Carl Jones discusses how racism manifests in advertising at the International Semiotic Conference, and publishes in new RCA journal.

Carl W. Jones recently presented his research using semiotic theory to discover racism in advertising at the 4th International Conference on Semiotics and Visual Communication. The conference was held in Cyprus on Thursday June 18^th 2022.

Jones delivered a talk entitled ‘Decolonizing advertising through the analysis of tools and techniques appropriated to design myths.” The talk focused on four billboards for a Mexican luxury department store that only feature white models in their advertising. Jones noted that this is a issue in a country where 90% of the population are people of colour. One of his solutions is asking for the advertising industry to include more people of colour in the creation process who can recognize racist  ‘signs’ and ‘codes.’

Jones has also published his work in the newly launched Royal College of Art (RCA) journal, Itinerant Space. The journal, which focuses on the visual arts “sets out to explore, interrogate and critically reflect on communication research practices.” Jones’ PhD research, which involved facilitating workshops on decolonized research methods in Mexico is presented in two articles within the new journal under the title “Can the advertising process be decolonised in order to remove racist messaging? A work in progress.” 

More information about the journal can be found on their website:  https://itinerant-space.co.uk

Image: Carl Jones | RCA