Picture perfect?: A comparative-historical content analysis of women in Super Bowl commercials

This project utilizes qualitative and quantitative content analysis to examine images of women in commercials aired during the NFL Super Bowl over the last 25 years for changes in their portrayals over time and to identify the dominant gender and racial/ethnic stereotypes in women's depictions. I hypothesize increasing instances of convergence -- a shift in the appearance of black women from an African-American phenotype to women who appear racially ambiguous, and replacement -- black men paired with non-black women or depicted as the only black individual in a multiracial group -- in current media images. I found the dominant images of women have not substantively changed over the past 25 years and found evidence supporting my convergence and replacement hypotheses. I hope to expand the existing literature on gender and racial stereotyping in media and to lay a foundation for further research.