Framing of Student Veterans in Higher Education Institutions’ Marketing Messages

Abstract

Veterans are a growing student population in institutions of higher education in the U.S., and universities adopt a variety of marketing efforts to recruit them. With a focus on university marketing messages as a targeted and public way for universities to attract student veterans, the current study examines how student veterans are framed and presented in marketing messages. Qualitative analysis of the marketing messages put forth by 110 schools ranked as top 10 Military Friendly^® across 11 school types revealed three types of message framing: (1) deficit/challenge-based, (2) strength-based, and (3) support-based. The analysis revealed that most of the military-friendly schools’ marketing messages do not draw on strengths discourses to recruit student veterans. Rather, isomorphic messages communicate a deficit framing of student veterans through the subtle characterizations of student veterans as challenged and in need of institutional support to facilitate their success. Calling for a shift from deficits to strengths, this article discusses the implications of a strength discourse on universities’ marketing and student recruitment and engagement efforts.

Keywords:

• Higher education marketing
• marketing to student veterans
• student veterans
• student veterans’ strengths

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katie Sullivan

Katie Sullivan (PhD, University of Utah) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Katie’s research concerns diversity and inclusion, particularly the intersections between professionalization, gender, and embodiment, as well as the role of marketing and branding in contemporary professional life. Her work has been published in Gender, Work & Organization, Human Relations, Management Communication Quarterly, Organization, and Organization Studies.

Kay Yoon

Kay Yoon (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Her research concerns (a) communicative, technological, and sociocultural factors that influence knowledge sharing behaviors and performances in work teams and (b) team-based learning and pedagogy in higher education. She teaches a broad range of topic areas within the realm of Team and Organizational Communication at both undergraduate and graduate levels, including Team Processes, Leadership, Diversity, and Virtual Teams.

Rebecca Stephens

Rebecca Stephens (MA, University of Colorado Colorado Springs) is a recent graduate from the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Rebecca is entering the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in pursuit of a juris doctor.