Final Project

Research
Methodology.
Pilot Study.
Submitted by: Maham Arshad
Submitted to: Maam Akifa Imtiaz.

What is Pilot Study?

A pilot study is a research project that is
conducted on a limited scale that allows
researchers to get a clearer idea of what
they want to know and how they can best
find it out without the expense and effort
of a full-fledged study. They are used
commonly to try out survey questions and
to refine research hypotheses.
(Crossman.)

Contents of Pilot Study.

The Pilot Study for the Research Project consists of the
following parts.
Aims and Objective of the Research.
Text Selection Criteria and Text.
Limitations of Study.
Research Methodology.
Framework and Justification of using the CDA Models.
Analysis.
Conclusion.
References.

Pakistan Media:
A Study Of Gender Role Portrayals.

Research Aims:
The aim of the study is to see how media
creates certain stereotypes.
To look into power structures that are
represented and created by the ads.

Text Selection.
The text that I have chosen is 5 advertisements. The
selection is not random. I have selected advertisements
which show mother and daughter in law relationship.
I have selected advertisements and not dramas because
advertisements reach out to a larger number of audience
and therefore have a larger impact on the society.
1. Ufone Ladies Package. (1.20 mins)
2. Bonus Tristar. (0.44 mins)
3. Laziza Kheer. (0.50 mins)
4. Lemon Max Bar. (0.35 mins)
5. Maggi Umda Chawal. (0.25 mins)

Limitations Of the Study

Time was the biggest constraint in the
conducted research.
It was difficult to search for
advertisements because Youtube is
blocked in Pakistan.
The research focuses on only domestic
roles of characters and neglects other
types of gender stereotypes.

Methodology and Framework.

Qualitative Research approach+ Three Discourse
Frameworks for Analysis.

Methodology
Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving
an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject
matter. This means that qualitative researchers study
things in their natural settings, attempting to make
sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the
meanings people bring to them. Qualitative research
involves the studied use and collection of a variety of
empirical materials case study, personal experience,
introspective, life story, interview, observational,
historical, interactional, and visual texts that describe
routine and problematic moments and meanings in
individuals lives. Accordingly, qualitative researchers
deploy a wide range of unconnected methods, hoping
always to get a better fix on the subject matter at hand.
(Denzin and Lincoln 1994: 2)

FPDA
An approach to analyzing intertextualized discourses in
spoken interaction and other types of text. It draws upon
the poststructuralist principles of complexity, plurality,
ambiguity, connection, recognition, diversity, textual
playfulness, functionality and transformation. The feminist
perspective on poststructuralist discourse analysis
considers gender differentiation to be a dominant discourse
among competing discourses when analyzing all types of
text. FPDA regards a gender differentiation as one of the
most pervasive discourses across many cultures in terms of
systematic power to discriminate between human beings
according to their gender and sexuality. (Baxter, 2004)

CDA
According to Fairclough (2003), discourse
is a way of representing aspects of world,
processes, relations and structures of
material world, mental world of thoughts,
feelings, beliefs, and social world.

Multimodal Discourse
Analysis.
Meanings are created in texts and interactions in a
complex interplay of semiosis across multiple modes
which include but are not limited to written and
spoken language (Bhatia, V.K., Flowerdew, J., and
Jones, R.H. (Eds.): 2008, P.129)
According to multimodal discourse analysis semiotic
signs and symbols, local /general practices of posture,
gesture, gaze, and project handling can be linked to
larger social issues to understand identities, powerrelationships and nature of social actions. (Bhatia, V.K.,
Flowerdew, J., and Jones, R.H. (Eds.) : 2008, P.
129,130)

Why these three

approaches?
FPDA: This framework provides the critical tools
to analyze the gender stereotypes. 3 rd wave
feminism no longer just fights for the rights of
women. It goes beyond that and sees the gender
identities of both man and woman constructed by
the society.
CDA: This approach helps analyze power structure
in social context.
Multimodality: This approach deals with many
signs and symbols. Face and body gestures. Music,
lightening and camera angles etc.

Social Context
Pakistani society consists of joint family
system as well as nuclear family system.
In a joint family system the wife has to
live with the husbands family.
It is a preconceived idea by the audience
that Mother in law and daughter in law
have a tense relationship.

Analysis
Analysis of the Advertisements.

Advertisement 1.
The setting is of a high class family.
Big house, big party.
Wife is pretty and stylish with loose hair. She is also powerful as
when her husband questions her, Ami ne daekh lia tou? And
she indifferently questions back, Toh?
The mother in law also seems powerful, as she walks in the
room with certain air of boldness with a stern look on her face.
On the first look the advertisement seems two hold 2 powerful
female characters. But it in fact mocks the situation.
The husband is almost a comic character, afraid of his mother
and hiding his face behind a briefcase when she comes.

Contd
Mother in law and the daughter in law are
shown having a peaceful relationship. A
bond.
But just like the husband, it comes as a
surprise to the audience.
The advertisement gives an impression
that both the roles of mother and
daughter in law are supposed to be in a
bitter relationship as a norm.

When the mother in law enters the

room, the advertisement turns to slow
motion and a suspenseful tune is played.
The wife ties her duppatta like she is
preparing for a battle. The husband
comically hides his face behind his bag.
The scene resembles that of some action
movie when a villain walks in and the
hero prepares for battle.
However the ad turns table and shows
surprisingly that the saas and bahu
are friends.
The fact that they step out of their
expected stereotyped roles and create
humor and shock for the husband and
the audience makes their stereotype
more concrete and mocks that any other
expectation of the role cannot exist.

