The construction of gendered national identities in the television advertisements of Japan and Australia

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between globalization and the construction of gendered national identities in Japanese and Australian television advertisements. The article analyses how `Japaneseness' and `Australianness' are established in a sample of television ads, and asserts that these representations of national identity are gendered. It suggests that these gendered representations are tied to increasing globalization. Specifically, it argues that the gendering of discourses of national identity serves to anchor in traditionalism identities that are destabilized by the pressures of the Japanese programme of `internationalization' and the Australian programme of `multiculturalism'. These findings represent the preliminary results of ongoing research into the relationship between globalization, gender and national identity in contemporary Japan and Australia.