Racial diversity has been a bit of a hot topic within the last few years, from cartoons, videogames and even Hollywood movies becoming criticized over their lack of or inaccurate representation of their diverse cast members. Yet it seems as if no one is discussing the representation within the longest lasting culprit, advertisements. Within the ads of magazines there seems to be a certain, bias towards those of a lighter skin color. A lot of advertisements nowadays in magazines consist of makeup, telling their target audience that, with their products, they could brighten their skin. Even ads that aren’t strictly around beauty products, seem to advertise with the use of more light skinned actors and individuals. This is known as “colorism,” a form of racism that essentially prefers one tone of skin but not another.  

On this topic, my class had done an in-depth analysis of six magazines that were released to the public from within the last year. These magazines consist of, People, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Vogue, Playstation and, Food & Travel. Collecting screenshots of people included within both the advertisements and articles at random, anywhere from 7 to about 15 screenshots per category, and each screenshot had anywhere from 1 to 4 individuals who we could draw data from. Our process was entirely simple, think of it as an eyedropper tool on a digital drawing program, where my class took all the screenshots, and created 3 “points” on every individual to establish what their skin tones are. The reason for three points is due to the fact that, magazines and companies with high spending in advertisements like to edit photos of the individuals in their ads, whether it is making the photo brighter or depleting the saturation, these three points are to create a small range of what the individual’s skin tone would be. 

Photo of graph data (Jasinski)

This is data from all the magazines the class analyzed, all the screenshots and points included from both advertisements and articles, it is clear to see that the magazines include individuals of lighter skin tone more frequently. Despite the fact that the lightest skin tone appears less frequently than some of the others, it is still noticeable that there is an underlying bias when it comes to the skin tones of individuals in magazine marketing.

Works Cited  

Food and Travel, Fall 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1u8CVdZt2JN0Y-4LA4qsOOc-QFrukDr7i/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

Forbes, 01 August 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1caZMsvP2OJFOnvUdUD8HBxbigh0Qes3a/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

People Magazine, 27 February 2017, drive.google.com/file/d/18q-e8o-hOX3I9NfEdg_08Cm7hP1X1hyi/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

Play: The Official PlayStation Magazine, 01 September 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1cSlUlsgoBs3s0vN1KPBwt_ktllvlZwvF/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

Sports Illustrated, 01 December 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1SnqCQ3txcShSVgpXbXyYvr19l3UFMhoN/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

“The 34 Most Memorable Magazine Covers of 2021” Fashionista, 13 March 2022, fashionista.com/.image/t_share/MTg2MzAzMDE0MDk5NzU2MTYx/best-fashion-magazine-covers-2021.png. Accessed 29 Dec. 2021. 

Vogue Magazine, 01 October 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/12LDun6ciH6C9Ft6YyQXpVHoHa1a-9-UX/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.