Research Essay Overview
Stereotypes: are widely circulated oversimplifications of people and groups; a preconceived idea of what a person is like, based on a range of different factors. These factors can involve culture, religion, race, sexual orientation, age, gender, appearance.
The use of stereotype has a long history in advertising media, marketing, visual communications, and popular culture. Research about media stereotypes has historically looked at traditional media such as television and films but has expanded recently to examine other types of media content such as video games and social media. Emerging research aims to address biases in AI and algorithms too.
For this research essay, select a 19th-century, 20th-century, early 21st-century, or contemporary advertisement that uses ethnic, religious, racial, gender, or other stereotype to sell a product. Demonstrate how that media reinforced (or challenged) societal biases of the time.
Using rhetorical analysis, decode the signs used and the meaning conveyed by the image and text in the advertisement. Consider the effectiveness of the advertisers’ attempts to persuade and influence the audience at the time and consider how today’s audience might respond.
The advertisement you choose should use photographic or illustrative imagery and text. Use the resources provided below.
Research Questions
These are some questions that you’ll want to address in your essay. You can use them to write your own research questions.
- How does the use of stereotype in media intentionally or unintentionally reinforce societal biases?
- What are the coded signs in your chosen advertisement and how are they working together to persuade the viewer and/or communicate meaning?
- How might today’s global audience respond to your chosen advertisement?
Audience
You are writing this essay for possible submission to the City Tech Writer (an undergraduate journal for writing), Many Voices (a new open access journal) or other design discourse publications, like Eye on Design. Assume that your reader has little background in design theory so be sure to clarify the theories and concepts as you present your analysis.
Approach
You will be writing a deep analysis of your chosen image-based advertisement using critical perspectives from the theorists we’ve looked at recently: Saussure, Peirce, Barthes, and Hall.
Using Roland Barthes’ 1977 essay, “Rhetoric of the Image,” as a guide, critically examine and deconstruct your chosen historical advertising image using Barthes’ approach. You should employ Barthes’s logic and terminology to deconstruct the advertisement. Include references to Saussure, Peirce, and Hall’s theories. It will also be helpful to review the supporting materials and videos provided over the last few weeks, before researching and writing your essay.
Your introduction should present the main research question in your own words: How does the use of stereotype in media reinforce (or challenge) societal biases?
Provide evidence to support your claim(s). Using Barthes’ rhetorical analysis and close-reading approach, start by contextualizing the advertisement (date, product, country of origin, advertising company/designer, intended audience). Describe the advertisement in as much detail as possible, examining the characteristics of the objects, models/characters, environment, layout, color scheme, typography, the interaction of picture elements, image quality, and composition of the entire ad. Try to identify all of the signs at work, including the signifiers and the signified.
Using Barthes’, Saussure’s, and Peirce’s semiotic terms, make your best attempt to articulate the meaning of the image and text used in the advertisement. What are the coded signs in your chosen advertisement and how are they working together to persuade the viewer and/or communicate meaning?
- Identify the linguistic message(s).
- Identify the non-coded iconic messages.
- Identify the coded iconic messages.
- Identify the denotative and connotative aspects.
- Consider the cultural codes being conveyed in the advertisement.
- Identify if polysemic signs, myths, or naturalization can be observed.
Using Stuart Hall’s theories about reception and representation, consider the effectiveness of the advertisers’ rhetoric and attempts to persuade and influence the audience at the time.
How is the designer framing the characters/scene to communicate or reinforce cultivated, naturalized stereotypes?
How might today’s global audience respond to your chosen advertisement?
- Identify the original dominant/preferred reading.
- Explain how the designers of this advertisement tried to ‘fix’ a meaning using stereotypes.
- Identify who the intended audience was during the period when this advertisement was circulated and why they would identify with it.
- Consider what impact this advertisement or similar advertisements had on society and if they served any other purpose besides the sale of a product.
- Is your personal reading of the ad dominant, oppositional, or negotiated? Why?
- Address how this advertisement would be received today.
In your conclusion, summarize the main research questions and consider practical solutions employed today to address media stereotypes.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Structure
Title
Showcase the topic using a compelling title.
Introduction / Thesis
- Use an intentional strategy to get the reader’s attention
- Clearly define your thesis and your motive for presenting this essay; why someone might want or need to read an essay on this topic?
