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Racism in Advertising
White on Black, by Jan Nedeneen Pieterse, shared with her audience very visual images of how western Europeans and Americans depicted black people by using advertisements and propaganda. The prejudice against African Americans is shown to the reader by cartoons, poetry and racist images. These images ranged from Barbie dolls to condiment labels. Advertisers basically used popular media to allow consumers to develop their stereotypes unconsciously. It seems as though some of these stereotypical advertisements still exist to this day. A box of Cream of Wheat found on the shelves of a grocery store still looks the same as it did 30 years ago. There is a black chef holding up a bowl of oats. What is the target audience for advertisements like this? Why hasn’t this image been changed? According to Pieterse, “The legacy of several hundred years of western expansion and hegemony, manifested in racism and exoticism, continues to be recycled in western cultures in the form of stereotypical images of non-western cultures,” (Pieterse 9). Basically she is saying that the majority of our society has been white for a long time. Images have become so common in our everyday lives that people just don’t even think of changing certain advertisements because these specific advertisements have grown up with certain generations. Certain stereotypes have also become household words or phrases. Some of these advertisements did change over time, but some are still as offensive as they were over 30 years ago.
Western views were dominant in the times of colonialism, “Europeans constructed images of Africa and blacks on the basis of selective perception, expedience, second-hand information, mingled with reconstructed biblical notions and medieval folklore, along with popular or ‘scientific’ ideas that were current at the time,” (Pieterse 10). Of course since the western population and thought was the majority at the time these ideals were based on what the, “whites,” believed. Therefore the target audiences of these perceptions were the whites themselves. Images that were used in advertising were at the time familiar to the white population and related to the images that they had in their culture. Advertising is a form of communication. These stereotypical advertisements communicated to the white majority something in which they were familiar with. “The targets of stereotyping are maneuvered into certain roles, so that a vicious circle develops, in which social reality seems to endorse the stereotype,” (Pieterse 11).
Americans have long since depended on a falsified ideology of idealized life referred to as the American dream. The construct of this dream has become more elusive with the emergence of popular cultural advertisements that sell items promoting a highly gendered goal of achieving perfection. In “Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon states that ads are creating a “symbolic association between their products and what is most coveted by the consumer” to draw on the consumer’s desire to outwardly express high social standing (544). The American dream has sold the idea of equality between genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, but advertisements have manipulated this concept entirely through representations
Watson, Stevie Thornton, Corliss G. Engelland, Brian T. "Skin Color Shades In Advertising to Ethnic Audiences: The Case of African Americans." Journal of Marketing Communications 16.4 (2010): 185. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
Under Armour’s target market is consumers that are involved in physical activities. The demographic age groups that they cater to varies from youth to adults. Their products can with stand any weather condition from cold weather to warm weather, which means their product can be used in any geographic location. These consumers can be either light user like walkers or heavy users like football players.
This research focuses on how corporations use Mainstream agencies (General Markets) to target African American consumers. Mainstream and General markets are defined as ad-speak for "White" as in general market agencies (Brandweek, 12/06/99). Also defined in Brandweek (12/06/99) is the word targeted which is ad-speak for "Ethnic/Urban" examples being Blacks, Latinos, and Asians. A majority of corporations have two main problems when targeting the African American community. First, most corporations use Mainstream agencies instead of hiring African American-owned agencies or hiring people who specialize in African American marketing. The African-American market is served by its own specialized media, and national studeis have shown that black consumers are more suscep...
Organ donation is a key role in saving thousands of American lives. Without donation hundreds of people would die from improperly functioning or failing organs not strong enough to keep them alive. Organ donation is the process of giving an organ or a part of an organ for the purpose of transplantation into another person. Organs can be donated from both living and deceased donors, and can be donated from all ages. Unfortunately not all Americans are aware of organ donation and out of the ones that are, several are uncomfortable with donating for several reasons. This is causing organ shortages not just in the US, but all over the world. These shortages have led to the voluntary selling of one’s own organs, otherwise known as Organ Trafficking.
