Who Is Marketised in Colour-Blind Sweden? Racial and Ethnic Representation in Swedish Commercials 2008–2017

Abstract

From a social equality representation perspective, advertising should ideally mirror the multicultural composition at the national market, because mass-mediated identity representations may act as cultural resources for those with marginalised identities. To investigate the observance to such an ideal in a context where the ethnic and racial composition of the population saw a rapid change, this article examines 676 Swedish TV commercials in over the period 2008–2017, and analyses the representation of non-White persons of colour (POC). Through this quantitative and qualitative examination, we find that POC are indeed visible in the commercials, but predominantly in the background or playing minor roles. With the, at times, unproportionally high representation of racial and ethnic diversity in Swedish advertising, we find significant tokenism, or in other words, the structurally ineffectual approach common in market-based multiculturalism.

What would a Swedish mine be without a party? On metals, minerals, and love during the “green” transition: Climate propaganda in The Swedish Mine advertising campaign

“…However, these techniques are not just a tactics used by power elites to perform symbolic identity politics. They are also intended to publicly disarm oppositional publics (Ulver, 2020) and depoliticise contentious environmental issues by presenting the benefits of "green" mining in everyday scenes depicting play and entertainment. The effects of docility also helps avert current or future reputational risks.…”

“…A study suggests, however, that people of colour appear mostly in the background or play minor roles, which is known as tokenism. It uses minority discourses and othered identities to fill representation gaps, leading to a structurally ineffective multiculturalism (Osanami Törngren & Ulver, 2020;Ulver, 2021). Kanai and Gill (2020) have included tokenism as part of "woke capitalism" in a critique of neoliberal exploitation of radical politics they define as a "dramatically intensifying" trend by power elites of featuring historically marginalised groups in advertisements in order to convey progressive values to socially conscious audiences.…”

Tickling tensions: Gazing into the parallax gap of the multicultural imaginary

“…are framed as ‘the same’ through the Ica uniform and through the dialogue where Sebastian, who assumes difference, is ridiculed. As spectators we are thereby subjectified as colour-blind (Bonilla-Silva, 2014, 2015; Osanami Törngren and Ulver, 2020) as are the girl and the manager and equivalences between (White) characters. But, at the same time, we are situated as colour sensitive, as we are supposed to understand what is going on here.…”