- Thesis = argument + evidence (claim 1 + claim 2 + claim 3 + …)
- The thesis should govern the whole essay
- In the last sentence of the introduction, clearly state your position or exposition on the topic
Paragraphs
Provide evidence to support your claim(s). Follow a logical order with transitions between claims. Use analysis to connect your evidence to your thesis; go beyond
observing or summarizing: break it down, interpret, and comment on the data. Include cited images of the work you are referencing and any other relevant illustrations. Cite any facts using parenthetical
- Claim 1 – prove thesis
- Claim 2 – prove thesis
- Claim 3 – prove thesis
Conclusion
Refer back to your introduction and clearly restate your thesis.
Citations & Works Cited Page
IMPORTANT: Add MLA-style citations throughout your essay for every fact, visual reference, or quotation that you reference in your essay.
- Use the Google Docs Citation tool > set to MLA to add citation sources to your essay. (See Adding in-text citation at 0:50 in the video for details.)
- When you are finished, add a Bibliography / Works Cited page at the end of your document. This can be done with one click using the Insert Work Cited button. (See Inserting a bibliography at 1:16 in the video for details.)
Due Date
- WEEK THREE June 17, 2025
Formatting
Your essay will be submitted as a 750-1000 word typewritten document, double-spaced 12 pt. Times New Roman.
- Use Google Docs to write and organize your final draft and then copy, paste, and reformat your essay for publication in a post.
- Use the MLA style to format your essay. See MLA example paper here.
- Cite all materials researched for historical context, any related writings, and image sources using parentheses.
- Include images with citations of the work you are referencing and any other relevant illustrations.
- Use Grammarly, Google Spell/Grammar Check, or similar to review your essay for grammatical and spelling errors before submitting.
Submitting Your Essay
- Create an OpenLab Post. (Help > Creating a Post)
- TITLE: Your Essay Title – Your Initials
- CATEGORY: Essays
- TAG: Research Essay – Stereotype
- TAG: Your Name/Screen name
- Examples: Student Research Essay 1 and Student Research Essay 2
- Paste your essay into the body of the post and prepare it for publishing. You will need to make adjustments. Make sure your paragraphs and citations are formatted properly. Add any additional headings (h2, h3), lists, or blockquotes, as needed. You may need to upload your images to the Media Library and relink them, as well.
- At the bottom of your post, add a heading called Drafts and include a link to your Google Doc draft(s).
- Use text to indicate the link to your draft essay (ie: Research Essay Draft).
- Make sure the Google Doc link is set to “Anyone with the link” and Commenter is selected. This will allow others to comment on your essay.
Image and Research Resources
NOTE: Some of these images are disturbing. Please proceed with caution.
- Race and Ethnic Stereotypes in the Media
Ramasubramanian, Srividya & Riewestahl, Emily & Ramirez, Anthony. (2023). - City Tech Library One Search: Stereotype in Advertising
- Race and Ethnicity in Advertising
- Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, and Resistance
- Hispanic Stereotypes in Contemporary Film
- T. Burns Collection of Racial Stereotypes, 1880s-1983
- Timeline: Race and advertising in America
- ‘Ethnicity is authenticity’: how America got addicted to racist branding
- Blackface and the Birth of the American Stereotype
- The Racism of 19th Century Advertisements
- The Real and Problematic History Behind Aunt Jemima
- “Ethnic Notions: African American Stereotypes and Prejudice” (Documentary 1987)
- Gender stereotypes have been banned from British ads (some historical ads and context here)
- Gender Advertisements (1979 book by the sociologist Erving Goffman with analysis of hundreds of US ads for gender roles)
- Food Is Love : Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America, Parkin, Katherine J., 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central, (Book. Use your Library Card to access)
- Gender roles in 1940’s Ads (examples from cinema advertisements)
In 2004, Dove launched its Real Beauty campaign into a media landscape saturated with narrow beauty ideals. Featuring women of diverse body types, ages, and ethnicities, the campaign positioned itself as a progressive challenge to the beauty industry’s traditional standards. Looking deeper at the campaign shows two sides: while Dove broke away from typical beauty standards, it created new ones in the process.
