School of Communication (SCOM) doctoral student Alessandra Noli presented her research, “Exploring the Gendered Portrayal of Care Work in Business Magazines: A Quantitative Content Analysis,” at the 2023 Florida Communication Association (FCA) Conference. This study also received a Top Student Paper Award from FCA.

Noli’s co-authors are SCOM graduate students Jihye Han and Han Yu. This research analyzed content from profile articles in three top business magazines to determine if there were any differences between male and female profiled individuals in terms of presence, how much space was given in the magazine, mentions of engaging in care work, and mentions of their romantic partners. The results showed most articles were about male-profiled individuals, with equal space in the magazine given to both men and women on average. Results further revealed significant differences in the mentions of care work and romantic partnerships, with women being significantly more likely to have repeated mentions of engaging in care work or their romantic partnerships in their articles.

The intended audience for this research was communication scholars and practitioners. By presenting at the conference, Noli received feedback for her research through networking with other communication scholars.

“My team and I were very surprised and humbled to receive the Top Student Paper Award at the conference. This goes to show that we can do research on care work in the communication field and that the topic we are working on is valid and of interest, which was very validating.”

Noli expressed her interest in continuing to explore how care work manifests in the media. Among her future research projects is conducting qualitative research to get to the root of where people’s ideas regarding care work responsibility stem from. She also wishes to expand her research by applying a cultural lens and to delve more into multicultural marketing and advertising, which is what she is currently working on.