'm Not Influenced by Ads, But Not Everyone's Like Me”: The Third-Person Effect in Israeli Women's Attitude Toward TV Commercials and Their Images

Abstract

In this article the author examines expressions of the third-person effect found in an extensive feminist reception study investigating, for the first time, how Israeli women interpret images of women and femininity in TV commercials. Adopting the feminist and interpretive approach, the qualitative study was based on in-depth personal interviews with Israeli women from diverse cultural, economic, and social backgrounds. Grounded theory methodology, used for analysis of the interviews, revealed unexpected expressions of the third-person effect in the women's discourse on the potential influence of the images on different categories of “others.” The article presents this evidence and discusses its significance in the Israeli sociocultural context. As such, it uses different methodology in examining expressions of third-person effect than is traditionally used in this field.

Acknowledgments

This article derives from the author's dissertation that was accomplished at Tel Aviv University (Israel) and was written under the guidance of Professor Dafna Lemish. The author wishes to express her deep gratitude and appreciation for her contributions. The author also wishes to express her gratitude to the Research Fund of the Research Authority of the College of Management Academic Studies, Rishon Lezion, Israel, for the financial support provided for this publication.

Notes

¹No studies of this issue conducted more recently in Israel were found. Research examining whether more complex images of women are represented in current Israeli advertising would be of great interest.

²The term interpretive community is used in reception studies to indicate a group that shares a similar interpretation of a given text and a similar use of the media. The term helps to explain differences in interpretations.

³The literature contains no reports of previous studies of this issue conducted in Israel.

⁴Other findings of the study are discussed in separate articles.

⁵As part of the interview, all the women were asked to give their opinion about the effect of the images of women and femininity on other women, men, and children, so that their reference to other groups of people did not arise spontaneously. Nevertheless, the content of their remarks—the enhancement of the “self” as opposed to “others” and what they chose to stress in respect to the influence of these images on others—were totally spontaneous, and thus of interest.

⁶This concept is particularly relevant “in contexts where social groups are seen as opposed” (Meirick, 2004, p. 236).

⁷The names of the participants have been changed. The age of each appears in parentheses.