This research aims at understanding the nature of American advertisement,\ud
as represented in women magazines, what phenomenon can be found within the\ud
advertisements that are carried within American women magazines that can cross\ud
border in space and time, and how do the magazine advertisements affect the\ud
global value of popular culture. Questions such as what kinds of cultural values\ud
are allocated to women as a minority group in America, and why are women\ud
pressured to maintain the traditional roles as mothers and housewives, but at the\ud
same time, how women are made to feel superior through the understanding that\ud
the consumer society’s capital revenue depends on their decision making, have\ud
been asked to answer the objectives of this dissertation.\ud
As a grounded theory and inductive project, this research constitutes a\ud
library study which is qualitative in nature and is carried out within the umbrella\ud
of the interdisciplinary of American Studies. The interdisciplinary is reflected in\ud
the application of Transnational American Studies theorized by Shelley Fisher\ud
Representation Theory by Stuart Hall, which underpins discussions of gender\ud
ideology to understand the reasons of negotiative hybridity and hegemony of the\ud
United States’ popular culture and the global consumer culture that is represented\ud
through women magazine advertisements.\ud
In this research the main data were 3621 women magazine advertisements\ud
from USA’s Cosmopolitan, Ladies’ Home Journal, and the O: The Oprah\ud
Magazine. For a globalization context, the advertisements were compared to the\ud
Indonesian Cosmopolitan, Kartini and Femina. The year span of 2007-2008 was\ud
chosen as during this period the US and many other neighboring countries were\ud
undergoing an economic recession. It was assumed that during that period the\ud
number of advertisements in magazines would have decreased, thus yielding\ud
unique results. In order to see the transnational time frame, the USA 1960s\ud
Ladies’ Home Journal and some Cosmopolitan advertisements beyond the 2007-\ud
2008 were also taken as data representations for the 2000s