Social media is resolutely in the attention business. News propels some attention – perhaps a lot of attention for the few people who care a lot about it – but access to social media has always been far more important as a promotional tool for news outlets than news content has been to social media.

The business of most news outlets has been primarily about attracting attention, not delivering the best or highest quality news.

As a result, social media was always a competitor, though not in the way often imagined.

Data on the shifting share of advertising, in Australia and elsewhere, makes clear the profound change of the last two decades.

Money previously spent on print advertising and direct mail has migrated to search, social media, and online classifieds, such as Domain and Seek. Money spent on television advertising has moved as well, albeit more slowly and mostly just in the last decade.

The development of more effective and efficient advertising tools is what killed traditional newspaper operations, not the circulation of news on social media.

The commercial failure of news organisations is not due to their journalism product but because they are no longer nearly so strong a tool for attracting attention for advertisers.

The capabilities of internet distribution broke the business model of the “bundled newspaper” that provided many people with enough value to enable its mass reach.

Once an agglomeration of information (weather, sports scores), news (thin details on the events of the day), and journalism, most people now have specialty apps for information and we are awash in news from radio, television, notifications, and headlines we see in social media feeds.

The expense of journalism could be sustained by the wide reach of a paper attractive to many homes for many different reasons beyond the journalism it contained.

But advertisers became able to text and email regular consumers, social media advertising allows them to target consumers more specifically, and search allows advertisers access to consumers interested in relevant keywords. All these features are more attractive to advertisers.

Unlike the business of newspapers and television, social media is an attention business that does not have the costs of creating the content that attracts attention.

Its business model will always be more profitable than attention businesses that create or license content.

Social media hasn’t done a better job producing or distributing news — but it was never in that business. The business has always been about attracting and selling attention. This too is the case for ad-funded news outlets; they weren’t in the news business, but the attention business.

Shoring up the future of journalism has long required finding a different business model. The days of ad-supported journalism are well and truly gone.

The significant challenge of reorienting the creation of journalism from other revenue has led to decades of misplaced energy spent chasing clicks and engagement that were never a pathway to a sustainable journalism.

Failing to address the core of the problem, as the case with the News Bargaining Code, has just prolonged the inevitable.

The challenge remains the same: find ways to fund the journalism that democratic societies need to stay healthy offering people what they need to go about daily life and participate in their community.

There are now many ways to distribute journalism and help people access it. Funding is really the problem and few governments have been willing to take it on.

Without coordination, dozens of entrepreneurial efforts fail in the clutter of more or less legitimate initiatives and the absence of a sustained effort to re-educate society about how to access reliable information and journalism in today’s world.

Few start by talking to the people they aim to reach about their news and journalism needs and frustrations, instead pushing solutions unusable to those most in need.

Universities, libraries, and education systems that are beacons of expertise have gone untapped and unresourced for new necessary roles. Substantial journalism resources are regularly overlooked: public service media such as Australia’s ABC are an extraordinary asset already in place and already much more than radio and television.

Perhaps we’d all be better off if social media weren’t regarded as a place to access news.

Professor Amanda D. Lotz is a leader of the Transforming Media Industries research program in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

Now That We Live in a Post-Truth World, Is It Already Too Late?

Here and now, we are living in a post-truth era, as we blindly believe what we are told by our rulers because we are afraid to face the truth.

In 2016, the Oxford dictionary declared post-truth as the word of the year. But when it was first coined by Steve Tesich in 1991-1992 to describe the propaganda of the US-dominated NATO powers which was used to balkanise Yugoslavia during the inter-ethnic feuds and violence there, no one was willing to publish his articles.

Once a darling of the US for winning an Oscar at the young age of 36, for script writing the film Breaking Away (1979), Tesich became persona non grata till his death in 1996, at age 53. He had the temerity to see through the false propaganda used to ruin the last socialist state left standing in the Western world. No one was willing to question it because they were afraid to face the truth. Post-truth was the word he used to describe the mental state of the people, hence the time too.

His sister Nadja Tesich – novelist, actor, filmmaker – whose Paris sojourn was the subject of a film, Nadja à Paris by Eric Rohmer – was a friend of mine. She had acted in the film as herself. I first met her at a Feminist Conference in Dubrovnik (then in erstwhile Yugoslavia, now Croatia) in 1988. She saw the impending civil war instigated by the divide and rule strategy, before Steve did, because he had once believed in the American dream. He died of heartbreak (or heart attack), when his dream turned into nightmare with the fraud perpetrated in Yugoslavia, through distortion of truth and the practice of divide and rule. He saw the post-truth era was upon them and died when no one paid heed to his warning.

