Lecture 3 - Advertising, Publicity and the media

- 25 million print adverts produced a year
- 11,000 new commercial in the UK each year
- Pop ups target
Karl Marx
Critique of consumer/commodity culture
- We construct our identities through consumer products
Stewart Enwein 'the commodity self'
Judith Williamson author of Decoding Advertisements instead of being identified by the produce
- Symbolic associations - symboliclly associate life traits to a meaningless product.

How does commodity culture perpetuate false needs?

- Aesthetic innovation
- Planned obsolescence
- Novelty
- Makes us believe we need to buy things to feel satisfied in the world

Aesthetic inovation: Look, style
Novelty: something thats new
Planned Obsolenscence: products designed to break. trick to keep us spending/consuming

- Advertising conceals the background ' history' of products. the context in which a product is produced is kept hidden.

Reification
- Products are given human associations

Frankfurt school. Herbert Marcouse author of 'one dimensional man' - commodity culture manipulates us and makes us think one dimensionally.

conclusion:
Advertising makes us unhappy with existing material possessions. it potentially maipulates people into buying products that they dont really need and dont really want.

It encourages addictive, obsessive and acqusitive.

It uses images that encourage us to buy products and brands that have the potential to be unhealthy.

It encourages unnecessary production and consumption therefore depleting the worlds resources and spoiling the environment.