Shane Gunster Spring
2005
Email: sgunster@sfu.ca
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Prequisites: 60 credit
hours, including two of CMNS 220, 221, 223 or 226. Strongly
recommended: CMNS 362 or 363.
Outline: Advertising is everywhere in contemporary
society. From television and the
Internet to newspapers and magazines, people are exposed to thousands of
advertising ‘impressions’ every day. Beyond individual ads, media convergence and the quest for
‘synergies’ has increasingly transformed all forms of culture into tools of
marketing and promotion. What are
the social, cultural and political implications of these developments? How does advertising and ‘promotional
culture’ affect the society in which we live, our value structures and belief
systems and our ideas about what constitutes ‘the good life’?
In this
course, our primary objective is to critically explore contemporary advertising
as it connects to larger questions of society and culture. Our focus will not be the ‘nuts and bolts’ of
the advertising industry, nor will the course teach you how to create advertising
campaigns or design marketing strategies.
Instead, we will draw upon different critical theories and empirical
research methods as a means of reflecting upon the broader social and cultural
dimensions of advertising.
The course
begins with an introductory discussion of how advertising is both reflective
and constitutive of a postmodern social and cultural environment. We then examine some of the dominant
characteristics of postmodern advertising campaigns using case studies of the
representation of capitalism, the appropriation of natural imagery and the
construction of ‘postmodern’ brands such as Nike. In the latter half of the course, we broaden
our focus beyond consumer advertising to consider themes such as advertising
and the public interest, the commercialization of children’s culture, political
advertising, globalization, consumer research and new media.
Weekly Course Themes:
Course
Introduction
Advertising,
Postmodernity and Promotional Culture
Sign Wars: A
Critical Semiotics of Postmodern Advertising
Landscapes
of Global Capital: Advertising and the Representation of Capitalism
Signifiers
of Authenticity: Nature and Advertising
Branding:
From Modern to Post-Modern
Advertising
and the Public Interest: From Regulation to Culture Jamming
Selling (to)
Kids: Advertising, Children and Commercial Culture
From Citizen
to Consumer: Politics and Advertising
Advertising
and Globalization
Consumer
Research, Advertising and the Changing Media Landscape
New Media
and the Future of Advertising
Conclusions
and Review
Course Format: The course is organized around a series of
weekly themes that will be explored in lectures, readings and tutorial
discussion. While there will be some
overlap between the lectures, readings and tutorials, there will also be
important material that is only covered in one or the other. In other words, you are expected to do the
readings, attend the lectures and the tutorials to cover all the material that
you will be tested upon and which you will have to draw upon in your research
projects.
Course Texts:
Robert
Goldman and Stephen Papson, Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of
Advertising (The Guilford Press, 1996)
A courseware
package will be available from the bookstore.
Assignments:
Tutorial: 20%
Critical ad review: 20%
Research proposal/bibliography: 5%
Research essay: 30%
Take-home exam: 25%
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).