Login | Register

Unmasking whiteness in honeymoon advertisements: Narratives of race, class, and empire

Title:

Unmasking whiteness in honeymoon advertisements: Narratives of race, class, and empire

Legault, Sonya (2015) Unmasking whiteness in honeymoon advertisements: Narratives of race, class, and empire. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

[thumbnail of Legault_MA_S2015.pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
Legault_MA_S2015.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access.
1MB

Abstract

This thesis examines narratives of race and colonialism in honeymoon advertisements. Borrowing from the conceptual frameworks of Barthes (1972), O’Barr (1994), and Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), I undertake a textual analysis of Sandals’ advertising images. Sandals is a leading resort chain operating in the Caribbean that makes use of visual advertising to promote couples-only romance in tropical settings. I situate these honeymoon advertising images within the political spheres of international tourism and the North-American wedding industry. In closely analyzing the visual advertisements of Sandals, specifically the ‘luxury-included’ honeymoon, I argue that Sandals’ advertising campaign perpetuates racialized hierarchies between tourists and local peoples, cultures, and spaces, as well as discourses of class and empire. Sandals’ myth of the ultimate luxury honeymoon emphasizes a larger narrative structure of contemporary racial hierarchies in the realm of tourism in the Caribbean. Sandals’ images sugarcoat modern-day racialized discourses of power and inequalities and sell such imbalance of power to a vast North-American audience.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Communication Studies
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Legault, Sonya
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Communication
Date:27 April 2015
Thesis Supervisor(s):Jiwani, Yasmin
ID Code:979971
Deposited By: SONYA LEGAULT
Deposited On:09 Jul 2015 14:58
Last Modified:18 Jan 2018 17:50
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads per month over past year

Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
- Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
Back to top Back to top