Media & Consumer Culture
Introduction
This course approaches the study of advertising, media and consumer culture from both an historical and a critical, analytical perspective. We will also pay attention to the cultural and economic role of advertising in relation to the media. Advertising will be examined within the context of the continuing history of consumer culture. We will focus mainly on print and television advertising and topics will include the development of consumer culture; modernity and postmodernity; concepts of the self and modes of audience address; corporate culture; myth, fantasy, realism and so on.
This course will not be concerned with the effects of advertising on individuals or groups (such as children) since no one has yet devised a way to measure such effects. Rather, attention will be on the larger and more complex issues relating to the social functions of advertising: that is, the economic, political, ideological and cultural implications of the meanings circulated by advertising across media within a rapidly changing consumer culture.
Although student projects may focus on a wide range of issues, emphasis should always be on critical approaches to advertising and its cultural implications and social roles.
Technical Requirements
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High speed internet connection -
Apple iTunes and Quicktime (Windows XP/2000 free download) (Mac free download)
Required Texts
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Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) Get it here.
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Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Sign Wars (New York: Guilford, 1996) Get it here.
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Two articles available on courseweb
Online Resources
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Links Just a few links to help you find resources and ads to write on. See below for more.
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Delicious Bookmarks (Password: commrc) This account contains links to ads and materials tagged according to module topic and product or brand name. Post your own links to ads on this site to share with the class and add appropriate tags.
Class Blog
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The courseweb blog is for the students and instructor of commrc 1126 to post ads or other media, provide intelligent commentary and generate discussions. You can post your reading responses there if you like. See below.
(click on the headings below for more details)
1)Midterm paper; 30% (due 10/26)
Please hand in a 6 page (1500 words) typed, double spaced critical analysis of early 20th century advertising.
2)Term paper; 35% (due 12/11)
An 6 page (1500 words) typed, double spaced paper on a topic of your choice.
3a)7 Weekly reading responses & ad analysis 35% (due 3 modules out of 6 in Unit 1; 4 modules out of 7 in Unit 2)
You are asked hand in a 1-2 page, 250-500 word analysis of an advertisement. These analyses should be a direct response to that week’s reading. Thus, you will take a concept, or critical approach from the reading and apply it to an advertisement from the library or found on your own. These must be submitted to the courseweb digital dropbox by 5pm Fridays. Each response will be graded out of 10. No extensions except for documented illness.
Or:
3b) The Blog option
35% (due 3 modules out of 6 in Unit 1; 4 modules out of 7 in unit 2)
Rather than write your reading responses/analysis as traditional papers, join our blogging community on courseweb, post your written work on the blog, comment on the posts of others, create and contribute to active and intelligent class discussions. The grading criteria for this blog option are essentially the same as the papers: 250-500 words of intelligent, relevant discussion of ads and reading. Simply gather your posts and comments for that week, and put them in a document and put it in the Courseweb dropbox on Friday.
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To integrate close, textual analysis with a concern for the larger cultural and social issues that surround media, advertising and the history of consumer culture
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Practice sophisticated cultural criticism
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Empowerment through media literacy
Plagiarism: Zero tolerance; no second chances.
According to University of Pittsburgh policy, plagiarism is submitting work as your own that is someone else’s. Copying material from a source without acknowledging that the work or idea is someone else’s and not your own is plagiarism. If you use someone else’s ideas, even if you paraphrase the wording, appropriate credit must be given. Changing a word or two in a sentence is still plagiarism. Changing every second or third word is still plagiarism. Plagiarism shows a lack of integrity, is dishonest and is poor scholarship.
It is appropriate and expected that you draw upon outside sources and borrow ideas and methods in your writing. You must always, however, cite your sources. All quotations must be enclosed in quotation marks followed by a footnote, endnote or bracketed reference. If you paraphrase you must clearly indicate in the text where the paraphrase begins: “Marchand suggest that…” and ends: …(Marchand, 123). See the APA, MLA, Chicago or another style guide for proper format for references. All cited materials, including internet sources, must be listed in your bibliography.
Failure to cite any and all sources for your paper will be considered plagiarism. Plagiarism cases will be briefly discussed between the student and instructor and will then be referred to Academic Integrity Hearing Board or Officer. Based on the conclusion of the Board or Officer, the minimum penalty for confirmed plagiarism will be an F on the assignment.
G grades (incompletes):
Incompletes (g- or I-grade) will only be granted prior to the last week of classes. Students must make their request in writing, stating the reasons (no details please) and a date when work will be completed. After that, students are responsible for handing in late work.
Submission and rewrites:
Papers should be submitted to the courseweb digital dropbox by midnight of the due date. Late papers will not be considered for rewrites. Late papers will be graded without comments
Students with disabilities:
If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and Disability Resources and Services, 216 WPU, 412-648-7890/412-383-7355 (TTY), as early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course.
Joel (Jody) Baker Ph.D.
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Skype: jodybaker
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IM (AIM): jodypittsburgh
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IM (Jabber): jodybaker@gmail.com
Module 1: Introduction: How to Complete a Module
Monday, August 31, 2009
Welcome to Commrc 1126.
Listen to a short lecture to get started. This lecture introduces the instructor and the course. It covers assignments and course structure.
view lecture...
Monday, September 7, 2009
The emergence of modern advertising in the context of broad and radical social changes that occurred in the 1920s.
Monday, September 14, 2009
This Module deals with two main topics: the ways audiences are conceptualized and the representation of class in early advertising.
Module 4:
The Consumption Ethic
Monday, September 21, 2009
While this module shows the introduction of art and style in advertising and products, this change signals a major ideological shift toward the values of consumption.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Social tableaux represent the basic structure in which meaning is transferred between the culture as a whole and products.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Advertisers in the 1920s quickly developed a sophisticated visual language to represent social life and link their meanings to products.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Advertisers in the 1920s quickly developed a sophisticated visual language to represent social life and link their meanings to products.
Module 7: Therapeutics as Hegemony
Monday, October 12, 2009
1920’s advertising offered a kind of therapy: it provided the means for acculturation to modern life, adaptation to its new, faster pace and accommodation to its contradictions and dissatisfactions.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Semiotics is an attempt to analyze the structure of language – in this case, the language of advertising. An ad is a structure that translates the language of people into the language of objects and vice versa.
Monday, October 26, 2009
As competition for brand identity intensifies, “sign wars” emerge in advertising where the process of differentiation turns to direct confrontation between products and their corresponding sign values.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Hypersignification is found in ads that no longer signify anything but the process of signification itself, often taking the form of parody or spoof.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Ads express viewer alienation by drawing upon cultural resistance, attacking mainstream values, using shock effects, negative appellation and by attacking advertising and consumer culture itself. Happy Morning!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Nostalgic ads draw upon a longing for a simpler past. They offer commodities as a means to access a mythic past and its imagined places.
Monday, November 30, 2009
If consumers are concerned with leading authentic lives in a mass-produced world, how can advertisers wrap those mass-produced goods in the glow of authenticity.
Module 14: PR & Corporate Politics
Monday, December 7, 2009
Ads always sell more than the product; they sell the corporation that produces it as well as the economic system of capitalism as a whole.
