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Visual Representation of Black Individuals in Marketing Materials
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219 POPE
diversity, and it was assumed that there would be an increase in photographic representation of diversity for posts made during that time. While the effects of this presumed increase could provide interesting information, that time period was excluded from the study so that trends under normal circumstances could be examined.
To ensure that individuals were counted and coded as accurately as possible, another individual was asked to code a portion of the photographs from the Instagram accounts using the same parameters as the principal researcher. This individual reviewed a year of posts from one university’s account, which amounted to 104 Posts.
The two sets of results from each observer were then compared to see how many times there was an exact match agreement on the same photo. This comparison was run for each ethnic category on each photo, for a total of five comparisons per photo. Because this study focused on the representation of Black students at a PW[, the reliability of categorizing Black and White individuals was of primary interest. For Black individuals, there was an 8i.73% agreement between the researchers. For White individuals, the agreement was 53·85%.
This method of determining reliability is admittedly limited in that it requires coders to come to the exact same conclusion on each photograph. This is beneficial when both coders agree that a photograph pictures six individuals who are Black, but if one coder instead says that only five of the individuals are Black, then it is no longer an exact match and reliability drops.
The second part of the study took data gathered from the photographs and compared it with enrollment and retention numbers using two separate Pearson Correlation tests to determine if there was a significant correlation between increased visual representation and increased enrollment and retention of Black students. The particular hypotheses that were tested statistically were examined at an alpha
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level of 0.05. IRB exemption was obtained, as no personal information about participants was accessible to the researcher.
Results
Out of 1836 total Instagram posts on three accounts from 2015 to 2019, the majority (i587) of posts contained photos, with 204 containing videos. Across the three accounts, the photographs contained 3465 individuals who met the requirements for visibility. Of these individuals, 2778 (80.17%) were coded as White, 460 (13.28%) as Black, 131 (3·78%) as Hispanic, 56 (1.62%) as Asian, and 40 (1.15%) as Other. Enrollment and retention data, including specific demographic information for each year’s incoming freshman class, was provided by administrators at each university. Each hypothesis was tested using data gathered from the content analysis and from each university. These results emerged.
Hi: Predominantly White, faith-based universities overrepresent Black individuals in marketing visuals.
It was expected that the schools examined would use strategies similar to those observed in the study conducted by Pippert et al. (2013). However, when the data was calculated, the average difference in representation and the actual population of Black students had an overall high of 6.01% and a low of 1.11%, for an average overrepresentation of 3.50% across the three schools. These results align with those found by Hagenbuch (2012), who found that there was no statistically significant overrepresentation of students of color in promotional materials used by several Christian universities.
Hz: The increased visual representation of Black individuals in marketing materials correlates with an increase in Black student enrollment.
To test the second hypothesis, the change in representation rates for Black individuals each year was compared to the change in
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enrollment rates for the incoming freshman class. It was expected that an increase in representation one year would correlate with an increase in enrollment the next, and potentially at a similar or consistent rate.
For example, if representation increased 20% in 2018 as compared to 2017, it was expected that enrollment would increase for the 2018 freshman class, either at the same rate or a rate that would indicate that the use of the photographs had at least some effect on enrollment.
Using a Pearson Correlation test, the amount of change in representation from one year to the next was compared to the change in enrollment for the following year to determine if there was any relation between the two. For example, the amount of change in 2017 from the previous year’s photos was compared to the incoming freshman class of 2017, as it was assumed that those posts were primarily aimed at marketing toward that year’s incoming class. While both enrollment and representation changed from year to year, it was determined that these changes did not lead to a statistically significant correlation between the two variables.
H3: The increased visual representation of Black individuals in marketing materials has no effect on Black student retention.
Retention data was gathered from administrators and from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website. The NCES website provided general retention percentages for members of the 2014 cohort who graduated within 6 years, while the data provided by administrators told what percentage of Black students were retained from the fall of their freshman year to the fall of their sophomore year. The average gap in six-year retention of Black students compared to White students at these universities was 23·7%· The retention rate for students who enrolled at the three universities between 2015 and 2019 and stayed at least until the fall of sophomore year was 73·97%· When retention rates were compared to changes in representation for each
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year, there was no significant correlation found between the two based on the data that was gathered.
Discussion
There are many reasons why a student may not complete their college education. Finances and life circumstances play a vital role in the ability to complete an education and are often out o f the student’s control. While it is possible that Black students have different experiences and difficulties in these areas than their White peers, this study examined how the stories universities tell through photographs affect the enrollment and retention of Black students.
As Tinto (1987) suggested, the ability to integrate academically and socially to a student’s university has a large impact on their desire to complete their education, and as McClain and Perry (2017) found, students naturally choose to stay in environments where they feel welcome. Including photos of ethnically diverse individuals in photos used for marketing efforts can give minorities the impression that they will find people ethnically similar to them on campus (Licsandru & Cui, 2019), but can backfire when students realize that their university is not as diverse as it appeared (Wilton et al. 2020).
Honest and careful communication about where a university stands in its diversity and where it wants to be is important, as it is arguably easier to give a negative impression than a positive one. The results of this study did not produce any examples of significant overrepresentations of Black individuals, but that does not mean that marketing visuals always portray an accurate picture of diversity (Pippert et al. 2013).
Because of the sampling method used and the size of the sample, the results of this study are limited in their generalizability. Future studies could overcome this by recreating this study and collecting a random sample of faith-based universities, or by studying the entire population.
Instagram is a relatively young social media platform, starting in 2010. As with all social media platforms, Instagram is constantly
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Visual Representation of Black Individuals in Marketing Materials |
Visual Representation of Black Individuals in Marketing Materials