Who knows better than us, the devilish stratagem of divide and rule?

But we learnt nothing from it.

Here and now, we are living in a post-truth era, as we blindly believe what we are told by our rulers because we are afraid to face the truth.

I strongly believe that when a dictatorship is imposed on a people, an eventual revolt is possible, however long it may take and however bloody it might be.

But when a dictator is chosen through elections, a revolt is well-nigh impossible because a large number of past voters suspend disbelief and begin to live in post-truth. It is less frightening to do that than face the truth that the democracy they had voted for was now non-existent. By constantly distorting the truth, advertisements also make us believe we are choosing something we really like, while in truth, we choose it because we are taught to believe we like it through subliminal propaganda.

But that is a lesser evil than the state of political post-truth we live in. We are told to hate certain sections of society through persistent false propaganda and we blindly do so.

Also read: The Truth Is That Modi’s ‘Double-Engine’ Naya Bharat Is Shabbier Than Old India

Remember the 1930s in Germany. Hitler was elected almost unanimously and people believed what he asked them to believe. To hate homosexuals, gypsies, musicians, actors and Jews of course. The final aim was the annihilation of Jews.

We know and abhor the Holocaust that followed.

But were not similar post-truth conditions created for the post-partition massacres of 1947 in India and Pakistan and again for the Sikh massacre in 1984?

Let’s not forget that the post-truth era is far from over. Quite the opposite.

The current one is built with greater technological acumen and propagation of hatred, which has blinded large sections of society. If we are told cloud cover did not allow radar to pick up signals of an air attack, we are idiots enough to believe it. We also believe that the enormous and ubiquitous problem of hunger can be solved through distribution of free rations. No need to provide means of employment or improve education.

In any case all our problems would disappear once we build the Ram temple and declare mosques and madrasas hotbeds of terrorism.

I wonder can we still say ‘beware’ before it is too late? Or is it already too late?

Mridula Garg is a Hindi writer and Sahitya Akademi award winner.

Commodities as Trophies: How Advertisements Valorise the Elite

An excerpt from Sreedeep Bhattacharya’s book ‘Consumerist Encounters: Flirting with Things and Images’.

The following is an excerpt from Sreedeep Bhattacharya’s book Consumerist Encounters: Flirting with Things and Images, reproduced with permission from Oxford University Press.

Exclusionary tendencies flourished in the post-liberalization era, as it marked the beginning of unapologetic material indulgences by the middle classes.

Sreedeep Bhattacharya
Consumerist Encounters: Flirting With Things and Images
Oxford University Press (September 2021)

Symbolic exclusionary assertions often got linguistically coined in denim tag-lines such as: ‘If Your Jeans are Original, How Come Everyone Else has One?’ The portrayal of exclusivity also got visually mediated and circulated, as the product-imagery offered a route to un-belong or belong to an aspired league.

Access to a broader basket of choice in the post-liberalization period has significantly accentuated strategic purchase and display. Choice of commodities functions as markers of class. They also act as tools of distinction. Commodities can be used as fences for creating social distance, and can simultaneously be used as bridges to belong. The idea of exclusion is often expressed through commodities—both in real life or in the representational domain. Advertisements are often visual registers of this class polarization.

I will draw your attention to the heightened sense of exclusivity expressed in some of the ads, mostly apparel. Apparel often becomes a social currency in the quest for distancing and distinguishing. It dresses and declares class. It promises ‘eliteness’, as we see figure 1. Here, ‘eliteness’ is not just a matter of aspired class belonging, but also a ticket to stand out in the crowd. The social distancing is conveyed through sharp focus on the protagonist and blurring off the crowd in the backdrop.

Figure 1

A society, which has been highly stratified, and has traditionally practiced social discrimination, cannot possibly discard the ‘class questions’ in its visual propaganda. Especially for the middle classes, who are still learning the fine art of flirting with things—commodity becomes a symbolic site for class contestation and consolidation. It is through the performative act of displaying the material possession—that exclusivity, distinction, and empowerment is communicated. The language of advertisement remains obsessed with the portrayal of an aspired lifestyle. The tag-line in figure 2, reads: “Celebrate an elevation. Celebrate an acquisition. Celebrate life. Power. Evolved.”

Figure 2

In a status-conscious society, commodity constantly invites consumers to be a part of the ‘Upper Crest’, as we see in figure 3. The consumer is persistently lured to feel elegant, vibrant, charming and attractive through exercising such apparel choices. The assertion of the ‘upper crest’ bluntly communicates the aspirations of the upwardly mobile. The repeated usage of white models to communicate the idea of ‘exclusivity’ is yet another colonial hangover that refuses to disappear. The visual of the ‘upper-crest’ also affirms spatial exclusivity. Props and lighting in the background recreate an elite social milieu to establish the look and feel of luxury—an assemblage of exclusion.

