Showing papers in "Journal of Communication Inquiry in 1990"

Different Children, Different Dreams: Racial Representation in Advertising 1

Abstract: Advertisers like to use children-and not only in advertisements for toys and diapers. Babies are attention grabbers, they are especially good at catching the eyes of women consumers who so often constitute the target market. Perhaps most important for the cautious advertiser, children rarely offend. Picturing children allows advertisers to call up rich, cherished associations: nostalgia, love, the fullness of the future, the comfort of home, the pleasures of family life. The use of children is a way to suggest many of the values that advertisers routinely associate with their products: newness, innocence, energy, rejuvenation, mildness, happiness, protection. Increasingly, corporate image advertising draws

Advertising Masculinity: The Representation of Males in Esquire Advertisements:

Abstract: on by various institutions within society, including the family, church, and schools. The media also contribute to this inculcation of &dquo;gender rules,&dquo; with their influence dependent upon the individual being addressed. Within the media, advertising for consumer goods and services offers its own lessons, often overtly presenting commentary on how to achieve the current ideal of masculinity and femininity. Like films, television, magazines, and other forms of media, advertisements are constructions built from media producers’ use of social knowledge, the changing ideas and values within society, including definitions of gender. The meanings of advertisements and other media products ultimately comes from their interaction with the audience member’s social position. Studying advertising cannot indicate how consumers understand its meanings or experience gender in daily life. However, focusing on advertisements and their social and economic contexts can suggest how gender ideology is being constructed at any particular time. Much research on the representation of gender within media products, including advertising, has involved content analysis focused primarily on females. In large part this focus was the result of researchers being affected by the women’s movement, turning attention to the social definition of femininity and the visual and aural presentation of females, ,

The Ideology of Freshness in Feminine Hygiene Commercials

Abstract: Everybody hates feminine hygiene commercials. An Advertising Age survey found them at the top of both women’s and men’s most-hated lists (Hume, 1988, p. 3). This hatred, I believe, goes beyond taboos about menstruation, because the category includes more than just tampons and menstrual pads-it encompasses douches, sprays, and washes. In social discourse, matters of hygiene flirt with the limits of good taste; feminine hygiene transgresses those limits, evoking (but

The Hay-Wain: Cluster Analysis in Visual Communication:

Abstract: The popularity of the fifteenth-century painter Hieronymus Bosch has fluctuated dramatically over the last five centuries. This fluctuation is due, in part, to his surrealistic style; his paintings are executed in brilliant colors and with bold presentation, which was a major deviation from the style typical of the fifteenth century. Also contributing to his on-again, off-again popularity were his apparently mystical statements about humanity’s plight here on earth. The paintings depict torment, suffering and unearthly terrors. Art historians have debated the meaning behind Bosch’s visions, but few of their methods have unraveled successfully the cloud of mystery that still envelops his work. What is of concern in this paper is how a rhetorical methodology can be used to understand forms of visual communication such as the painting of Bosch. Also of concern are further issues that apply both to traditional visual media (such

The Social Construction of Women as Mediated by Advertising

Abstract: &dquo;Man is ’mediated’ by things to the same extent as things are ’mediated’ by man.&dquo; --Sartre Objects revolve around us in a constellation of patterns that frame our cultural horizons. Through a system of production and selection (consumption), we draw certain things, goods, into our personal worlds thereby participating in the uniquely human process of structuring social meaning. Goods, then, are communicators of meaning &dquo;making visible and stable the categories of culture&dquo; (Douglas and Isherwood, 1978, p. 59). Because of this, goods and humans are inextricably bound, each mediated by the other. In the context of a consumer society, there is an additional stage in mediating this person-object relationship served by advertising:

Advertising and the Growth of Minority Markets and Media

Abstract: In April of 1920 a member of the Ad Club of El Paso, Texas stepped before the organization to tell the members about an audience they may have known existed, but didn’t know very much about. The presentation, &dquo;How to Advertise Among Mexican People,&dquo; was made by Silvestre Terrazas, editor of La Patria, a Spanish-language newspaper in El Paso (Terrazas, 1920). El Paso, like most Southwestern communities between 1910 to 1920, had experienced a great influx of Mexican immigrants because of civil unrest in Mexico; much like the immigrants from Latin America and Southeast Asia in the 1980s.

