1st Edition

Explorations in Critical Studies of Advertising

Edited By James F. Hamilton, Robert Bodle, Ezequiel Korin Copyright 2017
    294 Pages
    by Routledge

    294 Pages
    by Routledge

    This volume provides a thoughtful and wide-ranging exploration of approaches to the critical study of advertising. Current and impending practices of advertising have in many ways exceeded the grasp of traditional modes of critique, due at least in part to their being formulated in very different historical conditions. To begin to address this lag, this edited collection explores through critical discussion and application a variety of critical approaches to advertising. Authors address a variety of concrete examples in their chapters, drawing on existing research while presenting new findings where relevant. In order to maintain the relevance of this collection past this particular historical moment, however, chapters do not simply report on empirical work, but develop a theoretical argument.

    Introduction: Critical Traditions



    James F. Hamilton and Robert Bodle



     



    Part I: Critical Political Economy



    1. Marketers’ Influence on Media: Renewing the Radical Tradition for the Digital Age



    Jonathan Hardy



    2. App Advertising: The Rise of the Player Commodity



    David Nieborg



    3. Recovering Audience Labor from Audience Commodity Theory: Capitalizing on the Work of Signification



    Brice Nixon



    4. Contradiction and Crisis: The Political Economy of Promotional Authenticity



    James H. Wittebols



    5. Toward a Critical Ecological Theory of Advertising



    David Park



    Part II: Ideology Critique



    6. On the Futility of Advertising Critique: Searching for Alternatives



    Olga Fedorenko



    7. Art for Fun and Profit: The Political Aesthetics of Advertising



    Nicholas Holm



    8. Control and the Rhetoric of Interactivity in Contemporary Advertising Theory and Practice



    Chris Miles



    9. Captains of Habit Formation: Marketers’ Emerging Models of Mind



    Anthony Nadler and Lee McGuigan



    10. A Critical Theory of Advertising as Surveillance: Algorithms, Big Data, and Power



    Robert Bodle



    Part III: Critical Textual Analysis



    11. Signification Advertising and Its Evolution



    Felip Vidal Auladell



    12. Advertising and Photography in a Culture of Photo Sharing



    Iben Bredahl Jessen



    13. Towards a Critical Advertising Pedagogy: Defying Children’s Reasoning on Advertising



    Silke Lissens and Joke Bauwens



    Part IV: Critical Discursive/Rhetorical Analysis



    14. Mimicry as Analytical Category in Critical Advertising Research



    Nils S. Borchers



    15. Class and Advertising



    Matthew P. McAllister and Anna Aupperle



    16

    Biography

    James F. Hamilton is the James Kennedy Professor of New Media, Head of the Department of Entertainment and Media Studies, and Director of the New Media Institute at the University of Georgia, USA. Among his published work is Democratic Communications; Formations, Projects, Possibilities (2009) and Alternative Journalism (2009), co-written with Chris Atton.





    Robert Bodle is an Associate Professor of Communication and New Media Studies at Mount St. Joseph University and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Media, Journalism, and Film at Miami University, USA. He served as Co-Chair of the Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition at the UN Internet Governance Forum, and as a steering committee member of the IRP coalition since 2010.





    Ezequiel Korin is a PhD student in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, USA.