Sign Wars: Cluttered Landscape of Advertising, The

Rating:
Summary: Critical Theory at its best
Review: More than any other aspect of the media, advertising is the one we are most exposed to, and yet it is also the one we think the least about. Advertising is just background wallpaper after all; an annoying pause between programs that we have learnt, with the aid of a remote control, to effectively ignore. Our principle experience of most advertising, after all, is its almost total meaninglessness. The notion that advertising is steadily eroding our sense of subjectivity, depleting our experience of history and community, and is catapulting us into a post-modern world of surface and simulacra, would come as a surprise to most people. Yet this is just what the authors maintain is happening in this brilliant study of the glossy "shop front window" of corporate capitalism.

Advertising does more than sell products, it abstracts the lifeworld we inhabit, repackages it, and sells it back to us as a commodity fantasy. It does this by creating a mode of communication that elides all conflict, politics and alternative viewpoints from its hailing message, bombarding us with images of untroubled consumption as the solution to all of lifes problems. From the personal to the environmental, purchasing the right ensemble of comsumer goods has come to define our relationship with one another and the world in general. The catch in all this, however, is that advertising, like all propaganda, cannot work without at least simulating authenticiy. Unable to generate any of its own it is forced to ransack any system of meaning it can lay its hands on. History, the family, science, Jimi Hendrix, anything that posesses cultural capital is grist for the advertising mill. The trouble is that this is a finite source. With the average advertising campaign lasting about 90 days, the rate at which advertising is trashing our belief systems is accelerating at an alarming rate. The effect of all this is to devalue and put into jeopardy the very beliefs that our society is founded upon. The sort of subject this produces is a remote control wielding, jaded, cynical and passive consumer who believes in nothing beyond his next trip to the mall ("cathedrals of consumption" in the authors evocative phrase).

Sign Wars is on of those rare books that change the way you look at the world. In an age where the siren song of nihilism is trying to seduce us all, reading this book is an empowering experience. I highly recommend it.