Figure 3

The famous Onida (TV) tag-line from the 90s once stated: ‘your pride; neighbors’ envy’. Pride in one’s possession and being envious of that of others’ is integral to consumption in a society characterized by stark socio-economic inequalities. Using the commodity as a distinguisher, the ethos of consumer mobility somewhat resembles caste mobility too—’equal only to the superior’ and ‘superior to the equals’.

Also read: ‘Nomadland’ Is a Glimpse Into Why China Is the US of Asia

Hence it is not surprising that most commodities focus on ‘exclusivity’, and not on consumption’s capacity to equalize. The sexist Tata Safari ad in figure 4 states: “If men are born equal, it must be their cars that help women choose”. Similar classist statements can also be seen in the new Mahindra Alturas ad that claims, “Your highness. Your SUV is here”, and places the SUV in front of a grand palace; or the old Scorpio ad that said, “Cars will now suffer from a low self-esteem.”

Figure 4

The process of ‘distancing’ always entails distinguishing from certain groups in order to align with some others. It is indeed a constant tug of war—a tough negotiation between building and bridging the gap, of association and disassociation, of belonging and un-belonging’, of connecting and disconnecting, of inclusion and exclusion, of division and union. The message in figure 5 captures the deep-rooted desire for distinction by directing the consumer to be ‘unbelong’. Not only does “it pays to unbelong”, but it is through this process of ‘unbelonging’ that one survives. Those who follow the herd, meet a tragic end.

Figure 5

Exclusivity is fundamental in order to unbelong. Figure 6 states: ‘If your jeans are original, how come everyone else has one?’ The message is loud and clear: buy in order to be distinct.

Figure 6

The content of the advertisement in figure 7, equates success with consumption, and earning with indulgence. The consumer is elevated. Physical and spatial elevation denote status preferment as well. The elevated space is a well-deserved reward of long working hours. From this elevated platform, one can now look down upon others, and simultaneously rise above the congestion of the city. Consumers work hard to earn in order to aspire and afford standardized versions of a world-class-lifestyle. It is a highly secluded, secure and guarded space—assembled within walls that exclude everyone and everything beyond the boundary walls. Real estate is established as a spectacularly pleasurable space, rooted in the idea of ‘distance’ and not proximity to the ‘other’.

Figure 7

There is a definitive indication of how to use commodities for building status consciousness and furthering status enhancement. Commodity packaging is often projected, perceived and used as visible trophies of exploits to meet exclusivist targets. There is an obvious exclusion of the productive character of work, workers, everyday and the ordinary. Rather we witness valorization of the imagined elite. The preferred portrayal of leisure activities in sanitized spaces of consumption reinforces status-upgradation as an exclusivity as an ultimate goal. Commodity depictions are overtly ‘classed’ through postures, décor, surroundings, demeanor and an overall aesthetics. It involves a visible strategy of classing and out-classing the other.

Sreedeep Bhattacharya is a sociologist. He is an associate professor with Shiv Nadar University. This is an excerpt from his book, Consumerist Encounters: Flirting with Things and Images, published by Oxford University Press.

COVID-19 Makes Readers, Advertisers Wary, Newspapers Slash Editions, Salaries to Cope

“The revenue of newspapers is taking a hit from both the advertising and circulation side,” said a senior manager of a national daily.

New Delhi: From readers’ fear of physically picking up copies, to newspaper vendors being denied entry into residential complexes to advertisers withdrawing ads, the newspaper industry has been facing demand, supply and logistics-related challenges ever since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

In Delhi, the print orders of two major newspapers have allegedly dwindled from around 14 lakh each to just about one lakh while some smaller newspapers, which have witnessed a sharp decline in circulation, have already announced major salary cuts.

Recently, a video showing a woman picking up a newspaper with a pair of tongs and then proceeding to iron it went viral. While the anecdote may have amused some, the fear that newspapers may bring one into contact with the dreaded virus is real for many. Newspaper vendors who spoke to The Wire said that many readers had either been cancelling their orders or had proceeded to reduce them.

Ved Prakash Mishra, who has been in the business of distributing papers in the Lodhi Road area of New Delhi for over three decades now, said that sales had dropped sharply. What has also hit the vendors hard is that many government colonies and private apartment blocks have stopped the entry of vendors altogether.

