Adcult USA

Rating:
Summary: Leads you to better know what is going on in our minds!
Review: The premise of AdcultUSA-that advertising is the "dominant meaning-making system of modern life" [p. 253]-is argued compellingly and authenticated meticulously with numerous examples, photos, and anecdotes. Yet the messages about the transformative impact of advertising on contemporary American culture are downright disconcerting. On many levels, advertising has shaped our shared myths, our self concepts, and our marking of calendric time. [p. 124] People relate to each other by the commercials they have experienced and consumed rather than by the books they have read or the human interactions they have shared.

We embrace advertising; we also blame it and give it vastly accentuated power. However, demonizing advertising says alot about human passivity in the face of complexity [p. 111]. Whereas it can be argued that advertisers are the primary censors of media content in the U.S. today [p. 119], and engage in intermingling fact and fiction [p. 134], the culture of advertising-adcult-arose and gained prominence by us as customers and consumers participating actively and passively in its meteoric rise. In many ways, we have consented to allowing our minds to be treated as a rental space for brand-name products ranging from jeans and perfume to cars and snack foods.

Author James Twitchell, a professor of English at the University of Florida, asserts that "advertising is the culture developed to expedite the central problem of capitalism: the distribution of surplus goods." [p. 41] The two principal advertisers in America today are corporations which manufacture and distribute alcohol and tobacco products. According to his research, these industries collectively control 65% of newspaper space and 22% of television time. And repeated and defensible parallels between advertising culture and Christianity are drawn. Twitchell argues that both are systems for organizing value in society and in individual human lives.

This book should be read and re-read by adults throughout America. And it should be among the required reading in all college and university undergraduate sociology, psychology, and communications courses. Robert S. Frey, Editor/Publisher, BRIDGES: An Interdisciplinary Journal

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, Outstanding¿and Downright Disconcerting
Review: The premise of AdcultUSA-that advertising is the "dominant meaning-making system of modern life" [p. 253]-is argued compellingly and authenticated meticulously with numerous examples, photos, and anecdotes. Yet the messages about the transformative impact of advertising on contemporary American culture are downright disconcerting. On many levels, advertising has shaped our shared myths, our self concepts, and our marking of calendric time. [p. 124] People relate to each other by the commercials they have experienced and consumed rather than by the books they have read or the human interactions they have shared.

We embrace advertising; we also blame it and give it vastly accentuated power. However, demonizing advertising says alot about human passivity in the face of complexity [p. 111]. Whereas it can be argued that advertisers are the primary censors of media content in the U.S. today [p. 119], and engage in intermingling fact and fiction [p. 134], the culture of advertising-adcult-arose and gained prominence by us as customers and consumers participating actively and passively in its meteoric rise. In many ways, we have consented to allowing our minds to be treated as a rental space for brand-name products ranging from jeans and perfume to cars and snack foods.

Author James Twitchell, a professor of English at the University of Florida, asserts that "advertising is the culture developed to expedite the central problem of capitalism: the distribution of surplus goods." [p. 41] The two principal advertisers in America today are corporations which manufacture and distribute alcohol and tobacco products. According to his research, these industries collectively control 65% of newspaper space and 22% of television time. And repeated and defensible parallels between advertising culture and Christianity are drawn. Twitchell argues that both are systems for organizing value in society and in individual human lives.

This book should be read and re-read by adults throughout America. And it should be among the required reading in all college and university undergraduate sociology, psychology, and communications courses. Robert S. Frey, Editor/Publisher, BRIDGES: An Interdisciplinary Journal

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Witty and Educational
Review: To discover why Americans are sold on advertising, read this book. Twitchell examines the dpeths to which advertisers will go to win the affection of the American people. The book is funny, educational and actually fun to read.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Witty and Educational
Review: To discover why Americans are sold on advertising, read this book. Twitchell examines the dpeths to which advertisers will go to win the affection of the American people. The book is funny, educational and actually fun to read.