Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising (Feminist Media Studies)

Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising (Feminist Media Studies)

The revolution in military recruitment advertising to people of color and women played an essential role in making the US military one of the most diverse institutions in the United States. Starting at the dawn of the all-volunteer era, Jeremiah Favara illuminates the challenges at the heart of military inclusion by analyzing recruitment ads published in three commercial magazines: Sports Illustrated , Cosmopolitan , and Ebony . Favara draws on Black feminism, critical race theory, and queer of color critique to reveal how the military and advertisers affected change by deploying a set of strategies and practices called tactical inclusion. As Favara shows, tactical inclusion used representations of servicemembers in the new military to connect with people susceptible to recruiting efforts and rendered these new audiences vulnerable to, valuable to, and subject to state violence. Compelling and eye-opening, Tactical Inclusion combines original analysis with personal experience to chart advertising’s role in building the all-volunteer military. “A pleasure to read and learn from. Favara’s cogent and well-written study uses personal reflections and theoretically grounded prose to provide a compelling analysis. The interdisciplinary approach will appeal to a wide range of readers.”--Mary Douglas Vavrus, author of Postfeminist War: Women in the Media-Military-Industrial Complex Jeremiah Favara is an assistant professor of communication studies at Gonzaga University.