“Where have all the cowboys gone?” An exploration on the changing self-identity of urban Pakistani men.

Time changes everything. As time goes on not only do trends change, but so does fashion, etc. so with time the tall, dark and sexy man whose ruggedly handsome and suave

A man how doesn’t worry about his looks . All this seems to describe a man soon to be outdated and obsolete thanks to the changes that are taking place in this ever evolving society.  

Television is seen to be the greatest development of the 20th century (Ige, 2004). Many arguments exist in favor of the influence of television on people as well as the personality factors that are seen as being common to television viewers. Television viewers are seen to want to know about the ongoing culture of society through the television and are less active than non-television viewers both in house chores as well as outside home activities such as going to museums and movies. They are able to achieve satisfaction with doing lesser number of activities than non-television viewers (Jackson-Beeck & Robinson, 1981).

Television, along with peers of consumers, appears to be an important agent in adolescent consumer socialization and increases interaction of adolescents with parents for consumption related queries (Churchill Jr. & Moschis, 1979), meaning that it could aid in increasing the influence of family in socialization. It also is seen to help in the construction of a mental picture of the real world (O’Guinn & Shrum, 1997). We might therefore come to believe how others live and behave without ever actually meeting them and because of the presence of more affluence in television programs, television viewers would believe that more affluence existed in the real world as well, and feel disadvantaged. Thus they might want to buy more fashion clothes as a result of watching television channels.

Television usage could also increase the awareness of the incidence of crime for television viewers (Wyer Jr., Shrum, & O’Guinn, 1998). Consumers might not think about the source of any information with regards to television and would in fact treat it as being true even though it might be false, unless they are made aware of a possible bias.

Television advertisements are also seen to have an impact on consumer role perceptions as well as sex-role perceptions (Moschis & Moore, 1982). Over a period of time, increased advertising exposure causes a person’s behavior to be less socially desirable (Moschis et al.). It might make them buy products such as cigarettes which are of no social value. One thing to remember is that ads have to be placed in likeable programs to get more positive product impressions (Murry Jr., Lastovicka, & Singh, 1992).

Therefore a good ad might be useless unless it is placed in the proper television timeslot of programming.

The influence of advertisements is shown through the use of premium offers along with the product itself (such as reusable containers or gifts), which is seen to influence consumers to like or desire the product (Shimp, Dyer, & Divita, 1976).

What Females think: 

Historically, consumer and market researchers have viewed women in the traditional roles of wife, mother, homemaker, and hostess, or single girl preparatory to these roles (Venkatesh, 1980). A Pakistani woman’s place in society can be seen in light of this study on the changing roles of women, which although very old, would help shed light on adolescents views. In our view, the traditional Pakistani woman’s role is reflective of the traditional American housewife of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Among the three categories listed by Venkatesh, the study on feminists is of particular interest since they are closest to our sample characteristics. They were found to be younger, better educated, and revealed a greater sense of independence in terms of how they perceived themselves within the household, more self-confident, and less prone to television viewing (Venkatesh et al.). Other studies have shown that females have a stronger orientation toward their peers than do males (Churchill Jr. & Moschis, 1979).

In a study on male and female processing strategies (Meyers-Levy, & Maheswaran, 1991), it was found that a female processing often entails substantial, detailed elaboration of message content, sometimes resulting in female’s heightened sensitivity to the particulars of message claims (Meyers-Levy et al.).