Why These Controversies?
When deciding which controversies to examine, I wanted to choose examples that were similar enough to compare, but different enough to reveal how public reactions to corporate messaging have changed over time. Both the Pepsi and American Eagle campaigns centered on social issues, even if they approached them in different ways. Pepsi explicitly invoked themes of protest and social justice. American Eagle's campaign, on the other hand, became entangled in conversations about race, beauty standards, and representation through audience interpretation. By selecting two campaigns released nearly a decade apart, I wanted to explore whether the relationship between corporations and audiences has changed alongside the evolution of social media and digital culture. The two controversies also had other similarities that aided with comparative analysis. This includes the inclusion, in both cases, of well known female celebrities who ended up being the face of each controversy.
Why an Interactive Timeline?
I chose to present this project as an interactive timeline because the timing of these controversies is just as important as the events themselves. One of the most striking aspects of both the Pepsi and American Eagle campaigns is how quickly public interpretation evolved. Within days, and in some cases, within hours, the conversation shifted from a company's intended message to an audience-created narrative that ultimately defined the campaign. Presenting these events chronologically allows viewers to watch that shift happen in real time rather than simply reading about it after the fact.
The timeline also highlights something that is often lost in discussions of viral controversies. They rarely end when the news cycle moves on. By extending each case study months and even years beyond the initial backlash, viewers can see how these campaigns continued to shape popular culture, corporate strategy, and public memory. Finally, placing the Pepsi and American Eagle controversies within the same timeline encourages viewers to see them not as isolated incidents, but as part of a broader history of corporate messaging in the digital age. Together, they illustrate an ongoing evolution in the relationship between corporations and their audiences.
Why Voyant?
While the timeline focuses on the sequence of events, I wanted another method that captured the conversations happening within those events. To do this, I manually collected tweets posted while each controversy was actively unfolding and analyzed them using Voyant Tools. Rather than focusing on individual opinions, I was interested in identifying the words and themes that appeared most frequently. The resulting word clouds provide a visual snapshot of each controversy's public discourse, revealing the concepts that dominated conversation during the moments when audience interpretations were taking shape.
Using Voyant also adds a quantitative dimension to a project that is otherwise largely qualitative. The timeline documents how narratives developed, while the word clouds provide evidence of the language audiences used as those narratives emerged. Comparing the two controversies in this way makes it possible to identify both shared patterns and meaningful differences in public discussion. This overall compliments the close analysis of individual advertisements with a broader view of collective audience response.