Hip Hop Studies Commons^™

Seeking Representations Of Afrocentric Beauty: A Comparative Content Analysis Of Advertisements In Essence Magazine, Roy Phillips Jr.

Journalism Undergraduate Honors Theses

This comparative content analysis will investigate how African American women are depicted in Essence magazine advertisements and seeks to answer the research question: Are the characteristics of advertisements in Essence magazines significantly different when under complete corporate ownership compared to being under primarily African American ownership? The specific goal is to examine the extent to which Afrocentric or Eurocentric depictions are being reinforced, if at all, and to observe if depictions of African American women are shifting or are immobile. To do this, the study will compare advertisements in Essence magazines in 2001, when the magazine was 51 percent Black-owned, …