How the US military used magazines to target 'vulnerable' groups with recruiting ads
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Monday, May 1, 2023
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In his forthcoming book, “Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising,” Jeremiah Favara, a communication scholar at Gonzaga University, examines military recruitment ads published in three commercial magazines between 1973 – when the federal government ended the military draft – and 2016.
Key Points:
- In his forthcoming book, “Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising,” Jeremiah Favara, a communication scholar at Gonzaga University, examines military recruitment ads published in three commercial magazines between 1973 – when the federal government ended the military draft – and 2016.
- In the following Q&A, Favara explains the rationale behind his book and discusses some of its key findings.
Why did you decide to look at these ads?
- Scholars have argued that content in Sports Illustrated – known for its racy swimsuit editions – has long been designed to appeal to straight white men.
- My own research for the book and other scholarship has found that straight white men have consistently been portrayed in recruiting ads as ideal service members.
- Since the 1960s, Cosmopolitan has played a key role for advertisers in reaching self-sufficient working women as a consumer market.
How were the ads in each magazine distinct?
- But what was really distinct was how different ads portrayed different people as service members.
- Similarly, in the 1970s, ads published in Ebony portrayed the military as a site of equal opportunity for Black men.
- A series of Navy ads talked about a “new Navy” where Black men had opportunities they wouldn’t have had 20 years prior.
Were the magazine ads effective?
- While there is no way to know if the magazine ads – and not TV ads or other methods of recruiting – were directly responsible for increasing enlistments, my research for the book found that the publication of ads targeting Black recruits and women corresponded with high rates of enlistment from those groups.
- To me these demographic changes show how, as recruiting ads were being designed to reach women and Black recruits, the military itself was becoming more diverse.
- I am interested in exploring how ads created a certain vision of the military as what I call a tactically inclusive institution.
What does it mean to be ‘vulnerable’ to military ads?
- The term is not one that I or other scholars initially decided to use to describe what the military does.
- Propensity refers to the likelihood that individuals will serve in the military, regardless of whether or not they really want to join the military.
- One is deemed vulnerable to military service because of a lack of opportunities, resources, support or cultural capital that the military can promise.
Is your book pro-military, anti-military or neutral?
- I am interested in studying military inclusion and recruitment advertising in order to challenge and resist the violence of the military.
- It is this tension, between seeing military inclusion as an opportunity and as a risk and form of exploitation, that I grapple with in the book.