‘Out of bounds’

“We can no longer go into Jor Bagh. We were distributing around 800-900 copies there regularly. We used to distribute a number of copies at the staff quarters at the Air Force Bal Bharti School, but we can no longer enter the premises now. So is the case at Mausam Bhawan, which houses a large number of employees of the India Meteorological Department. We used to distribute over 300 copies in the staff quarters there, but now we are not allowed any access,” said Mishra.

Also read: Times Group Sends Legal Notice to ThePrint for Article on Coronavirus and Newspapers

Insisting that the process of printing of newspapers was sanitised, automated and required little handling by the hand, he said, “We know that the chances of transmission of any virus through a newspaper are minimal, but people are just not prepared to listen”.

IIT bars entry of newspaper vendors

A few kilometres down the road, at IIT Delhi as well, the entry of newspaper vendors has been barred. Here, the security officer had, on March 29, sent a message to all the teachers, staff and students that read: “Due to alarming situation of the spread of coronavirus, many of us have stopped the newspaper delivery. Now the institute has decided to stop the entry of newspaper hawkers into the campus.”

While some professors squirmed at the idea and found it to be “out of its character” for an institution like IIT, the situation on ground has remained the same. No papers are being allowed in. Newspaper delivery has taken a hit at the nearby NCERT campus too, as most of the readers have cancelled their copies. Manoj Sharma, a newspaper vendor, said that it would be better if the business was shut altogether as vendors sometimes had to bear the loss of unsold copies.

Vendors across the National Capital Region are facing similar grim situations. At Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, Rintu Kumar, a vendor, said most of the society apartments had stopped allowing newspaper vendors inside their complexes. “We are only able to sell a few copies at the builder flats. There too, we now bind the copy with a rubber band and lob it into the balcony. No one takes it by hand.”

Deserted city roads on the second day of the complete lockdown in the national capital to contain the spread of coronavirus, in New Delhi, March 24, 2020. Photo: PTI/Atul Yadav

Newspapers being sent on demand to distribution points

Stating that the distribution had been reduced to a tenth of what it earlier was, Kumar said the two major English newspapers were still sending copies as annual subscription orders for them had been taken in advance. “But now even their personnel first call up and ask over the phone as to how many copies we will lift. They only send copies as per the demand. The supply of smaller newspapers and the vernacular dailies has almost dropped to nil.”

Also read: Fears of Police, COVID-19 Hinder Newspaper Delivery Across India

In other major cities as well, the newspaper distribution business is under severe stress. A vendor in Mumbai, who gave his name as Yadav, said, “even if I wanted to deliver newspapers, how will I get to the distribution centres? There are no suburban train services.”

“Many vendors are concerned about lifting the newspapers because we fear contracting the virus ourselves. Soon after the news of the outbreak started circulating, many of my customers called to say that they did not want any more newspapers. I don’t know if they will take after the whole thing is over,” said Yadav.

Print orders drop by up to 90%

The fall in sales, as well as the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the economy overall, has hit the advertisement revenues of newspapers hard. “There are massive cancellation orders for advertisements. The revenue of newspapers is taking a hit from both the advertising and circulation side,” said a senior manager of a national daily.

“In Delhi, two major newspapers have reduced their print orders to just about one lakh each from around 14 lakh each earlier. Another newspaper, which was printing around 1.5 lakh copies earlier, is now printing around 15,000 copies only. At one point in time, its print order had come down to just 5,000,” he said.

Salary cuts at print newspapers

The financial crisis has also made some national dailies announce salary cuts. The Indian Express recently announced a graded salary cut for its employees under which a reduction of between 10% and 30% in salaries has been announced for various categories of employees while the editors and senior management have decided to take a 100% salary cut. Only employees drawing less than Rs five lakh have been left out of this cost-cutting drive.

Also read: Editors Guild, PEN Delhi Condemn Govt’s Attitude Towards Free Press in Dealing with Pandemic

However, as the threat from coronavirus is expected to last for a while, the entire industry is bracing for tougher days ahead.

Another hurdle for the newspaper industry is that elderly persons, who constitute a big share of readers, are adversely impacted by the coronavirus.

While many of the younger readers prefer to access content online over phones, tablets or computers, it was the older demographic that was still in the habit of picking up a copy of the newspaper first thing in the morning. With these loyal readers now drifting away, the print newspaper industry has little left to rely on.

Can You Ever Be a Truly Independent Thinker?

We are social beings driven by a profound need to fit in – and as a consequence, we are all hugely influenced by cultural norms.

“It’s important to me that I make my own decisions, but I often wonder how much they are actually influenced by cultural and societal norms, by advertising, the media and those around me. We all feel the need to fit in, but does this prevent us from making decisions for ourselves? In short, can I ever be a truly free thinker?”

