Reconstructing Gender Roles using Collective Memory (Process) through Select Indian Commercials

Abstract

Collective memory as a process implies that social groups' collective memory in society, changes and develops over time. The paper adopts a phenomenological study using Yadin Dudai’s ‘collective memory as a process’, in the interest of assessing how shifting collective memory (process) of gender roles in society influences the depiction of gender roles in Indian television commercials. Further, it goes on to explain how such advertisements can also impact society's collective memory of gender roles. The study investigates the issue of whether or not there has been a shift in how gender roles are portrayed in commercials in association with the collective memory (process) of society. Studying this change in the portrayal of gender roles in television advertising does indeed have broader implications as to how society perceives gender roles, emphasizing the significance of this study. The research findings show that there has been a noticeable change in how women are portrayed in television commercials as sporting champions, motorists, successful politicians, and business personnel in relation to the changing collective memory of society. The study ultimately determines that the influence of commercials on modifying society's collective memory of gender roles and the influence of collective memory on the evolution of gender role depictions in commercials are reciprocal in nature.