Racial Stereotypes in Advertising
Student’s Name
Institution of affiliation
Racial stereotypes in Advertising
Racial stereotypes refer to the mental pictures that are exaggerated and automatic and are held about a given group of people. Racial stereotyping does not take into account the individual differences of people but looks at them as a unit and any information that is given against the stereotype is easily discarded. Racial stereotyping develops in different ways because it is common for people to categorize according to certain features (Dines & Humez, 2011, p. 46). At a young age, nobody considers the categorization but as time passes, there is more importance given. The stereotyping continues and takes different …show more content…
In such adverts, the advertiser gets to reach his target audience while the viewer enjoys adverts that apply to them and that they can easily relate with. In the end people gain interest in the product even though they have never seen the products and get that feeling of belonging due to the advert (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel & Master, 2006, p. 1308). Racial stereotypes in advertising can be considered ethical as they have no offence. In such a situation, the adverts aim at people in a given area and use their own success story to sell their products and this convinces them to purchase. In advertising just like in real life, context is important as when communicating context, it gives meaning to the words used. For example, if one is advertising in Italy, they will need to use products and a language that appeal to that population but if one advertises in another language, it may not be appealing (Infantry, 2013, p. 1). People will belong to a certain group and any advert that targets them has to be appealing in a way for the consumer to be convinced that he or she needs to purchase anything. The use of racial stereotypes will always attract the attention of the people as long as it is not biased. Instead, it should look at the success of a …show more content…
However, one form of such advertising that is negative and cannot be interpreted as positive is the beauty white wash where beauty is defined by the color of hair and skin. It is a very common way of advertising and is considered racists and oppressive. This technique is common on magazines where women’s photos are made lighter to show that they are beautiful. White washing has been used for a while now and targets a specific group of people but continues to be offensive and misleading. For this kind of advertising, there can be no positive or negative but it remains discriminatory and offensive. It has seen models change from themselves to somebody else because of the lightening factor. For example, the time Beyoncé who is a powerful image in the community was made lighter as well as her hair raised so much attention and many other situations where the images of people have been tampered with to associate with a certain race has always been condemned. As much as there is need to have an attractive and catchy advert, the white wash form of it is insensitive and continues to get criticism (Pardon, 2013, p. 3). In this case, racial stereotype advertising is seen as racial and is offensive. It is for this reason that the racial stereotype advertising should be
Student’s Name
Institution of affiliation
Racial stereotypes in Advertising
Racial stereotypes refer to the mental pictures that are exaggerated and automatic and are held about a given group of people. Racial stereotyping does not take into account the individual differences of people but looks at them as a unit and any information that is given against the stereotype is easily discarded. Racial stereotyping develops in different ways because it is common for people to categorize according to certain features (Dines & Humez, 2011, p. 46). At a young age, nobody considers the categorization but as time passes, there is more importance given. The stereotyping continues and takes different …show more content…
In such adverts, the advertiser gets to reach his target audience while the viewer enjoys adverts that apply to them and that they can easily relate with. In the end people gain interest in the product even though they have never seen the products and get that feeling of belonging due to the advert (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel & Master, 2006, p. 1308). Racial stereotypes in advertising can be considered ethical as they have no offence. In such a situation, the adverts aim at people in a given area and use their own success story to sell their products and this convinces them to purchase. In advertising just like in real life, context is important as when communicating context, it gives meaning to the words used. For example, if one is advertising in Italy, they will need to use products and a language that appeal to that population but if one advertises in another language, it may not be appealing (Infantry, 2013, p. 1). People will belong to a certain group and any advert that targets them has to be appealing in a way for the consumer to be convinced that he or she needs to purchase anything. The use of racial stereotypes will always attract the attention of the people as long as it is not biased. Instead, it should look at the success of a …show more content…
However, one form of such advertising that is negative and cannot be interpreted as positive is the beauty white wash where beauty is defined by the color of hair and skin. It is a very common way of advertising and is considered racists and oppressive. This technique is common on magazines where women’s photos are made lighter to show that they are beautiful. White washing has been used for a while now and targets a specific group of people but continues to be offensive and misleading. For this kind of advertising, there can be no positive or negative but it remains discriminatory and offensive. It has seen models change from themselves to somebody else because of the lightening factor. For example, the time Beyoncé who is a powerful image in the community was made lighter as well as her hair raised so much attention and many other situations where the images of people have been tampered with to associate with a certain race has always been condemned. As much as there is need to have an attractive and catchy advert, the white wash form of it is insensitive and continues to get criticism (Pardon, 2013, p. 3). In this case, racial stereotype advertising is seen as racial and is offensive. It is for this reason that the racial stereotype advertising should be