– Richard Yorkshire

There’s good news and bad news on this one. In his poem Invictus, William Ernest Henley wrote:

“It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

While being the lone “captain of your soul” is a reassuring idea, the truth is rather more nuanced. The reality is that we are social beings driven by a profound need to fit in – and as a consequence, we are all hugely influenced by cultural norms.

But to get to the specifics of your question, advertising, at least, may not influence you as much as you imagine. Both advertisers and the critics of advertising like us to think that ads can make us dance any way they want, especially now everything is digital and personalised ad targeting is possible in a way it never was before.

In reality, there is no precise science of advertising. Most new products fail, despite the advertising they receive. And even when sales go up, nobody is exactly sure of the role advertising played. As the marketing pioneer John Wanamaker said:

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

You’d expect advertisers to exaggerate the effectiveness of advertising, and scholars of advertising have typically made more modest claims. Even these, though, may be overestimates. Recent studies have claimed that both online and offline, the methods commonly used to study advertising effectiveness vastly exaggerate the power of advertising to change our beliefs and behaviour.

This has led some to claim that not just half, but perhaps nearly all advertising money is wasted, at least online.

There are similar results outside of commerce. One review of field experiments in political campaigning argued “the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans’ candidates choices in general elections is zero”. Zero!

In other words, although we like to blame the media for how people vote, it is surprisingly hard to find solid evidence of when and how people are swayed by the media. One professor of political science, Kenneth Newton, went so far as to claim “It’s Not the Media, Stupid”.

But although advertising is a weak force, and although hard evidence on how the media influences specific choices is elusive, every one of us is undoubtedly influenced by the culture in which we live.

Followers of fashion

Fashions exist both for superficial things, such as buying clothes and opting for a particular hairstyle, but also for more profound behaviour like murder and even suicide. Indeed, we all borrow so much from those we grow up around, and those around us now, that it seems impossible to put a clear line between our individual selves and the selves society forges for us.

Two examples: I don’t have any facial tattoos, and I don’t want any. If I wanted a facial tattoo my family would think I’d gone mad. But if I was born in some cultures, where these tattoos were common and conveyed high status, such as traditional Māori culture, people would think I was unusual if I didn’t want facial tattoos.

Similarly, if I had been born a Viking, I can assume that my highest ambition would have been to die in battle, axe or sword in hand. In their belief system, after all, that was surest way to Valhalla and a glorious afterlife. Instead, I am a liberal academic whose highest ambition is to die peacefully in bed, a long way away from any bloodshed. Promises of Valhalla have no influence over me.

Ultimately, I’d argue that all of our desires are patterned by the culture we happen to be born in.

Also read: Are My Opinions Really My Own?

But it gets worse. Even if we could somehow free ourselves from cultural expectations, other forces impinge on our thoughts. Your genes can affect your personality and so they must also, indirectly, have a knock-on effect on your beliefs.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, famously talked about the influence of parents and upbringing on behaviour, and he probably wasn’t 100% wrong. Even just psychologically, how can you ever think freely, separate from the twin influences of prior experience and other people?

From this perspective, all of our behaviours and our desires are profoundly influenced by outside forces. But does this mean they aren’t also our own?

The answer to this dilemma, I think, is not to free yourself from outside influences. This is impossible. Instead, you should see yourself and your ideas as the intersection of all the forces that come to play on you.

Some of these are shared – like our culture – and some are unique to you – your unique experience, your unique history and biology. Being a free thinker, from this perspective, means working out exactly what makes sense to you, from where you are now.

You can’t – and shouldn’t – ignore outside influences, but the good news is that these influences are not some kind of overwhelming force. All the evidence is compatible with the view that each of us, choice by choice, belief by belief, can make reasonable decisions for ourselves, not unshackled from the influences of others and the past, but free to chart our own unique paths forward into the future.

After all, the captain of a ship doesn’t sail while ignoring the wind – sometimes they go with it, sometimes against it, but they always account for it. Similarly, we think and make our choices in the context of all our circumstances, not by ignoring them.

Tom Stafford, Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Sheffield

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty

There’s a Complex History of Skin Lighteners in Africa and Beyond

The long history of racist beauty standards alone cannot explain the ongoing global use of harmful skin lighteners.

Somali-American activists recently scored a victory against Amazon and against colourism, which is prejudice based on preference for people with lighter skin tones. Members of the non-profit The Beautywell Project teamed up with the Sierra Club to convince the online retail giant to stop selling skin lightening products that contain mercury.

