Hybridized images: Representations of the "modern woman" across Mainland China and Hong Kong TV commercials

As advertising can be a social factor and cultural artifact, this study analyzes the images of "modern Chinese woman" via an investigation of their role portrayals, appearance/projection, and verbal characteristics represented in a total of 164 award-winning Chinese TV commercials from 2007 to 2009. Results show that a much larger percentage of females in the Chinese TV commercials embody modern rather than traditional representations. The commercials from Mainland China have also manifested modern representations of the women in more dimensions than their counterparts in Hong Kong. Furthermore, hybridization of both the traditional and modern features are most frequently found in the Chinese TV commercials. It is concluded that the modern forms of Chinese femininity is generated from a synthesis of both the traditional and modern values and that the dichotomous approach of globalization vs localization debate in advertising practice has oversimplified the intricate process as well as the product of image representation and transformation of women in Cultural China.