The Cultural Dimension of the Philippine Magazine Advertisements

Culture and media as one is a reflection of society. As culture being the characteristics of a group’s identity, media on the other hand either reflects ideas in the society. It is the main goal of media to get the attention of the audience. Advertisements, as one of the platforms of media intend to fit into what the consumers’ wants and desires because most of the consumers’ attitudes, awareness and behaviors are according on the framework of their culture. The idea of culture reflecting on the magazine advertisements emerged since there are different types of how products and services were advertised. To find out the relevance of the claim, the researchers aimed to explore the Cultural Dimensions reflected in the magazine advertisements of FHM, YES! and Cosmopolitan Magazine using the Hofstede’s Five Dimensions of Culture. This includes Femininity, Masculinity, Power Distance, Individualism, Collectivism and Power Distance. General results show majority of the magazine advertisements reflects Uncertainty Avoidance. This implies that advertisers tend to provide advertisements that appeal to the reader’s prevention on taking risk on uncertain circumstances. Overall, advertisers of the three magazines focused more on the person’s avoidance on taking the risks that he/she might have foreseen and what he/she might experience in the future. Since the result of the study shows Uncertainty Avoidance as the dominant Dimension of Culture reflected, the researchers suggests to conduct a study on how social processes, interpersonal and mass communication relates to the Uncertainty Avoidance Dimension of Culture reflected in advertisements.

Keywords – culture, cultural dimensions, advertisements, comparative analysis, magazine