Från kärleksgudinna till matchoman : En semiotisk bildanalys av stereotyper i H&Ms reklammaterial under tvåtusentalet

Sammanfattning: Today we live in an advertised-oriented society and we are constantly exposed to commercialized messages. Most advertising is based on stereotypical portraits of humans. And something that has attracted attention during the last decade is the one-sided representation that appears in these advertisements. This matter has been particularly relevant during the last decade with the emergence of significant societal phenomena and the questioning of power relations in society. Among these, Black Lives Matter, Metoo, and the Body Positivity-movement. This study aims to investigate what stereotypes can be identified in H&Ms advertisement and if these have changed over the last two decades. The theoretic framework consists of representation, the designation of ethnicity, stereotypes, and corporate social responsibility. Semiotic image analysis has been used as the method, and from this tool such as denotation, connotation, and body rhetoric have been implemented for the execution of the analysis. The result that emerged from the analysis showed that the gender stereotypes have changed over the studied years, as well as the amount of diversity of the objects portrayed in H&Ms advertising. The diversity that holds the most significant change is that people of color are more prominent in the later ads. When it comes to diversity in body types and plus-size models a decrease can be identified. Furthermore, the results also left us questioning if it is successful for companies to include diversity and implement the current trends in society in their advertisement