Changing the World...

One ad at a time.

At least, that's a long term hope and goal.

As a new blogger, all one can really ask for is that people read one's blog and maybe post some nice and interesting comments (*wink *wink). But if something you say or write can serve as a catalyst for real change, even in just one individual, well, then that's more than anyone can dream of.

There is a cornucopia of papers, critiques, articles, and research out there dedicated to analyzing advertising strategies and their effects on numerous aspects of society, which I can only begin to touch upon within the limitations of my blog. This information is so easy to find, even as new information is being discovered everyday. I think the implications of these studies won't necessarily force some BIG sweeping change...oh, but the effect is still there, and it's quite a subtle one.

I'm talking about AWARENESS.

Awareness for who? Advertising agencies or the average citizen? Well, I suppose both. (Now, my focus has always been on identity information, but of course awareness can be applied to other effects as well.) I think that studies will show advertising agencies that the messages and images they create in their ads, especially if they are negative or incorrect or not there at all, can have a debilitating effect on one's identity. If they become aware, then maybe they will be inspired to change their previous strategies.

And what if advertising agencies don't change? Then it's up to the average citizen to be aware and make informed decisions on how they wish to see themselves. Because of the stress of going to school, joining activities, looking for jobs, etc. for the purpose of figuring out the kind of person we want to be, we sometimes turn to other people and other things for 'inspiration'. But what if we can look at these "things" with a critical eye, to stop and say "wait a minute..."?

Do you just want to be another stereotype?

Advertising is pervasive and persuasive. And it doesn't seem to be disappearing or changing anytime soon. In the meantime, we can just be aware of it.

The Next Top Model Minority

Model minorities, huh? "Whiz kids," eh?

Well...as far as stereotypes go, I suppose it could be worst...

Waaaait... How could anything that's considered a stereotype be good? It's a STEREOTYPE.

Today, in that advertising class I mentioned a long time ago, we finally got into the topic of ethnic representation in advertising. We managed to talk about African Americans and Latinos, but where are the Asian Americans??? EXACTLY. Aparently, there just isn't enough research that talks about Asian American representation in advertising.

Regardless, the effects of stereotyping in the media can definitely be applied to any ethnic group. According to the Cultivation Theory, those who are heavily exposed to media are more likely to have similar views to what is shown in the media. If the images are mostly negative, than people are likely to regard the ethnic group negatively. And if people rarely have any exposure to that particular group, then all they have are those preconceived stereotypes!

So, the advertisements that do exist say that we are the model minorities. Apparently, model minorities are supposed to be good at math, business oriented, technologically savvy, and geared toward success. It's not just advertisements saying it, but television shows and movies as well.

Do you know Dr. Christina Yang from ABC's Grey's Anatomy? (Sandra Oh, love her!)


OR Dr. George Huang from NBC's Law and Order: Special Victim's Unit?


Again, not so bad as far as stereotypes go, but that sounds like a lot of pressure. Actually, that just sounds down right stressful trying to live up to such an image. I suppose it's okay to think of someone as the model minority when they actually fit the profile, but I don't support making any generalizations because very rarely do people fit every single one of those characteristics (don't ask me to do a calculus problem..I'm a COMM major! jk jk).

Yet, if advertisements keep portraying Asian Americans as the model minority, then that will just perpetuate the stereotype even further in society. People will begin or continue to regard Asian Americans in that way. That pressure can do a lot of harm to our relationship with other ethnic groups. By presenting us as the "model," does that mean we are what other ethnic groups should aspire to be like? They can use us an example to say that "if Asian Americans can make it in mainstream society, than why can't you"? Not at all! By focusing on our successes, it does nothing to highlight the enormous amount of successes achieved by other minority groups.

