Premium
Nothing Sells like Whiteness: Race, Ontology, and American Advertising
Author(s) -
Shankar Shalini
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1111/aman.13354
Subject(s) - multiculturalism , white supremacy , diversity (politics) , race (biology) , ethnic group , white (mutation) , advertising , sociology , cultural diversity , nothing , gender studies , political science , business , law , anthropology , philosophy , epistemology , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
In this article, I examine how white supremacy is reproduced and circulated through advertising. I explore the shift from the racial and ethnic specificities of “multiculturalism” to the more open‐ended concept of “diversity,” which indexes difference in unspecific and nonthreatening ways. How diversity is represented in general‐market advertising and how it differs from multicultural advertising offers a window into white supremacy and the role of advertising in furthering its agenda. Advertising has long acted as a vehicle for white supremacy, and by analyzing diversity, there is something to be learned about the current work done by this medium. [ race/ethnicity, advertising, media, diversity, white supremacy ]