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De deeleconomie, ook gekend onder de noemer collaboratieve economie, heeft de voorbije jaren een enorme groei gekend. Jaarlijks komen er vele nieuwe deelplatformen bij die zich situeren in verschillende markten, zowel sociale als commerciële markten. Deze nieuwe vorm van consumeren steunt op het hergebruik van goederen en verwerpt het bezit ervan. Studies over de deeleconomie focussen zich voornamelijk op regulering en richtlijnen, vertrouwen, groeimogelijkheden en de voor- en nadelen ervan. Deze masterproef vormt een exploratief onderzoek en schept een beeld van misbruik bij participanten van de deeleconomie. Een verkennend onderzoek, uitgevoerd bij zeven deelplatformen geeft de opvattingen over en de omgang met misbruik in de deeleconomie weer. Wanneer bovendien een opsplitsing gemaakt wordt tussen deelplatformen, namelijk commerciële en niet-commerciële initiatieven, is er een onderscheid merkbaar. Er wordt aangetoond dat er een verschil is in omgang met misbruik tussen deze platformen. Bovendien worden er op basis van deze bevindingen aanbevelingen gedaan aan deelplatformen.

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1 Problem formulation and research question Gender, as a major demographic variable of the marketing segmentation process, is used by marketers to respond to marketing strategies (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). By marketing gender-targeted products and services, marketers are able to reach their customers, based on their gender. However, in general, marketers and advertisers tend to employ these ‘traditionally- known’ gender stereotypes to sell these products and services, and therefore they tend to sell these images to their target groups. In consideration of modernity, technological innovations, and rising economies, we expect that traditional gender stereotypes have become eroded leading to contemporary gender representations. However, gender stereotypes are still highly prevalent in advertising and media in the Western world, as interpreted from advertisements. Therefore, the research question of this master’s thesis is ‘what is the contemporary role representation of men in advertisements of male grooming products in European and North American magazines?' 2 Research method 2.1 Justification of the research method Research design An inductive approach was used in this study since the research aims at closely understanding the findings and generating new theory (Saunders et al., 2009). A literature review was used to study some of the most relevant and important research related to this study. The research strategy used in this study is a content analysis technique to analyze advertisements of male grooming products in men’s lifestyle magazines. Population and Sampling The population consisted of 49 magazine issues of five successful men’s lifestyle magazines published in 2016 in the United States and the United Kingdom. The sample of this study consisted of 154 print advertisements of male grooming products. 2.2 Collection and processing of the data Data collection Both primary data and secondary data were collected in this study. Primary data was collected through obtaining advertisements that focused on body grooming products in men’s lifestyle magazines. Secondary data was collected from scientific peer-reviewed journal articles, and books from previous research. Data Analysis Qualitative data analysis techniques were used. An inductive approach was used to analyze the data as data was collected and explored to see which themes and issues would follow up. Data was grouped using coding categorization. 3 Findings and conclusions By comparing both the primary and secondary data, we can confirm an evolution in gender role representations of men from traditional or rather general stereotypes to modern portrayals in print advertising. However, it is clear that traditional stereotypes are still very evident and exist in the Western society. Despite the changes in the society, such as the growing economy, the rise of women’s equality, workforce changes, and technological shifts, the society is still upholding gender role stereotypes. The changes between the periods in which the articles studied were published, and the data collected from advertisements show minor changes. It was expected that with the notable societal progress regarding gender equality, advertising would keep up with it, but this study shows that the advertising still uses gender stereotypes to promote products, and has not yet adopted these changes.