Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising

Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising
Author: Luigi Daniele Manca
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 073917326X

The study of advertising and its treatment of utopian appeal enhance our understanding of consumer culture. By looking into the advertising page, we also look into consumers' desires and the process by which these desires are reshaped and rechanneled through images and narratives created solely for the purpose of making a sale. Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising: Dreams for Sale, edited by Luigi Manca, Alessandra Manca, and Gail W. Pieper, is a collection of essays which gather a host of academicians from a wide variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, literature, fine arts, history, religious studies, communication, and media studies. Through their expansive disciplinary expertise, the contributors bring unique insights to the analysis of the advertising page. The collection's cross-disciplinary investigation also examines gender images and narratives which, in the advertising page, are frequently associated with utopian fantasies. The analyses offered in Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising will appeal to any scholar or student engaged in mass media, communication, and the effect of advertising and consumerism on individuals and cultures.

Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising

Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising
Author: Luigi Manca
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0739173278

The study of advertising and its treatment of utopian appeal enhance our understanding of consumer culture. By looking into the advertising page, we also look into consumers’ desires and the process by which these desires are reshaped and rechanneled through images and narratives created solely for the purpose of making a sale. Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising: Dreams for Sale, edited by Luigi Manca, Alessandra Manca, and Gail W. Pieper, is a collection of essays which gather a host of academicians from a wide variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, literature, fine arts, history, religious studies, communication, and media studies. Through their expansive disciplinary expertise, the contributors bring unique insights to the analysis of the advertising page. The collection’s cross-disciplinary investigation also examines gender images and narratives which, in the advertising page, are frequently associated with utopian fantasies. The analyses offered in Utopian Images and Narratives in Advertising will appeal to any scholar or student engaged in mass media, communication, and the effect of advertising and consumerism on individuals and cultures.

Images of Utopia in the Advertising Page

Images of Utopia in the Advertising Page
Author: Luigi Manca
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2024-12-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1666959154

In this book, Luigi Manca and Alessandra Manca examine the use of utopian imagery in magazine advertisements from the 1970s through the early 2020s. Positing that these advertisements reflect the public’s unbridled desires, rather than reality itself, the authors argue that these idealistic reflections can lead the public to be unable or unwilling to recognize real threats to democracy, social justice, and the environment. They extend this analysis to argue that political moderates have long underestimated the ability of mass media and charismatic, radical politicians to tap into the utopian dreams of millions of disillusioned—and predominantly white—Americans to leverage these dreams in order to further their own political agendas. Ultimately, this cumulative study spanning decades of advertisement history portrays a consumer utopia shaped almost exclusively by unrestrained consumer desire.

Feminists, Feminisms, and Advertising

Feminists, Feminisms, and Advertising
Author: Kim Golombisky
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2017-10-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498528279

Women and advertising are both globally ubiquitous. Yet advertising remains one of the most unabashedly misogynist, heterosexist, and racist industries. This edited volume of original unpublished chapters is the first ever to offer explicitly feminist views on advertising. Feminists, Feminisms, and Advertising provides feminist analyses of the historical relationships between the advertising industry and the women’s movement in the United States. Contributors consider the ways that advertisers encode race, ethnicity, gender, and heteronormativity into advertising practices and messages exported around the world. They further explore the ways that intersectional audiences such as women of color, Latinas, and lesbian and gay audiences decode, reinterpret, resist, and subvert advertising. With this book, the editors and contributors address the present lack of feminist scholarship, research, knowledge, or curriculum in advertising, and begin a more honest dialogue about diversity and intersectional gender in the advertising academy as well as the advertising industry.

Consuming the Romantic Utopia

Consuming the Romantic Utopia
Author: Eva Illouz
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520917995

To what extent are our most romantic moments determined by the portrayal of love in film and on TV? Is a walk on a moonlit beach a moment of perfect romance or simply a simulation of the familiar ideal seen again and again on billboards and movie screens? In her unique study of American love in the twentieth century, Eva Illouz unravels the mass of images that define our ideas of love and romance, revealing that the experience of "true" love is deeply embedded in the experience of consumer capitalism. Illouz studies how individual conceptions of love overlap with the world of clichés and images she calls the "Romantic Utopia." This utopia lives in the collective imagination of the nation and is built on images that unite amorous and economic activities in the rituals of dating, lovemaking, and marriage. Since the early 1900s, advertisers have tied the purchase of beauty products, sports cars, diet drinks, and snack foods to success in love and happiness. Illouz reveals that, ultimately, every cliché of romance—from an intimate dinner to a dozen red roses—is constructed by advertising and media images that preach a democratic ethos of consumption: material goods and happiness are available to all. Engaging and witty, Illouz's study begins with readings of ads, songs, films, and other public representations of romance and concludes with individual interviews in order to analyze the ways in which mass messages are internalized. Combining extensive historical research, interviews, and postmodern social theory, Illouz brings an impressive scholarship to her fascinating portrait of love in America.

Generation X Goes Global

Generation X Goes Global
Author: Christine Henseler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2012-11-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136230327

This edited volume is the first book of its kind to engage critics’ understanding of Generation X as a global phenomenon. Citing case studies from around the world, the research collected here broadens the picture of Generation X as a demographic and a worldview. The book traces the global and local flows that determine the identity of each country’s youth from the 1970s to today. Bringing together twenty scholars working on fifteen different countries and residing in eight different nations, this book present a community of diverse disciplinary voices. Contributors explore the converging properties of "Generation X" through the fields of literature, media studies, youth culture, popular culture, sociology, philosophy, feminism, and political science. Their ideas also enter into conversation with fourteen other "textbox" contributors who address the question of "Who is Generation X" in other countries. Taken together, they present a highly interactive and open book format whose conversations extend to the reading public on the website www.generationxgoesglobal.com.

Urban Design Thinking

Urban Design Thinking
Author: Kim Dovey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2016-06-02
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1472568001

Urban Design Thinking provides a conceptual toolkit for urban design. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, it shows how the design of our cities and urban spaces can be interpreted and informed through contemporary theories of urbanism, architecture and spatial analysis. Relating abstract ideas to real-world examples, and taking assemblage thinking as its critical framework, the book introduces an array of key theoretical principles and demonstrates how theory is central to urban design critique and practice. Thirty short chapters can be read alone or in sequence, each opening a different kind of conceptual window onto how cities work and how they are transformed through design practice. Chapters range from explorations of urban morphology, typology, meaning and place identity to particular issues such as urban design codes, informal settlements, globalization, transit and creative clusters. This book is essential reading for those engaged with the practice of urban design and planning, as well as for anyone interested in the theoretical side of urbanism, architecture, and related disciplines.

Reading Ads Socially

Reading Ads Socially
Author: Robert Goldman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2005-07-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134938381

This systematic and authoritative book provides an unrivalled guide to understanding ad culture. It shows how the logic of commodities permeates the ways we think about ourselves, our relationships and our desires. Richly illustrated and written with great clarity, it will be essential reading for anyone interested in ad culture.

Advertising and Culture

Advertising and Culture
Author: Mary Cross
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 160
Release: 1996-07-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This unique collection of essays explores postmodern American culture and the shaping influence of advertising. Using contemporary theory, the authors present a wide variety of perspectives on advertising's methods, language, and cultural effects. Topics include the myths and promises of advertising, the selling of racial and gender stereotypes, the construction of corporate images, the postmodern discourse of advertising, its literary techniques, and its persuasive strategies. This scholarly approach to advertising will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of communication, cultural studies, and popular culture.