1st Edition

Advertising Myths The Strange Half-Lives of Images and Commodities

By Anne Cronin Copyright 2004
    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    Advertising is often portrayed negatively, as corrupting a mythically pure relationship between people and things. In Advertising Myths Anne Cronin argues that it is better understood as a 'matrix of transformation' that performs divisions in the social order and arranges classificatory regimes. Focusing on consumption controversies, Cronin contends that advertising is constituted of 'circuits of belief' that flow between practitioners, clients, regulators, consumers and academics. Controversies such as those over tobacco and alcohol advertising, she argues, distil these beliefs and articulate with programmes of social engineering aimed at altering consumption patterns. This book will be essential reading for students and academics of advertising and consumption.

    List of plates Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction 1. Images, commodities and compulsions: consumption controversies of the nineteenth century 2. Advertising as site of contestation: criticisms, controversy and regulation 3. Advertising agencies: commercial reproduction and the management of belief 4. Animating images: advertisements, texts, commodities 5. Advertising reconsidered Notes Bibliography Index

    Biography

    Anne Cronin is a lecturer in the Sociology department, and at the Institute for Cultural Research, at Lancaster University. She has also published Advertising and Consumer Citizenship: Gender, Images and Rights (Routledge, 2000).