Despite boasting a long tradition of enterprise, the collective narrative of African-American entrepreneurship is one of marginal success, mainly because entrepreneurs experience an array of barriers, from segregation to lack of access to capital, that limits resiliency and increases susceptibility to shocks. Challenging this narrative are cases of entrepreneurial achievement that seem to coincide with periods of social change in the United States. This two-part study explored the effects of social movements on the trajectory of entrepreneurial firms. Study one delved into the business histories of six prominent African-American beauty industry entrepreneurs active during the First Great Migration, Civil Rights, and Black Lives Matter eras. Findings suggest that entrepreneurial opportunities and decision-making evolve as social action cycles progress. Study two scaffolded atop study one’s findings and concentrated on entrepreneurial actions inspired by change movements. Specifically, while movements are emergent, entrepreneurs respond to social and market constraints by introducing a service or product-based remedy. As movements progress, entrepreneurs carve and serve a defined niche while contending with whether to contract market positioning or expand it (bound-radiate paradox). It used the Golden Age of hip hop and its wake as the focal socio-cultural movement, along with its derivative streetwear fashion industry, to probe deeper into the interplay between social movements and entrepreneurial decision-making; it examined bound-radiate decisions and in doing so unlocked a novel value-based framework that motivates entrepreneurs to act, conceptualized via the Value-Based Three-States Model. Results expand the opportunity perception and realization literature and increase the knowledge base on conditions affecting the success of black-owned businesses. Study findings could be the foundation for a research-informed decision-making matrix that employs knowledge of patterns and trends to predict and respond to uncertainty and competition. The matrix could serve as a roadmap for aspiring and current entrepreneurs, along with their consultant allies, which helps read market directionality, informs strategic planning, and aids in the defter navigation of analogous circumstances. / Business Administration/Entrepreneurship

Beauty standards have perpetuated ideas of how women should look forever resulting in low self-esteem of women. Media have played a key role in these standards through advertising and modeling; however, Dove launched their Real Beauty Campaign to combat these standards and promote the inclusion of “real women” when it came to marketing and beauty standards. In 2018, Dove shifted the purpose of this campaign to include young girls, The Self-Esteem Project. I conducted an inductive and qualitative content analysis of 1000 comments left on Dove’s Real Beauty and Self-Esteem campaign videos to measure how the public’s perception of body image and this campaign as well as Dove changed over time, specifically throughout this shift in campaign messaging. Guided by a critical feminist theory lens, this study finds that as Dove’s videos became more focused on young girls there was an increased cynicism towards corporations. This cynicism was directed towards Dove with consumers questioning the motives behind the campaign. Additionally, there was an increased cynicism directed towards social media companies often blamed for perpetuation of beauty standards among girls. There was also an increased discussion around intersectionality and the effects that all aspects of a person’s identity can have on their experience with body image. This study found that the fourth wave of feminism that increased conversations around intersectionality and growing public knowledge of corporate social responsibility were responsible for the changes in public perceptions regarding the Dove Self-Esteem Project. / Media Studies & Production

I dagens snabbt växande sociala medielandskap står vi inför etiska frågor som ännu inte har diskuterats tillräckligt i takt med den digitala utvecklingen. Sociala medier spelar en betydande roll i att upprätthålla och sprida skönhetsideal på en skala vi aldrig tidigare skådat. Försköning av bilder har länge varit en praxis genom bildredigering och retuschering men fram till nyligen har det varit svårt för allmänheten att få tillgång till dessa verktyg. Det moderna sättet att manipulera utseendet på bilder och videoklipp för att efterlikna rådande skönhetsideal är genom användning av skönhetsfilter. Dessa filter är snabbt och enkelt tillgängliga på de flesta sociala medieplattformar, vilket möjliggör för samtliga sociala medieanvändare att utföra försköningsprocesser på sitt utseende online. Plattformen TikTok har snabbt etablerat sig som en dominant aktör inom sociala medier och erbjuder ett brett utbud av teknologiskt avancerade skönhetsfilter för videoklipp. Skönhetsfilter används flitigt på de korta videoklippen på TikTok, vilket väcker frågor kring hur de påverkar unga kvinnors självbild när de dagligen möts av manipulerade ansikten i sina flöden. Eftersom tidigare forskning har visat att en upprepad exponering för förskönade bilder på sociala medier har en negativ påverkan på användarnas självbild, är det av stor vikt att undersöka detta fenomen i en modern kontext. Därmed är det relevant att studera skönhetsfilter på rörligt material på den aktuella sociala medieplattformen TikTok. Genom en kvantitativ enkätmetod syftar denna studie till att bidra till forskningsfältet genom att undersöka sambandet mellan unga kvinnors attityd till skönhetsfilter på TikTok och filtrens påverkan på deras självbild. Resultaten visade att de flesta kvinnor upplever möjligheten till användning av skönhetsfilter som en dålig funktion i appen, och det framkom att filtren hade en negativ inverkan på deras självbild. Denna påverkan upplevdes extra stor vid exponering för innehåll med skönhetsfilter snarare än den egna skönhetsfilteranvändningen. Däremot hade de kvinnor som använder skönhetsfilter i högre utsträckning en mer positiv inställning till dem än de som inte gör det, trots de negativa effekterna de kan ha på deras självbild. / In today's fast-growing social media landscape, we are faced with ethical questions that have not yet been sufficiently discussed in pace with digital development. Social media has a significant role in maintaining and spreading beauty ideals to an unprecedented level. Beautifying images has long been a practice through image editing and retouching, but until recently it has been difficult for the general public to access these tools. Beauty filters have become the modern way to manipulate the appearance of one's photos and videos to emulate prevailing beauty ideals. These filters are quickly and easily available on most social media platforms, enabling any social media user to perform beautification processes on their appearance online. TikTok has quickly become a dominant social media giant, offering a wide range of technologically advanced beauty filters for videos. Beauty filters are widely used on the short videos on TikTok, which raises questions about how they affect the self-image of young women when they are daily met with manipulated faces in their feeds. Given the findings of previous research indicating that repeated exposure to enhanced images on social media negatively affects users' self image, it is of great importance to investigate this phenomenon within a contemporary context. Thus, there is considerable value in studying beauty filters for video formats on the popular social media platform TikTok. As a contribution to this research field, through a quantitative survey method, this study aims to investigate the correlation between young women's attitudes towards beauty filters on TikTok and the filters' impact on their self-image. The results showed that most women perceive the possibility of using beauty filters as a bad feature of the app, and it became evident that the filters had a negative impact on their self-image. This effect was perceived to be particularly significant when exposed to content with beauty filters, as opposed to their own utilization of such filters. However, the women who use beauty filters to a greater extent have a more positive attitude towards them than those who do not actively use them, despite the negative effects they can have on their self-image.