After more than a year of protests, this coalition of antiracist, health, and environmental activists persuaded Amazon to remove some 15 products containing toxic levels of mercury. This puts a small but noteworthy dent in the global trade in skin lighteners, estimated to reach $31.2 billion by 2024.

What are the roots of this sizeable trade? And how might its most toxic elements be curtailed?

The online sale of skin lighteners is relatively new, but the in-person traffic is very old. My new book explores this layered history from the vantage point of South Africa.

As in other parts of the world colonised by European powers, the politics of skin colour in South Africa have been importantly shaped by the history of white supremacy and institutions of racial slavery, colonialism, and segregation. My book examines that history.

Yet, racism alone cannot explain skin lightening practices. My book also attends to intersecting dynamics of class and gender, changing beauty ideals and the expansion of consumer capitalism.

A deep history of skin whitening and lightening

For centuries and even millennia, elites used paints and powders to create smoother, paler appearances, unblemished by illness and the sun’s darkening and roughening effects.

Cosmetic users in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome created dramatic appearances by pairing skin whiteners containing lead or chalk with black eye makeup and red lip colourants. In China and Japan too, elite women and some men used white lead preparations and rice powder to achieve complexions resembling white jade or fresh lychee.

Skin lighteners generate a less painted look than skin whiteners by removing rather than concealing blemished or melanin-rich skin. Melanin is the biochemical compound that makes skin colourful.

Active ingredients in skin lighteners have ranged from acidic compounds like lemon juice and milk to harsher chemicals like sulfur, arsenic, and mercury. In parts of precolonial Southern Africa, some people used mineral and botanical preparations to brighten – rather than whiten or lighten – their skin and hair.

During the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, skin colour and associated physical difference were used to distinguish enslaved people from free, and to justify the former’s oppression. Colonisers cast melanin-rich hues as the embodiment of ugliness and inferiority. Within this racist political order, some sought to whiten and lighten their complexions.

By the twentieth century, mass-produced skin lightening creams ranked among the world’s most popular cosmetics. Consumers included white, black, and brown women.

In the 1920s and 1930s, many white consumers swapped skin lighteners for tanning lotions as time spent sunbathing and playing outdoors became a sign of a healthy and leisured lifestyle. Seasonal tanning embodied new forms of white privilege.

Skin lighteners became primarily associated with people of colour. For black and brown consumers, living in places like the United States and South Africa where racism and colourism have flourished, even slight differences in skin colour could carry political and social consequences.

The mercury effect

Skin lighteners can be physically harmful. Mercury, one of their most common active ingredients, lightens skin in two ways. It inhibits the formation of melanin by rendering the enzyme tyrosinase inactive; and it exfoliates the tanned, outer layers of the skin through the production of hydrochloric acid.

By the early twentieth century, pharmaceutical and medical textbooks recommended mercury – usually in the form of ammoniated mercury – for treating skin infections and dark spots while often warning of its harmful effects. Cosmetic manufacturers marketed creams containing ammoniated mercury as “freckle removers” or “skin bleaches”.

When the US Congress passed the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act in 1938, such creams were among the first to be regulated.

After World War II, the negative environmental and health impact of mercury became more apparent. The devastating case of mercury poisoning caused by industrial wastewater in Minamata, Japan, prompted the Food and Drug Administration to take a closer look at mercury’s toxicity, including in cosmetics. Here was a visceral instance of what environmentalist Rachel Carson meant about small, domestic choices making the world uninhabitable.

In 1973, the administration banned all but trace amounts of mercury from cosmetics. Other countries followed suit. South Africa banned mercurial cosmetics in 1975, the European Economic Union in 1976, and Nigeria in 1982. The trade in skin lighteners, nonetheless, continued as other active ingredients – most notably hydroquinone – replaced ammoniated mercury.

Meanwhile in South Africa

In the early 1960s, colour photography and printing saw skin lightener ads feature a range of light brown and reddish skintones.

In apartheid South Africa, the trade was especially robust. Skin lighteners ranked among the most commonly used personal products in black urban households. During the 1980s, activists inspired by Black Consciousness and the sentiment “Black is Beautiful” teamed up with concerned medical professionals to make opposition to skin lighteners part of the anti-apartheid movement.

In the early 1990s, activists convinced the government to ban all cosmetic skin lighteners containing known depigmenting agents – and to prohibit cosmetic advertisements from making any claims to “bleach”, “lighten” or “whiten” skin. This prohibition was the first of its kind and the regulations immediately shuttered the in-country manufacture of skin lighteners.

South Africa’s regulations testify to the broader antiracist political movement from which they emerged. Thirty years on, however, South Africa again possesses a robust – if now illicit – trade in skin lighteners. An especially disturbing element is the resurgence of mercurial products.

