Idealization of Motherhood in Advertisements of Maternal and Child Products

Abstract

Advertisements both reflect and shape ideology; they influence motherhood ideology without failure. This study aims to examine the mother images in advertisements of maternal and child products in China and then investigate the social meanings behind the representations. First, advertisements were collected from TMALL.com, the largest e-commerce platform in China; then a multimodal discourse analysis method with a content analysis method was adopted to explore the details of the advertisements. Through the analysis, the study found that mothers in the advertisements were typically portrayed as attractive, well-groomed middle-class women, which can be termed as “yummy mummy”. In addition, intensive mothering is emphasized among mothers, in which mothers are primarily caregivers. Several reasons contribute to this phenomenon. First, the prevalence of idealized mothers is due to the emergence of a new generation of mothers, who grew up in a more affluent era in China. Second, it is propelled by consumerism in contemporary consumer culture, though the trend indicates aesthetic freedom.