Ads are ubiquitous. Contemporary media-literate audiences know that one-third of a half-hour sitcom will be commercials, that magazines will contain more ads than articles, and that they will be bombarded with advertisements on the internet. The pervasiveness of ads has created spectators who are: "increasingly media-literate, cynical, and alienated...and because the number of ads continues to increase (clutter), advertising has undermined its own effectiveness by unintentionally negating the ability and the desire of viewers to respond" (Goldman and Papson, 83).
Advertisers have appropriated this post-modern discourse of alienation, giving it a sign value that they can attach to their product. Alienation consequently becomes a means through which advertisers can differentiate their product; consumers can claim to distance themselves from consumer culture and individuate themselves by purchasing the product so advertised (87). It is ironic that spectators who distrust the simulacrum of advertising are offered a discourse about the world of ads as a substitute for the authenticity (101) that would arguably end their alienation. The print ads examined in this essay reflexively acknowledge and foreground the shallowness of the fashion industry and the commodity culture of which it is an integral part, thereby excusing the product's appeal on the grounds of its fashionability. Judith Williamson states one "can only understand what advertisements mean by finding out how they mean" (Williamson, 42). In other words, one must understand the process of signification through which an ad transfers signs from cultural systems of meaning onto its product. According to semiologist Roland Barthes, this process of signification involves three...
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... increasing advertising clutter, consumers have become jaded and alienated. Advertisers have appropriated this widespread cynical media-literacy, employing discourses of alienation from consumer culture and advertising to differentiate their products. Advertisers offer a reflexive discourse about the world of ads and commodity culture as a substitute for the authenticity that would end consumer alienation. The advertisements discussed in this essay reflexively acknowledge and highlight the frivolity and triviality of the fashion industry, its marketing techniques, and the consumer culture of which it is an integral part in order to excuse and endorse their product's appeal on the grounds of its style. Ironically, this reflexive advertising moves consumers farther and farther away from any sense of authenticity and only increases feelings of alienation and cynicism.
There is an undoubtedly enormous influence on the world by consumerism. Consumerism and capitalism shape the nation that we live in today. Everyone knows this because they see advertisements all day long on television, on the radio, on billboards and through hundreds of other mediums. Unfortunately, what the world is not exposed to is what goes on behind the marketing and the ultimate final sale. There is a dark side to capitalism created not only by shady merchants, but the worldwide multi-national companies as well. What both of these excerpts portray is the idea that there is more to the products we buy than we are told, or unfortunately, that we bother to ask about. Through the use of interviewing, traveling, and criticism, these authors do a fine job in analyzing the relationships between branding and marketing, and more importantly, between our modern day consumption habits and hidden production processes.
Thomas Frank’s book entitled The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism takes a poignant look at the advertising world of the 1950’s and 1960’s, exploring how advertising played a role in shaping the next generation of consumers. Frank points out that he believes many misunderstand how important the key industries of fashion and advertising were to the shaping of our consumer culture, especially in getting Americans to rethink who they were. The industry of advertising was not conforming to the upcoming generation, instead the new consumer generation was conforming to the ideals of the advertising industry. Frank believes that the advertising and fashion industries were changing, but not to conform to the new generation, instead to shape a new generation of consumers.
Have you ever seen an advertisement for a product and could immediately relate to the subject or the product in that advertisement? Companies that sell products are always trying to find new and interesting ways to get buyers and get people’s attention. It has become a part of our society today to always have products being shown to them. As claimed in Elizabeth Thoman’s essay Rise of the Image Culture: Re-Imagining the American Dream, “…advertising offered instructions on how to dress, how to behave, how to appear to others in order to gain approval and avoid rejection”. This statement is true because most of the time buyers are persuaded by ads for certain products.
It will not be exaggerated if we conclude that we are 'soaked in this cultural rain of marketing communications' through TV, press, cinema, Internet, etc. (Hackley and Kitchen, 1999). But if thirty years ago the marketing communication tools were used mainly as a product-centered tactical means, now the promotional mix, and in particular the advertising is focused on signs and semiotics. Some argue that the marketers' efforts eventually are "turning the economy into symbol so that it means something to the consumer" (Williamson, cited in Anonymous, Marketing Communications, 2006: 569). One critical consequence is that many of the contemporary advertisements "are selling us ourselves" (ibid.)
First, immigrants come to the U.S. to work and bring valuable skills which help grow the economy despite the negative views surrounding their part in the U.S. economy. Since the 2008-2009 recession the view on immigration and its effects on the economy has been more negative than positive (Peri, 2012). A study done by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government found that about 50 percent of American adults believe that immigrants burden the country because they, “take jobs, housing, and healthcare”, while the other 50 percent believe that, “immigrants strengthen the country due to their hard work and talents” (Delener & Ventilato, 2008). Over the past decade, “over half of the increase in the U.S. labor force,… was the result of immigration-l...
