Sunday, December 4, 2011

The media's image of family


When you type 'family' into google image search, nearly every picture is of the same thing; a mom, dad, and at least two kids and they're all white. Media and advertising has created a very specific and precise image of family. Even after all of the changes in our society and growth of minorities, the media still has a hard time portraying anything other than that 'perfect white family'.

Within the past decade, minorities have been more prominent in advertising than every before, but every image of family still tends to be that perfect white family. Toyota has actually released a statement that they are targeting minorities because they are such a large market and while that is great that companies are recognizing minorities, they still aren't being portrayed in advertising.

The main reason advertising doesn't portray mixed families is because advertising is meant to be universal and since there are still people who get uncomfortable about minorities, they choose to stick to the universally excepted. If media wanted to change the image of family, they could because media can change any topic if they really wanted to. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me, but an interesting tactic in both the media's part, as well as advertising's part.

No comments:

Post a Comment