{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/110731"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/110731","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Investigating representational biases in stock photo website search results","abstract":"Stock photos have been widely used in various media, such as newspapers and blogs. They are relatively understudied in media and advertising, perhaps because the concept of stock photos encompasses a wide range of images, and websites dedicated to gathering, displaying, and selling stock photos haven't been popular until recent decades. Therefore, this paper aims to bring into light the representation biases that digital stock photos have regarding races and genders across different occupations. Compared to the employment statistics dataset published by the US Labor of Bureau Statistics and to the ideal situation where all genders and races are represented equally, stock photos collected from Shutterstock have demonstrated different degrees of representation bias regarding perceived race and gender. Stock photo creators have used several techniques to make their images suitable for a wide range of topics and audiences, including using illustrations instead of actual photos, taking pictures about parts of human bodies (primarily hands and arms), and depicting people's silhouettes and shadows. These techniques can undoubtedly improve the diversity of stock photos, but their effects are limited as many visual cues for genders and races still exist. Finally, whether jobs are popular in rural and metropolitan areas in the United States has mixed effects on perceived gender and racial biases.","abstract_html":"Stock photos have been widely used in various media, such as newspapers and blogs. They are relatively understudied in media and advertising, perhaps because the concept of stock photos encompasses a wide range of images, and websites dedicated to gathering, displaying, and selling stock photos haven't been popular until recent decades. Therefore, this paper aims to bring into light the representation biases that digital stock photos have regarding races and genders across different occupations. Compared to the employment statistics dataset published by the US Labor of Bureau Statistics and to the ideal situation where all genders and races are represented equally, stock photos collected from Shutterstock have demonstrated different degrees of representation bias regarding perceived race and gender. Stock photo creators have used several techniques to make their images suitable for a wide range of topics and audiences, including using illustrations instead of actual photos, taking pictures about parts of human bodies (primarily hands and arms), and depicting people's silhouettes and shadows. These techniques can undoubtedly improve the diversity of stock photos, but their effects are limited as many visual cues for genders and races still exist. Finally, whether jobs are popular in rural and metropolitan areas in the United States has mixed effects on perceived gender and racial biases.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Song, Hang"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Karahalios, Karrie"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2021,"date_issued":"2021-09-17T02:34:45Z","date_published":"2021-09-17T02:34:45Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:52Z","subjects":["Stock photo","algorithm auditing","HCI","social computing"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2021 Hang Song"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110731","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Karahalios, Karrie"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Song, Hang"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2021-09-17T02:34:45Z","2023-09-17T02:34:57Z","2021-04-28","2021-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Stock photo","algorithm auditing","HCI","social computing"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2021 Hang Song"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110731"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Stock photos have been widely used in various media, such as newspapers and blogs. They are relatively understudied in media and advertising, perhaps because the concept of stock photos encompasses a wide range of images, and websites dedicated to gathering, displaying, and selling stock photos haven't been popular until recent decades. Therefore, this paper aims to bring into light the representation biases that digital stock photos have regarding races and genders across different occupations. Compared to the employment statistics dataset published by the US Labor of Bureau Statistics and to the ideal situation where all genders and races are represented equally, stock photos collected from Shutterstock have demonstrated different degrees of representation bias regarding perceived race and gender. Stock photo creators have used several techniques to make their images suitable for a wide range of topics and audiences, including using illustrations instead of actual photos, taking pictures about parts of human bodies (primarily hands and arms), and depicting people's silhouettes and shadows. These techniques can undoubtedly improve the diversity of stock photos, but their effects are limited as many visual cues for genders and races still exist. Finally, whether jobs are popular in rural and metropolitan areas in the United States has mixed effects on perceived gender and racial biases.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2023-05-01","The student, Hang Song, accepted the attached license on 2021-04-22 at 18:34.","The student, Hang Song, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2021-04-22 at 18:37.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2021-04-28 at 14:59.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16515 on 2021-09-16 at 17:04:53","Made available in DSpace on 2021-09-17T02:34:45Z (GMT). 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They are relatively understudied in media and advertising, perhaps because the concept of stock photos encompasses a wide range of images, and websites dedicated to gathering, displaying, and selling stock photos haven't been popular until recent decades. Therefore, this paper aims to bring into light the representation biases that digital stock photos have regarding races and genders across different occupations. Compared to the employment statistics dataset published by the US Labor of Bureau Statistics and to the ideal situation where all genders and races are represented equally, stock photos collected from Shutterstock have demonstrated different degrees of representation bias regarding perceived race and gender. Stock photo creators have used several techniques to make their images suitable for a wide range of topics and audiences, including using illustrations instead of actual photos, taking pictures about parts of human bodies (primarily hands and arms), and depicting people's silhouettes and shadows. These techniques can undoubtedly improve the diversity of stock photos, but their effects are limited as many visual cues for genders and races still exist. Finally, whether jobs are popular in rural and metropolitan areas in the United States has mixed effects on perceived gender and racial biases.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2023-05-01","The student, Hang Song, accepted the attached license on 2021-04-22 at 18:34.","The student, Hang Song, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2021-04-22 at 18:37.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2021-04-28 at 14:59.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16515 on 2021-09-16 at 17:04:53","Made available in DSpace on 2021-09-17T02:34:45Z (GMT). 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