“Women in advertisements are getting younger, thinner, and more racially diverse.” Marketing to Women. June 2002. EMP Communications, 2002
The media affects the way people view all different races as well, not only gender. One passage that stood out was when Omi exclaimed, “all racial minorities were represented as “less than human.”In the 1930 's African and white children were split into different schools. In this era white Americans disfavored against African-Americans because they did not have the same skin color. For this reason, African-Americans endured mistreatment and misunderstanding. This primarily affected African-American children because their education system was different from the white children. Negro schools had many restrictions such as reading being restricted and discarded to the libraries of the white community. Based on the attention to this advertisement through the view of the race, I read that African-American children were falsely described in the 1930’s because they lack a proper education system and they were not socially equal. Education affected the child’s self-esteem and self-worth “Education of the Negro Child” about sixty-five percent of African-American children lived life classified as retarded. Those children had trouble developing self-esteem and self-worth because the society around them saw them as uneducated and unintelligent. The concept of “veneer” means to cover something to improve its appearance. The advertisement implied that the African-American children showed excitement when one child covers
Definition of the Situation This paper identifies the ethical issues of how both men and women are portrayed in advertising, and argues that ads can be successful in generating sales without portraying women as objects, and without perpetuating that men must be masculine. Advertising is pervasive, repetitive and professionally developed to improve the probability of attention, comprehension, retention and behavioral impact. The purpose of advertising is generally to inform targeted consumer groups of the availability and description of products and services, and to persuade consumers to buy them. (Cohan, 2001) The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the main federal agency that enforces advertising laws and regulations.
Unfortunately, the life-saving potential of transplantation is limited by the shortage of organs available for donation. In general, several suitable organs from deceased individuals are not harvested for donation (for reasons that will be discussed later) and this largely contributes to the shortage1. In 1968, the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act gave individuals the right to donate organs and tissue in the United States1. Donors can either be living or deceased. Living donors are individuals who choose to donate portions of vital organs or a single kidney. Their donations can be directed to a specific recipient or can be an indirect altruistic donation; however, altruistic donations are very rare. Majority of donations come from deceased donors2. Deceased donors are individuals who have been medically declared dead, and who have previously registered as organ donors or whose legal representatives (usually their family members) have authorized organ donation on their behalf. One deceased donor can make up to eight donations from different organs, and therefore, can save up to eight lives4. Candidates for donation are chosen based on their blood-type (it must match the donated organ) and their medical need for a donation (the most critically ill patients are more likely to receive donations). The organs that are currently approved for transplantation are the kidney, heart, lung, and liver. Although living donations are a significant proportion of donations in the United States, this paper will focus on increasing the number of deceased
Under Armour is not only focus on football product; it expanded segments to baseball, hunting, fishing, running, mountain sports, skiing, hockey, and golf.
Perhaps raising the age limit to purchase guns since a majority of the recent killers were in their late teens to about late 20’s. Another possible solution is to have those who own guns to always have an ID with them showing that he or she owns a gun. The biggest solution is to lower the amount of guns available in the US to citizens. In David Auerbach’s article “The Gun Debate Won’t be Won With Statistics”, Auerbach makes a comment that “States with more firearm laws tend to have fewer shooting fatalities.” By lowering the number of fire-arms available to the public, that means that less people will be able to have a gun in their home and that results in having a low homicide rate. When purchasing a gun, one feels more powerful knowing that he or she is in possession of a war weapon, if limiting that power one will not feel the need to shoot because of irrational decisions made for having power from owning a gun. Recognizing that states with more gun laws have had less fatalities it is time for the government to set those laws in action all across the United States. As extreme as the idea may sound to some, allowing the government to have control over stricter gun laws in the country is a much better solution than giving Americans even more freedom to allow more guns to civilians. The American society must open their eyes to the positive side of
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
The second recommendation for Under Armour is that they should develop a shoe line and marketing campaign for women, based on the idea of everyday athlete. Focusing on the fact that women want to compete and have the same performance benefits that everyone wants, but also have a shoe that is stylish enough that she can wear straight
Racism is a repulsive issue that is becoming more and more evident to the people living in America. It is not something that is taken lightly in society today, and it can be extremely offensive to many. Even though everyone reacts differently to it, it is important for all people to make an honest effort to respect others regardless of their racial and ethnic backgrounds. People must change their stereotypical thoughts about others and help decrease or end racism by addressing any issues in which racism is concerned. Results in response to different approaches to confront the situation have occurred, but it still remains very real within our world today. Although some changes have been seen, racism in advertising is still tremendously evident due to very weak, offensive comical attempts, the unawareness of advertisers, and the depiction of society’s ideal person.