How Public Backlash to Advertising Campaigns, 2015 - 2020, Demonstrates the Dismantling of Racist Ideologies of the Spanish Caste System, Persisting in Contemporary Mexico.
2021 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
Systemic racism in Mexico has deep roots and stretches back to the 16th Century, when Spanish conquistadores imposed a race-based caste system and a set of ideologies on the inhabitants of the colony of new Spain. It had not been until the end of the twentieth century that Mexican society began to realise the prevalence of racism that had persisted due to the caste system. This realisation was greatly helped by the Zapatista uprising and documents published in relation to Mexico’s integration into NAFTA. These developments also influenced academia, resulting in the publications of several academic texts over the following decades, examining the link between skin tone and racism, as well as how a person’s life chances in Mexico are determined by their race. This thesis analyses three advertising campaigns, published by Coca-Cola in 2015, Cerveza Indio in 2018 and Sears in 2020, that were deemed racist by a large proportion of the Mexican public, as well as the substantial amount of backlash they received, and critiques from Mexican academics and representatives from advocacy groups. However, is the public backlash that these advertising campaigns received a sign of the dismantling of racist colonial ideologies, persisting in contemporary Mexico? This thesis argues that this has very much been the case. The issues associated with the advertisements will illustrate how ideologies of the Spanish Caste System have been upheld by Mexican society. Through discourse analysis, the reaction from the Mexican public and advocacy groups shall demonstrate how Mexican society has been dismantling the racial hierarchy established by Spanish conquistadores during the colonial era. This thesis is the first to analyse how social media has placed the power into the hands of the average Mexican citizen to dismantle the Mexican racial hierarchy which has persisted for five hundred years.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. , p. 86
Keywords [en]
Spanish Caste System, colonialism, colonial ideology, advertising industry, social media.
National Category
History Social Anthropology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-468203OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-468203DiVA, id: diva2:1639594
External cooperation
University of Strasbourg
Subject / course
Euroculture
Educational program
Master Programme in Euroculture
Supervisors
Examiners
2022-07-082022-02-212022-07-08Bibliographically approved