‘Semiology provides the analyst with a conceptual toolkit for approaching sign systems systematically in order to discover how they produce meaning’ (Bawer et. all, 2000: 227). Advertising is one of the typically elements used for a convincing presentation product or service to the buyer or user. Advertising provides the link between products or service and people. To be efficient, it must correspond to products and to be relevant for people, expressing and sustaining competitive advantages. My image appears in Glamour, a specialized publication for women, which cultural context is gender, thus providing a greater degree of authority and the intention is to promote the reputation and sales of the perfume. The image is a collection of signs, these signs may include paradigmatic and systematic elements such as the name of the perfume, the fonts used, the colors or the women which appears with an green apple in her hand. ‘The goal of semiotics in the study of advertising is, ultimately, to unmask the arrays of hidden meanings in the underlying level, which form what can be called signification systems’ (Beasley et.all, 2002: 20). It is obvious that in the interpretation of an image controversies can arise and the meaning could be different from person to person due to the cultural level or ways of image analysis, because the reader approaches an image from a personal ideological perspective. Here we can say that the link between signified and signifier is essential. Signifier, is the particular te...
In regard to consumerism and gender, I find two figures—Hannah Hoch and James Rosenquist--connected. Hoch once worked for a women's magazine of the huge Ullstein Press while Rosenquist once earned his living as a billboard painter at Artkraft-Strauss. They had been working within the mass media during the day and using the fragments from the industry to create art works at night before they moved to their own studios. The Beautiful Girl (1919-1920) and The Light That Won’t Fail I (1961) are examples I will use to explore consumerism and the relationship between consumerism and gender. As insiders of the mass culture, Hoch and Rosenquist take both content and technique from the visual vocabulary of mass consumption and transform them into art. Their approaches of creating art pieces witness changes in the consumer world at different time periods of history. As manifested in their works, The Beautiful Girl and The Light That Won’t Fail I, photomontage and billboard-like painting resemble the forms of advertising. And their different kinds of juxtaposition embody the experience of the consumer world and the artists’ allegorical comment on consumerism and gender.
Those who support immigrants being protected by the law believe that immigrants help the economy by creating lower wages which enables companies to make better profits. According to Becky Akers and Donald J. Boudreaux, immigrants “should be allowed to contribute to the United States economy in the Constitutional and legal precepts that guarantee all immigrants the opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness in the United States” (22). If immigrants were not here in the United States, the jobs they do might not even get done by anyone else (Isidore 103). Immigrants fill up the jobs that many Americans do not want. “Specialization deepens. Workers’ productivity soars, forcing employers to compete for their time by offering higher pay” (Akers and Boudreaux 25). As researcher Ethan Lewis said, “Economics professor, Patricia Cortes, studied the way immigrants impact prices in 25 large United States metropolitan areas. She discovered that a 10-percent increase in immigration lowered the price...
It was even before the counter culture took hold in the media that admen were rejecting technical expertise and bureaucracy, feuding with traditional means of advertising that put emphasis on rationality, rules, and statistics (56). Advertising reached a Creative Revolution, in which firms like Doyle Dane Bernbach lead the way in giving creative workers more say, and governed more opposition to traditional orders of power within the industry (57). It was also in advertising’s quest for creativity that it found a new understanding of consumerism. The industry recognized the need for nonconformity as an element of a shifted capitalism, and in turn rethought its ads in order to make similar products stand out and offer consumers the chance to be idolized and admired
Advertising is so prominent in American culture, and even the world at large, that this media form becomes reflective of the values and expectations of the nation’s society at large.
Jean Kilbourne is passionate about an array of topics when it comes to advertising, but her message is clear: we cannot escape advertisements and they are influencing our minds. Socialization and the Power of Advertising illustrates this using children and consumerism. Killing Us Softly 4’s main example is women. Either way, advertisements are negatively impacting us and, as Kilbourne points out, it’s getting worse. Whatever the solution is, we have to put an end to the experience of being immersed in an advertising
In 'Desiree?s Baby,' Chopin illustrates her idea of the relationship between men and women by portraying Desiree as vulnerable and easily affected, whereas Armand is presented as superior and oppressive. Throughout ?Desiree?s Baby,? Kate Chopin investigates the concept of Armand's immense power over Desiree. At first, Desiree tries to conform to the traditional female role by striving to be an obedient wife. Later in the story, this conformity changes after Desiree gives birth to her part-black son.
Due to the ever-increasing number of brands, and the way people associate products with their lives, several authors have discussed the controversy of manipulation of advertisements, the way Daniel Harris always thought that consumers are irrational, manufacturers are controlling them in his book “Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic”
“The average family is bombarded with 1,100 advertisements per day … people only remembered three or four of them”. Fiske’s uses an example of kids singing Razzmatazz a jingle for brand of tights at a woman in a mini skirt. This displayed to the reader that people are not mindless consumers; they modify the commodity for their use. He rejects that the audiences are helpless subjects of unconscious consumerism. In contrast to McDonald’s, Fiske’s quoted “they were using the ads for their own cheeky resistive subculture” he added. He believed that instead of being submissive they twisted the ad into their own take on popular culture (Fiske, 1989, p. 31)
His research and publications address environmental thought, cultural inquiry, philosophy of art and culture, holistic well-being, and, applied philosophy and ethics. His book Fashion Myths: A Cultural Critique, discusses advertisements of fashion, and fashion-related goods from a philosophic-anthropological perspective within a contemporary cultural context. In other words, understanding the thoughts of consumers when watching advertisements and making purchases. Understanding the matter from an anthropological perspective, as well as from a design perspective, allows for insight into the matter through an interdisciplinary approach, aiding in understanding the situation from both sides: designer and