And what about identity formation? What if the images drive 10 year old Asian American kids to take up extra calculus classes on a Saturday, join chess tournaments, take up the piano or the violin (yes, of course I am stereotyping!)...well, power to them, until they suffer from over-work and depression because they feel that they can't quite live up to the perfect image formulated of them.
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Here's an ad for Amp'd Mobile, a telecommunications service. See?! The worker breaks his composure while he's by himself but then reverts back to the reserved businessman when a co-worker joins him in the bathroom. What a good model minority.

Why can't people just be themselves, instead of trying to be what others think they should be?

Topics and Topos

Alright. So, a few posts back, I set up the context for a research topic that I thought would be interesting to delve deeper into.

My topic: targeted advertising
Tentative thesis: I propose that the prevalence of racial stereotypes, specifically about Asian Americans, in the media will have an effect on ethnic identity formation.

Unfortunately, the topic is far too broad, and the research I found broadened my scope of understanding even more. I can see this subject branching off into many different tangents… and some don’t even have anything to do with advertising.

My research kept giving me consistent data in that the main stereotypes of Asian Americans are that of the model minority, the hard worker, the business oriented, the smart one, or the technologically savvy. If I were to compare and contrast this with media representations of other minorities, I would say that these images are relatively positive (Asian Americans are not portrayed as gangsters, or hoodlums, or hypersexual, etc.). Because these images are considered positive, many would assume that Asian Americans are one minority group that has had a pretty easy time of assimilating into the United States. However, assimilation is one of those topics that’s been done before…

Were these images really created by the white majority? If so, then why must they be the ones who decide what images of minorities exist? Is this a battle between inferior/superior, dominant/subordinate? Perhaps I can make some assumptions from this. The United States has a history of imperialism. Even though relationships between nations have changed, it has been an evolution to get to this point. Maybe the persistence of racial stereotypes is a byproduct or even is a remnant of this long struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor...

Did you know that the Philippines was once a commonwealth of the United States? The Philippines is a very diverse country and derives much of its culture from indigenous, Spanish, Chinese, Muslim, and American influences. Yet, it’s funny how the American/European ideals appear to dominate even in the Philippines. From much of the Filipino television shows and movies I’ve seen, the actors/actresses/entertainers don’t even look like your “typical” Filipino. They have a very distinct “European” look with light skin tone. It’s no wonder we’re having such a hard time negotiating our ethnic identity when portrayals of our own people don’t appear in the US or Filipino media! I can see where much of the confusion is coming from. The fact that the Philippines emphasizes this particular ideal of beauty has had a lot of social consequences. The pressure this places on Filipino women is astounding. The drastic measures they take to live up to this ideal! I don’t even want to get into the types of beauty products women have resorted to which claim to help “whiten one's skin.” And these products are actually very harmful to your health! Some have been found to contain mercury...

So far I’ve taken a look at this topic from a social standpoint with underlying ethical values. Perhaps I can apply this ethical lens back to advertising. Is the existence of stereotypes due to institutional racism or individual bias? But can I even make such a claim about racism? Because despite the negative impact these media portrayals have, ultimately, do advertisers have the moral responsibility to present positive and correct images of Asian Americans? Do people in the advertising business even see this is as an ethical problem? Do they even recognize that it’s happening, and if so, are they open to creating imaginative solutions to the problem?

I made the claim a long time ago that advertising influences society and I still believe it does, especially in terms of identity formation. But advertising may also reflect society. Maybe these portrayals are just reflections of the images that Asian Americans put on themselves. It may come down to it that their own cultural and social norms and beliefs are what motivate them to strive for perfection, and advertisements are proof of that. Then, how is it the advertisers’ fault?

Wow. It looked like I just went off on a rant. But this really got me thinking, and I feel like I came up with quite a few good points. Now my problem is finding which point I’m interested in researching the most!

Do you have any ideas?

Tour of Pageflake

Convenience is key.

I present a one-stop source for everything you want to know (or didn't know you wanted to know!) about advertising and Asian Pacific American identity. I was able to do this through Pageflakes, which is a great site that allows you to easily create your own webpage through the use of "flakes." These flakes enable you to display and arrange any of your favorite sites all in one place... as long as they have an RSS feed.

