Some Relevant Links for further study:

Daniel Chandler addresses many of these issues in his "Notes on the Gaze." Rebecca Zarchikoff has an interesting overview of some of the gender and advertising content analysis listerature. Bronwyn Allan-Reynolds has an interesting piece on the (generally fascinating) University of Natal's Graduate Programme in Cultural & Media Studies web site. For a lot of very good material on issues related to media representation and race, see Hype: Monitoring the Black Image in the Media. Prof. Allen Farber has posted an analysis of an Edward Hopper painting that touches on similar issues. Greg Smith's excellent essay, "Gender Advertisements Revisited: A Visual Sociology Classic" was published in the online Electronic Journal of Sociology. Madeline H. Caviness has posted to the web an illustrated draft of her book, Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic Economy, which applies feminist theories of representation to medieval culture.