SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION
CMNS 323-4

CULTURAL DIMENSIONS IN ADVERTISING

Prerequisite:

CMNS 260 or 363; CMNS 221 or 223; one of CMNS 220, 226 or 230. For Prerequisite waivers – see Undergraduate Advisor (Lucie).

This course introduces students to the study of advertising in an expanded field by considering some of the historical and philosophical dimensions of the communicational practice of persuasion. To this end, we will examine several classical accounts of persuasion and rhetoric in order to develop a fuller understanding of the promotional ethos of the modern age. In one sense, the course is an extended analysis of the ways in which images, objects, environments, and ideas are created and deployed in the interest of social influence. At a time when the notion of the “commodity self” captures the spirit of contemporary consumerism, it would seem a valuable exercise to retrace the steps market economies have followed in constituting the individual as a vehicle for promotional appeals.

In discussing the aesthetic dimensions of advertising, we will attempt to situate this field of social persuasion within a history of the evolution of applied arts in market-industrial societies. We will look specifically at how advertising discourse frames and molds other means of social expression, including gender, politics, religion, popular culture, science, art, and family. We will also consider the claim that promotional discourse has become a predominant way of constructing truth in contemporary high-intensity-market-industrial cultures.

Required Readings:

Ritzer, George, Enchanting A Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of
Consumption. Pine Forge Press 1999. ISBN 0-7619-8511-5.
A Course Reader is required and will be available from the bookstore.

Grading:

Mid-Term Exam 25%
Research Paper 30%
Final Exam 30%
Participation 15%

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty” and “Academic Discipline” (see the current Calendar, General Regulations section).