This is what you can expect to find on my page:

RSS FEEDS

RSS feeds are very convenient in that they let you follow a website without having to go to the original page every single time. If you link to a website's RSS feed, you will automatically see any updates that are made on the page itself. On the right side of my pageflake, I have listed 11 RSS feeds. Now, as you can recall from a previous post, I struggled a lot with finding blogs that tailored to my very specific topic of interest. The majority of blogs talked about advertising in general. To compensate, I found a few very good Asian American culture blogs. So, on my pageflake you will find my RSS feeds divided into two sub-categories: 1) culture blogs and 2) advertising blogs. They will be updated whenever the blogs' writers post something new. I found a few posts that touched on Asian American stereotypes and the cultural consequences of targeted advertising (1, 2, 3). You may have to wait, but if you're patient, you might find a few gems that pertain to exactly what you are looking for.

ACTIVE SEARCHES

On the top left, there are a couple of search engines available. The first two are the Universal News Search and Universal Blog Search flakes. To get started, I've already entered some key words that I thought would turn up some good information. For News Search, I used the term "Asian Americans in advertising." Since experience has shown that Asian Americans are rarely shown in advertising, whatever information, pages, articles, etc. that come up should give some good insights on how (if) they are being portrayed and what that means. Under Blog Search, I already entered a blog that I knew about and thought was interesting but did not have a workable RSS feed. If you type in "Asian Americans in advertising" you can try to find some other good blogs, but as stated before, they are very few to come by. And just for fun, I've added a Wikipedia search because the site is a good source for any background information and context. Lastly, there is a video search. On the off-chance you do find a commercial portraying Asian Americans (e.g. Skittles), you can look them up here.

DIIGO BOOKMARKS

Diigo is another social bookmarking site (remember Delicious?). When I was researching for academic peer-reviewed articles on my topic, I bookmarked them onto Diigo. I found some really great articles that talked specifically about the types of Asian American stereotypes found in magazine and television advertisements as well as their effects on identity and personal self-awareness. Just like with Delicious, I was able to organize all my bookmarks by using several tags. What's different is that on my pageflake, I added RSS feeds of my Diigo tags. The tags I used are "advertising," "asianamerican," "marketing," and "identity." Therefore, articles that I saved with those specific tags will show up in the RSS feeds, and any future article I add on Diigo that contain those same tags will also be added to the feed.

SOULMATE'S BOOKMARKS

As I predicted, my soulmate proved to be another good source on my topic (In fact, it was through him that I found some more interesting culture blogs). Similar to Diigo, I added RSS feeds of his bookmarked articles/pages based on his tags. The tags that I believed would garner some useful information were "advertising" and "asianamerican." And just to be a bit more specific, I added on RSS feed of the two tags together. Hopefully, an article that MixedMediaWatch bookmarks as "advertising + asianamerican" will show up on my pageflake. You will find his feeds on the bottom left.

ZOTERO/CITELINE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lastly, I did a bit of extra work by reading some of those peer reviewed articles. I did this through Citeline by way of Zotero (It's super convenient because they create a bibliography for you!). My annotations will tell you exactly what the studies were trying to discern, how they collected their data, what were the results, and why they were important. Most importantly, the annotations will tell you how the articles differentiate from each other. So if you want an article specifically on stereotypes, or one specifically about identity, then you can just read the article descriptions and see which ones would be most helpful to you. As you can see, I also evaluated several books. They were good sources because they took an in-depth look at their respective topics as well as provided a context. The book by Chou and Feagin concentrated on a specific Asian American stereotype (the "model minority"), and Dr. Philip's book gave a very helpful analysis of how minorities formulate their identities. Both findings relate to and can be applied to the other online articles that I found. The bibliography is located on the left side of the pageflake.

The information you need is right here in a user-friendly (and might I add, visually appealing) format! I hope this saves you hours and hours of internet exploring. Happy searching!