Thesis (BA Communication Arts) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, May 2016

This thesis is an exploration into how contemporary advertising frames Filipino masculinity in TV ads for men?s grooming products. The emergence and recent boom of grooming products geared towards men offer a great potential for the male market but because these products are traditionally considered to be ?too feminine?, a markedly different approach is needed to make them appeal to men. In order to discover what this markedly different approach is, a corpus of foreign and Filipino-made TV ads for men?s grooming products were gathered from the three major Philippine TV networks (GMA, ABS-CBN, and TV5) and underwent a pragmatic analysis. The researcher recontextualized Rubio and Green?s seven dimensions of Filipino masculinity ideologies (assertiveness and dominance, family-orientedness, sense of community, responsibility, integrity, intelligence and academic achievement, and respectful deference to women and elderly into frames of Filipino masculinity, Sperber and Wilson?s Relevance theory, as a pragmatic theory, guided the analysis of this study. The researcher discovered two emergent frames from the analysis of the corpus of TV ads. These frames were termed as the simplicity and desirability frame. The researcher also discovered that the most dominant frames employed in the corpus of TV ads were the emergent desirability frame and the assertiveness and dominance frame, implying that contemporary advertising mostly frames men vis-à-vis power and desirability in TV ads for men?s grooming products. Furthermore, the researcher discovered that all of the TV ads are more aligned with contemporary than traditional masculinity.