Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Is it possible that consumers exploit advertising even more so than advertising exploits and influences our culture? Author Jib Fowles argues that consumers look to advertising to provide them with images that can assist them in negotiating the personal dilemmas of advanced industrial life. Advertising and Popular Culture is the first comprehensive text to provide a balanced analysis of advertising and its companion, the popular culture, conveyed through the mass media. Reflecting current theories, this thoughtful critique uses excerpts from advertising campaigns to illustrate how modern advertising both draws from and contributes to popular culture. Fowles traces the role of advertising in our culture from its evolution as part of the culture of mass consumption in the late 19th century, the development of advertising agencies, and the creation of a consumer culture to an exploration of the major themes of American advertising. Advertising and Popular Culture represents a fresh and fully elaborated conceptualization of the services that advertising and popular culture provide. This text will be a vital tool in departments and schools of advertising, journalism, and communication where increasing emphasis is being placed on studying the cultural significance of advertising.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Energizers
• Origins
• Flagrant Criticisms
• The Dynamics behind the Advertisement
• The Dynamics of Popular Culture
• Exchanges
• The Surface of the Advertisement, Composed and Consumed
• Deciphering Advertisements
• Mixed Receptions
• The Project of the Self
• In Perspective

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Fowles examines the nature of the symbolic relationship between advertising and popular culture, two grand domains of public art in these times. Though their aims diverge they share much in common. Both are the careful products of sizable culture industries; both traffic heavily in images; each borrows themes, sounds, and personalities from, and frequently appears in the presence of, the other. Together they dominate today's environment of symbols, overriding more traditional forms of expression. The 11 comprehensive and well-documented chapters provide critical insights toward understanding these complex domains and their contemporary roles. Fowles's work includes discussion of the origins of advertising, the dynamics of advertising and popular culture, the themes and social values symbolized in advertising, and issues of self and gender. There are end-of-chapter notes; a subject index; an extensive bibliography of more than 300 references representing more than 275 different authors; and 46 product advertisements illustrating salient text discussion. A valuable resource for academics and professionals in advertising, media, and communication, as well as for research on the cultural significance of advertising and popular culture. R. R. Attinson CUNY College of Staten Island