Deception in Super Bowl Advertisements: An Analysis of Deceptive Story Lines

Many ethical studies have focused on advertising; however, they have yet to focus specifically on Super Bowl advertisements. This thesis examines the ethical issue of portraying deceptive acts within the storylines of Super Bowl advertisements from 1988-2008. Results indicate that 196 of the 2,172 advertisements studied, contain deceptive storylines. Most often the advertisements depicted white males, ages 30-64, using deception. Also, deception was usually done out of self interest at the expense of others. The deception often led to negative social, material, and emotional consequences for the person being deceived, with mostly positive outcomes being shown for the person doing the deceiving. These, and other actions, provide a model of behavior that may have a negative impact on society, which warrants future research on this subject.

Name thesis:degree_name

MA

Grantor dc:publisher

Brigham Young University - Provo

Author dc:creator

• Near, Christopher R.

• content analysis
• Super Bowl
• deception
• advertisements
• ethics
• Communication

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1398

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-2397