The Real Beauty campaign, created by Ogilvy & Mather in 2004, promoted Dove’s Firming Lotion through billboards featuring women who defied conventional beauty standards. One such advertisement depicted six women of varying body sizes, ethnicities, and ages, all dressed in identical white tank tops and khaki pants. The women smiled confidently, bathed in soft lighting that enhanced their approachability. The tagline, “Real Women Have Real Curves,” appeared in bold serif font, anchoring the image’s message. The minimalist backdrop focused attention on the women’s bodies, reinforcing the campaign’s central theme of authenticity.
The slogan “Real Women Have Real Curves” acts as a clear message that supports women with non-model body types. However, this creates an unintended divide by suggesting that women with curves are more authentic and relatable than those without curves, who are portrayed as less genuine or out of touch. This linguistic signifier attempts to fix meaning, as Stuart Hall would argue, but inadvertently excludes slender or athletic women, revealing Barthes’ concept of mythâa cultural narrative that masks ideological contradictions.
The advertisement’s visual elements communicate meaning through Peirce’s indexical signs. The women’s white tank tops and khaki pants signify neutrality, suggesting an unfiltered realism. Their smiling faces index confidence and contentment, while their diverse body types and skin tones directly reference physical reality. These non-coded messages reinforce the campaign’s surface-level celebration of diversity.
Beneath the surface, however, the advertisement employs coded messages that reinforce cultural myths. By elevating “curvy” bodies as inherently “real,” the ad creates a new stereotype that marginalizes other body types. The women, while racially diverse, remain conventionally attractiveâfree of visible disabilities or non-normative gender presentationsânaturalizing the idea that “real beauty” must still conform to certain standards. The term “real” is polysemic, allowing for multiple interpretations: it can be read as a call for self-acceptance or as an essentialist claim that excludes those who do not fit the “curvy” ideal.
On a denotative level, the advertisement simply depicts a group of diverse women posing together. Connotatively, however, it positions Dove as a feminist ally while commodifying inclusivity. As Hall’s theory of commodified resistance suggests, the campaign appropriates progressive rhetoric for commercial gain, masking its corporate motives beneath a veneer of empowerment. The preferred meaning of the advertisementâthat beauty is diverse and inclusiveâresonated with women in 2004 who were disillusioned by the beauty industry’s unrealistic standards. By aligning itself with body-positive movements, Dove secured cultural capital and consumer loyalty.
The campaign had some clear problems. First, while Dove promoted diversity, its parent company Unilever was selling a “Fair & Lovely”, a skin-lightening product, in India. Second, by only showing certain body types, the campaign left out disabled, trans, and non-binary people. Today’s viewers understand that while Dove helped start important conversations about beauty standards, the campaign was mainly about selling products through feel-good messaging rather than creating real change. The 2017 backlash over a Dove ad that appeared to show a Black woman transforming into a white woman further undermined the brand’s progressive image.
Barthes’ concept of myth is evident in the campaign’s framing of authenticity. By positioning “real beauty” as an individual achievement rather than a systemic issue, Dove depoliticized the conversation around body image. The campaign sold self-acceptance as a product, reinforcing capitalist structures while claiming to challenge them.
Dove’s Real Beauty campaign remains a pivotal case study in the power of media to challenge stereotypes. Through Barthes’ semiotic lens, its polysemic signs destabilized traditional beauty norms, yet its corporate context and limited representation introduced new biases. Modern brands like Fenty Beauty and Aerie have expanded the definition of inclusivity, but true progress requires more than diverse imageryâit demands systemic change. Media literacy, ethical advertising practices, and regulatory oversight are essential to ensure that future campaigns move beyond tokenism and toward genuine representation.
This is such a strong and insightful analysis! I liked how you pointed out the contradiction between promoting inclusivity while still reinforcing new beauty norms. Your use of Barthes and Hall made the critique really clear, especially when talking about how “real beauty” became a kind of myth. I hadnât thought about how the word ârealâ could still be exclusive, great point!
(my bad)
Works cited includes
Barthes, Roland. “Rhetoric of the Image.” Image, Music, Text, translated by Stephen Heath, Hill and Wang, 1977, pp. 32â51.
Hall, Stuart. “Encoding/Decoding.” Culture, Media, Language, edited by Stuart Hall et al., Hutchinson, 1980, pp. 128â138.
Peirce, Charles S. The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Edited by Nathan Houser and Christian Kloesel, Indiana UP, 1992.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin, McGraw-Hill, 1966.
“Real Women Have Real Curves.” Dove Real Beauty Campaign, Ogilvy & Mather, 2004.