Advertising Influences on Majority and Minority Youth: Images of Inclusion and Exclusion

Abstract: How do children of various ethnic backgrounds respond to advertising images that may include or exclude them? This paper attempts to identify key issues from research on advertising’s effects on young people. The focus is on the interpretation of experience by children between 3 and 12 years of age from different racial and ethnic group backgrounds. Children’s personal characteristics may vary on a number of biological, social, and cultural dimensions. However, mass media may

The Black Experience in Advertising: An Interview with Thomas J. Burrell

Abstract: (CEBA) awards, winning five &dquo;awards of excellence&dquo; and nine other prizes. A prestigious minority leader in the advertising field, Burrell is reflective and articulate about what Advertising Age has dubbed &dquo;the Burrell Style.&dquo; Burrell contends that being a black American gives him an edge when communicating with the black consumer. Having lived the black experience, he is more sensitive to strategies that will work-or that might offend. Furthermore, being black in a predominantly white society has required him to become an expert on white America, while whites themselves have not had to become experts on black society; thus, Burrell claims that while he can create advertising campaigns directed at the majority consumer, predominantly white-controlled advertising agencies cannot cross over so easily. Burrell’s fundamental rhetorical technique when addressing blacks is &dquo;to celebrate the people, not the product,&dquo; a strategy he believes gives him the edge. Burrell was working in the mailroom of Wade Advertising in 1960 when he realized that he wanted to be a copywriter, a position he achieved in 1961. His first account was for Toni, the home permanent company, which at that time wanted to market its products to black

Photography and the Industrialization of the Body

Abstract: Photography is deeply embedded in two contradictory discourses: the discourse of science and the discourse of art. On the one hand, photography garners to itself epistemic value by being symbolically mediated by the myth of objectivity constituting as is claimed, a &dquo;scientific&dquo; way of seeing. For example, photography’s operation in the &dquo;realist mode&dquo; is made evident in its provision of a criminal record or &dquo;mug-shot&dquo; of legal value; and in turn, this signification of &dquo;realism&dquo; as photographic proof has been, since the nineteenth century, fundamental to the disciplinary functions of such juridico-political institutions like the police.’ But even while photography has operated in the disciplinary and other institutions as a ratification of empiricism there is no denying that photography simultaneously took its place as an interpretive art form.’ For instance, beginning with nineteenth century portraiture and as exemplified in the practices of such gifted amateurs of the times Felix Nadar and Margaret Cameron, photography has gained cultural value as a model of artistic self-expression (Gosling 1976, p. 37; Gibbs-Smith 1975, pp. 70-76), which in turn places it squarely within the realm of subjective experience. The latter discourse of photography as art

Dante's Inferno and Caesar's Ghost: Intertextuality and Conditions of Reception in Early American Cinema:

Abstract: at a theoretical level, with theory delimiting the evidence base. Fewer scholars have as yet taken up the daunting challenge of historical reception studies, which requires dealing with living subjects’ memories of initial reception or speculating about the reception of long-silent subjects. In both cases,the restricted evidence base presents immense theoretical complexities. In this paper, we wish to discuss the conditions of reception for two films made by the Vitagraph Company in 1908, Francesca di Rimini and Julius Caesar. Vitagraph’s prominence amongst American film producers would have insured that these films were widely distributed and widely seen. Vitagraph, one of the three most important of pre-Hollywood American film studios, exceeded its closest rivals, the Edison and Biograph Companies, in both film production and scale of operation Z An energetic and innovative publicity department helped the studio maintain its high public profile, advertising directly to film distributors and exhibitors through its in-house organ and constantly planting stories in the trade press. In an era when studio &dquo;brand&dquo; loyalty seems to have been a major determinant of film attendance, the Vitagraph name on a film most probably ensured good audience turnout. While Vitagraph’s status permits us to conclude that both Francesca da

Representation Systems of Photographic Critics

Abstract: Photographic critics have long engaged in describing, interpreting and evaluating the &dquo;text&dquo; of photographic images. Examining their problems and successes might be of value to communication scholars interested in contemplating the nature and function of visual symbols. Contemporary photographic criticism is characterized by a &dquo;clash&dquo; in which critics argue for the validity of their preferred conceptual framework from the standpoint of polarized value positions. While no firm labels have been assigned to the competing groups in this dispute, we might refer to them as &dquo;traditional critics&dquo; versus &dquo;new critics.&dquo;

Extending the Law of Intellectual Property: Hollywood's International Anti-Videocassette Piracy Campaign

Abstract: logic of capital shapes the production of culture and information in specific ways. Political economy is also relevant for the study of the institution of intellectual property. It identifies this institution, which includes copyrights and patents, as the essential basis for the commoditization of cultural and intellectual creativity. Accordingly, the history of copyright, from book publishing (Eisenstein, 1983) through computer software, is comprised of the successive &dquo;enclosure&dquo; of the intellectual and artistic &dquo;commons&dquo; by those who own the means for producing and distributing copyrighted works in tangible forms. In the process, the most valuable copyrights come to be owned by those who control the means of publication rather than by the actual creator of the intellectual or artistic work.