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It has become increasingly more common to promote cosmetic surgery on social media with the help of influencers. A debate about the phenomenon has recently been evoked in Swedish media, where concepts such as power and responsibility are often discussed. The study “Influencers, the ideals and the sponsored cosmetic surgeries” aims to shed light on how power relations and responsibility is portrayed in connection with influencers' marketing of cosmetic surgeries. By analyzing content from a documentary made by SVT, we have been able to distinguish different social actors who are assigned specific roles, where the documentary genre has an impact on how the content is presented which can have effects on the audience. The study's theoretical framework is based on theories of habitus, field and capital as well as the framing theory. The analysis is based on the method multimodal critical discourse analysis, where we have used analysis tools such as lexical choices, attributes and stage environment and social actors as well as Fairclough's three-dimensional model. In the result, we distinguished five distinctive discursive themes, where the result showed discourses about influencers as actors with power who are partially taking responsibility, although influencers being portrayed as victims were most prominent in the documentary. The discourse about society as a collective, platforms and clinics as actors with power was portrayed from a more critical perspective where a big part of the responsibility was placed on those actors, and not on the influencers promoting the surgeries. Another conclusion of the study is that the creators of the documentary have a big role in shaping the portrayals of the actors and the discourses in the documentary.

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This thesis explores the reception history of Antinous, favourite to the roman emperor Hadrian. Using Michel Foucault's genealogical method, the aim of the thesis is to examine and conclude that Antinous is still, albeit at times hidden, the archetype of the young beautifulman in Western visual culture by examining the expressions of the representation and reception of Antinous as a male ideal of beauty and its change over time. The thesis also poses the question whether it is possible, with the employment of Foucault’s concept of genealogy, to approach the development over time of Antinous’s discourse, and to establish that its core is a male ideal of beauty that can at any time be linked, explicitly or implicitly, to Antinous. Furthermore, in order to answer the research questions and thus, be able to trace Antinous's reception, this essay uses material that lies outside a purely art historical discipline. In addition to artistic and visual images of Antinous från antiquity to the late nineteen-eighties, widespread fiction from authors such as Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann and Herman Bang alongwith the feature films The Wings and Death in Venice have been thoroughly investigated in search of an Antinous type, along with the art historical writings of Johan Joachim Winckelmann and Viktor Rydberg. Lastly, the study succeeds in conveying that Antinous's distinctive traits, which arose from an apotheosis nearly two thousand years ago and which began when the historical figure Antinous ended his days in the Nile, have survived both a disappearance from the public consciousness and a coding as a homosexual icon and, for that specific reason, a concealment during different succeeding historical periods. Nevertheless, as this thesis establishes, the image and myth of Antinous has still operated whilst remaining in a hidden existence, and in spite of all the above, these traits have re-emerged as universal male traits in a typology of beauty whose overall significance for the male ideal is conspicuously provable.

The beauty industry has been around for centuries and keeps growing and developing daily. The industry has not been slowing down during the spread of the virus covid-19 but has had a fast platform change. Most brands today are available online and promoted by influencers on social media platforms. However, the question remains if it is achievable to get an equivalent experience of beauty products that one would get in-store online as when scrolling on social media.The purpose of this study was to see how beauty companies work with sensory marketing on their own and through influencers' social media platforms, with the effect of captivating young women's interest in their products and brand. The question of whether the effect of sensory marketing and the persona that influencers effuse on beauty products was a new gap. It was also interesting to see if customers are affected by sensory marketing and influencers when making an online beauty purchase decision. Beauty products are personal and specific and often seen as complex to buy online since they have particular formulations, scents, and colors. The empirical findings are conducted through a pilot interview with an extensive beauty company in the Swedish beauty sector. The interview with the head of sales gave the ground information and peeked into the workaround influencer and sensory marketing. Then that information could be used as a base for the questions in structured customer interviews. The findings were then presented and analyzed with the literature review to make a final result and answer the question.The conclusion of the thesis showed that the young women in generation Z were a part of the online beauty movement. Considering that most young women followed influencers where they got to learn, explore and get an insight, they could easily make purchase decisions. The result showed a positive effect on the combinations of influencers and sensory marketing on generation Z due to their perception. The result also showed a more significant effect on the trust of a persona than sensory marketing, as getting to know the influencer's personality had a more significant impact than something being aesthetically pleasing.