South African researchers have found that over 40% of skin lighteners sold in Durban and Cape Town contain mercury.

The activists’ recent victory against Amazon suggests one way forward. They took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper denouncing Amazon’s sale of mercurial skin lighteners as “dangerous, racist, and illegal.” A petition with 23,000 signatures was hand-delivered to the company’s Minnesota office.

By combining antiracist, health, and environmentalist arguments, activists held one of the world’s most powerful companies accountable. They also brought the toxic presence of mercurial skin lighteners to public awareness and made them more difficult to purchase.

Lynn M. Thomas’s latest book Beneath the Surface: A Transnational History of Skin Lighteners is available from Wits University Press and from Duke University Press.

Lynn M. Thomas, History Professor, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UK Bans Ads Over Gender Stereotypes in Landmark Ruling

Adverts by cream cheese maker Philadelphia and car giant Volkswagen will no longer appear on UK television.

The UK’s ad regulator banned two advertisements for following gender stereotypes on Wednesday, marking the first time the watchdog has barred ads since new rules were introduced to combat sexist stereotypes.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said they “drew the line” with the adverts by cream cheese maker Philadelphia and car manufacturer Volkswagen.

An image from the Philadelphia advertisement in question.

What is in the adverts?

The Philadelphia advert featured two men being distracted by the cream cheese snack and forgetting about their babies, which the ASA said “implied that the fathers had failed to look after the children properly because of their gender.”

The advert “relied on the stereotype that men were unable to care for children as well as women,” the ASA added.

Volkswagen’s ad, which also will not feature on television again, featured men completing adventurous activities and a woman sitting on a bench with a baby buggy. The ASA said the “images of men in extraordinary environments and carrying out adventurous activities” and of “women who appeared passive” alluded to stereotypical roles of women and men.

This gave the impression the activities were “exclusively associated with one gender,” they continued.

Also read: Cancel Culture vs Rape Culture, and the Case for Repairing Harm

Both Volkswagen and Philadelphia’s parent body Mondelez UK said they did not agree with the decision.

Volkswagen dismissed the judgment, arguing their advert showed men and women “taking part in challenging situations,” whilst the parent company of Philadelphia, Mondelez UK, said they were “extremely disappointed with the ruling.”

What is the new ruling?

UK authorities introduced the new rules in June, after pressure from campaigners focusing on sexism. The new rules focused on banning “gender stereotypes which are likely to cause harm or serious or widespread offense.”

A spokeswoman for the women’s rights group the Fawcett Society, Ella Smillie, told the Reuters news agency advertisers need to “wake up and stop reinforcing lazy, outmoded gender stereotypes.”

“We know that children internalize [gender stereotypes] in a way that limits their aspirations and potential in life,” she added.

Also read: What Toni Morrison Means to Her Readers in South Africa

A study by data and consultancy firm Kantar showed less than one in ten adverts have an authoritative female in it, despite research which shows consumers respond better to women than men in adverts.

Television advertising in the UK was worth a reported £5.11 billion (€5.5bn, $6.1bn) in 2018, according to advertising industry body, ThinkBox.

The ASA is not able to fine Volkswagen and Philadelphia, but the adverts will no longer appear on any British broadcasters.

This article was first published on Deutsche Welle.

Adverts With Harmful Gender Stereotypes Now Banned in the U.K.

In a move made by the Advertising Standard Authority (ASA), the United Kingdom has banned advertisements that depict “harmful” gender stereotypes on June 14. Experts hope that the decision will promote gender equality.

According to the report by the ASA, “Gender stereotypes can lead to mental, physical and social harm which can limit the potential of groups and individuals.” Overall, young children are more at risk to internalise harmful stereotypes that they see. However, adults are not exempt from internalising damaging messages that reinforce how they should behave or look based on their gender.

Earlier, in 2018, the Paris city council similarly banned ads that are “sexist or discriminatory” from being publicly displayed in outdoor spaces in the French capital.

A 2017 study by ASA has led to the recommended ban.

Ads that satirise gender stereotypes will still be allowed. So will innocent depictions of women doing shopping or men doing home improvement, for example. But the use of “[humour] or banter” will not be enough of an excuse to exempt ads from the ban, they said.

Not only does the move ban ads that depict women as weak or in archetypical roles of a housewife, but also those that reinforce personality traits of boys and girls, such as bravery for boys and tenderness for girls; suggest that new mothers should prioritise their looks or home cleanliness over their emotional health; and mock men for being bad at stereotypically “feminine” tasks, such as vacuuming, washing clothes or parenting.

