How is black identity multimodally portrayed and how can Adidas' "Honoring Black Excellence" social media campaign contribute to black identity construction in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement?
Author
Schmiedecke, Kevin
Term
4. term
Publication year
2021
Submitted on
2021-05-31
Pages
104
Abstract
This thesis is set against the backdrop of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the subsequent wave of corporate engagement with issues of race and social justice. Focusing on Adidas’ “Honoring Black Excellence” campaign, it examines how Black identity is multimodally portrayed in social media content and how such brand narratives may contribute to identity construction within the BLM context. Motivated by public debates over corporate activism—illustrated by Nike’s campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick—the project addresses whether and how brands can support social change without appropriating social movements. The theoretical framework combines social identity theory, consumer culture perspectives that view brands as symbolic resources for identity, social semiotics, multimodality, and the roles of social media marketing and CSR. Methodologically, the study outlines a qualitative, social-semiotic multimodal analysis of Adidas’ visual and auditory meaning-making across campaign materials. Further details on data collection and analysis are provided in subsequent chapters. As this excerpt includes only the introduction and problem formulation, no findings are presented here; results appear later in the thesis.
Dette speciale placerer sig i kølvandet på de omfattende Black Lives Matter-protester i 2020 og den efterfølgende bølge af virksomheders stillingtagen til race og social retfærdighed. Med Adidas’ kampagne “Honoring Black Excellence” som omdrejningspunkt undersøger projektet, hvordan sort identitet multimodalt fremstilles i socialt medieindhold, og hvordan sådanne brandfortællinger kan bidrage til identitetskonstruktion i BLM-konteksten. Specialet motiveres af den offentlige debat om corporate activism, eksemplificeret ved Nike og Colin Kaepernick, og adresserer spørgsmålet om, hvorvidt og hvordan brands kan støtte samfundsforandring uden at udnytte sociale bevægelser. Teoretisk trækker arbejdet på social identitetsteori, forbrug og identitet (hvor brands ses som symbolske ressourcer), social semiotik, multimodalitet, samt sociale mediers rolle i markedsføring og CSR. Metodisk skitseres et kvalitativt design baseret på socialsemiotisk, multimodal analyse af Adidas’ synlige og auditive meningsskabelse i kampagnens sociale medier. Uddybninger af dataindsamling og analyse fremgår i de efterfølgende kapitler. Da nærværende uddrag kun dækker indledning og problemformulering, præsenteres ingen resultater her; fund rapporteres i specialets senere afsnit.
[This apstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]