Advertisement 2.
The setting is of a lower middle class
household.
(Old fashioned house. Women bickering
about finance. Washing machine in the
veranda. Women with tied hair.)
The Mother in law is again shown in
power. The sister in law is shown as a
tattler. Her character is very negative.
She keeps saying, Amaaaa to call her
mother to tattle on her Bhabhi.

Contd.
The third person voice intervenes only once to tell the
price of the washing powder. The echoing effect is used
twice to emphasize the low price. This shows that it
specifically targets lower middle class audience.
The camera focuses on mother and daughter when the
man announces the price, with both the women wide
eyed and mouth opened in shock. This scene almost
reminds the audience of Soap operas, often showing
saas-bahu feuds.
One also notices that the Saas uses a lot of hand
gestures. This in Pakistani context represents her as
being a bossy rude woman.

Using hand gestures.

A practice considered rude and
bossy in many cultures esp in
Pakistan.

Contd.
The advertisement ends on a happy note, the in laws
happy with the daughter in law.
Last dialogue:
Nand: Amaaaaa sara kamal to bonus ka hai. Bhabhi ne
kya kia hai.
Bahu: Lae k to mein hi aai hun na.
Saas: Aur tujhy kon lae k aaya hai.
(laughter)
The end dialogue again shows the power of the mother in
law. The ad mocks her stereotypical character and her
egoistic remark at the end which implies that she is not
ready to give any credit to her daughter in law.

Advertisement 3.
This advertisement highlights a Pakistani cultural
custom, the newly wed bride cooking a sweet dish
for the in laws.
The advertisement shows a timid, scared bride. A
stern faced uncooperative mother in law, and a
silent husband.
The saas stern faced mockingly questions Kheer
bna to lo gi na? Bahu. She also uses hand gesture
and tantalizingly adds Bahu at the end of her
question. So here too, the saas is shown
negatively.

The bride is scared and frets with her hands and ring.
This emphasizes her character as a poor, timid new
bride. it also shows her marriage in question. It
almost shows her as a victim.
The background music Naye zindagi hai. Naey khof
bhi hen. Har pal dharka sa hai. and the little girl
saying, chachi aj tou imtehaan hai. adds to the
significance of the situation. Just as a climax of a
movie.
The father in law when asks for opinion of his wife on
the dish, she arrogantly and again indifferently says,
Mein? Mein kia btaun.
The other woman on the table, also an in law (jealously
or angrily) with a serious face bluntly rejects to eat the
dish at all.
The ad ends on a surprisingly good reaction from the

Advertisement 4.
The ad shows a middle class family. The wife doing
the dishes. She has tied hair and the suburban
housewife look.
The husband starts singing to her romantically but
soon as mother in law gets in the picture he switches
the song lyrics in praise of the lemon max bar. He
says Bachat hogai and the wife takes a deep breath
of relief, but then again the mother eyes them and the
man says, 4 rupay ki, 4 rupay ki bachat hogai.
The mother in law gives a look of approval and relief.

Contd.
The ad has a very famous Pakistani romantic song.
The mother in law character is again a negative
one. She eyes her son angrily when he is singing to
his wife. But at the end she smiles a little
approvingly when he tells her of 4 rupay ki
bachat.
Husband and wife are both afraid of the mother.
The mother in law is shown to have power over
them and she uses that negatively.

Advertisement 5.
A lower middle class family. The wife with braided hair
and in ill fitted shalwar kameez. Small dining room.
Steel utensils. Cheap crockery.
The scene of conflict is when the mother in law puts a
spoon of rice in her mouth and gets up and leaves with a
stern expression. The music played in the background is
suspenseful, reminding the viewers of soap operas. The
husband and wife look at each other in shock. But the
mother in law surprises everyone by coming back and
giving her house keys which signify that she now fully
accepts and trusts her daughter in law and transfers the
power to her.

What are these

advertisements saying?
In all 5 advertisements the ending is a happy
one. All the family living happily together. Saas
in peace with the bahu.
But these ads are actually showing that the
happiness and peace among both parties is only
achieved once their product is used.
The mother in law stereotype is shown
negatively in all the ads. The expectation that
comes out of such ads is that the mother in law
relation is negative.

What these advertisements

are creating?
What these advertisements are doing are creating
stereotypes. The powerful evil mother in law. The
dutiful suburban wife. The weak and silent
husband.
Just as in the west there were symbols of evil
witch, stepmother and the fairy god mother.
The Virgin Mary and the seductress eve.
Similarly these ads are creating extreme
stereotypes of not only women but men.

Conclusion.
The advertisements use tacky and clever
strategies to sell their product in the
market. They use suspenseful sound
effects and slow motion to create a soap
opera effect. They choose their characters
from the class they are targeting.
In all this, they also stereotype certain
relations and figures in the society.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT!

Are such type of media representations
responsible for creating negative notion
among people about this relationship?
Or is it merely true depiction of the
society?
How harmful are these images to the
real life woman?

References
Baxter, J. (2004, June 01).Feminist post-structuralist
discourse analysis a new theoretical and methodological
approach?. Retrieved from
http://eprints.aston.ac.uk/7367/1/Feminist_Post.pdf
Fairclough, Norman. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis
for Social Research. London: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Bhatia, V.K., Flowerdew, J., and Jones, R.H. (Eds.)
(2008).Advances indiscourse studies.London: Roultedge
Denzin N K and Lincoln Y. S. (eds). (1994). Introduction:
Entering the field of qualitative research. In
N. K. Denzin N K & Y. S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of
Qualitative Research, pp. 1-17. London: Sage.

Conclusion Of Pilot Study

The purpose of pilot study is to test the
research framework and methodology
on a small scale sample of the research
to b conducted.
This study shows that the methodology
and framework are indeed fruitful in
analyzing the data successfully,
therefore further research on the
subject can be continued keeping the
same framework in light.

THANK YOU!