Analysis and study of sexual capital in national advertisements

Sexual capital as the fourth social capital is one of the newest and most popular theories of contemporary sociology, proposed by Catherine Hakim in 2011. One of the most important situations in which sexual capital is present is commercial advertising. Advertising teasers in the capitalist era have become increasingly important and have occupied a large part of television broadcasting, so this research, relying on Hakim's theoretical structure and components of sexual capital from his perspective, to study and describe this phenomenon in advertising. He has made a television commercial for the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio and Television. Based on this, using quantitative content analysis method, 30 samples of teasers were analyzed with targeted sampling based on the presence and focus of women among the advertisements broadcast on Sada-o-Sima in July and August 1998. The results of this study indicate that the rate of sexual capital in advertising is high. Among these, the components of the way of appearing in the society (attractive cover, face makeup, jewelry and decorations), sexual attraction (attractive body, feminine behavior, charm), and beauty, the most repetition and components of social presence (skill and interaction and Social participation, kindness, and vitality (energy and vitality, not being passive) have the least repetition. Capitalism and advertising designers also use women's sexual capital to attract and persuade audiences to persuade the buyer to buy the product.