The change comes after multiple incidents of advertisements were withdrawn due to sexist or detrimental portrayal of women’s bodies as well as digitally altered images that exaggerate the effects of the product.

In 2016, a Gucci ad was banned by ASA because of the unhealthily thin waist of the model and her dark makeup, which made her face look gaunt. Cara Delevingne’s campaign with Rimmel mascara in 2017 was banned for using airbrushing to enhance the product’s outcomes.

More recently, in May 2019, the regulatory body took down an ad for a Porche dealer which featured a provocative image of a woman underneath a car with the tag “Attractive Servicing.” With her head obscured, the woman has one leg bent, revealing her upper thigh and crotch, which could read as overtly sexual and objectifying to women.

It is no revelation that the depiction of women in advertisements is sexist and unfavourable. The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media worked with Google to analyse more than 2,000 English-language commercials. It found that between 2006 and 2016, the number of female characters in video advertisements remained essentially unchanged but the amount of screen time men had was fourfold that of women, and men spoke about seven times as often as women did.

In India, the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 prohibits the indecent representation of women through advertisement or in publications.

Alongside that is the Advertising Standards Council of India (ACSI), a self-regulatory, voluntary organisation of the advertising industry in India and a non-Government body. It is committed to the cause of self-regulation in advertising, ensuring the protection consumer interests.

In 2018, it indicted 191 advertisements by brands such as Hindustan Unilever, Samsung and L’Oreal India as misleading. L’Oreal’s new Garnier ad, featuring actor Alia Bhatt, was pulled for its exaggerated promises of fairness. The claims in the ad, alongside the product, were not found substantial to support the products effects.

It should be noted that neither of these bodies act on advertisements promoting gender stereotypes or sexist content that could be detrimental to society’s expectations of women and the messages about gender roles internalised by children.

The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act only prevents obscenity and the ASCI guidelines are for consumer welfare, with no separate guidelines for gender specific issues. Also, ASCI acts upon advertisements already released, and cannot ban a particular type of depiction in the same.

Featured image credit: Reuters/Charles Platiau

As LS Polls Wrap Up, What Will Parties Do With Their PVC Hoardings?

Because they are cheap, PVC hoardings are frequently overused to the point of having become a staple item in the culture of ‘public service’.

As the Lok Sabha elections draw to a close, the country is faced with a reckoning: not about who the next prime minister will be but about the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) hoardings political candidates used for their electioneering. Political parties aren’t the only offenders here but their wanton use of this material presents a particularly difficult problem.

According to one source, PVC-based physical advertisements dominate the displays market. PVC is non-biodegradable and persists in the environment for decades on end. It is also soluble in fats and can accumulate in the food chain. In the absence of proper waste management, PVC and other plastics languish in landfills, leaching off into the ground beneath. If they’re set on fire, they release harmful vapours and gases.

The Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules of 2018 don’t explicitly mention PVC even though Indians consume a little over 2 kg of the material per capita. According to the general rules, waste generators have to endeavour to produce less waste and segregate plastics according to the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016. They also have to prevent littering and ensure proper relocation – either to the municipalities and panchayats or to registered waste-pickers, waste collection agencies and/or registered recyclers. In addition to this, waste generators have to pay a polluter’s fee.

Also read: The Dawn of the Age of Plastics

According to the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB’s) 2017 annual report on the implementation of plastic waste management rules, only 13 of 35 state pollution control boards and pollution control committees (for the union territories) submitted their respective reports. Of those 13, none were able to collect the requisite information from all local bodies citing ‘unknown reasons’.

On March 1, 2019, the National Green Tribunal ordered representatives of the Election Commission, the Union environment ministry and the CPCB to hold a joint meeting and discuss the issue of PVC hoardings in the elections. The environment ministry had issued a similar notice to all states to reduce the use of PVC hoardings. However, the commission didn’t hold such a meeting.

PVC hoardings are popular because they are cheap. They can be procured for as little as Rs 5 per sq. feet. Because they are cheap, they are overused – not just to print advertisements that loom over highways but even to announce a local figure’s birthday – to the point of becoming a staple item in the culture of ‘public service’. It is now imperative that we remake this culture to end such deleterious practices and adopt more future-friendly methods. One of the easiest ways out is to recycle PVC banners; there are organisations that already provide this service. Another is to ban the use of PVC hoardings as Bengaluru has done.

Most of all, the elections should be an opportunity to demand more of our political parties, including that they clean up after themselves. Party members who erected the hoardings should take them down before the results are declared, and the Election Commission must also step up to ensure this is so.

Medha Pande has been published in Down to Earth, Hektoen International, The Quint, Hindustan Times and Coldnoon.