G205 – Week 2

Finishing up Peiss & Berger

 –noun
1. the basic, underlying framework or features of a
system or organization.
2. the fundamental facilities and systems serving a
country, city, or area, such as: transportation,
highways, freeways, interstates, communication
systems, power plants, schools, etc.
3. the military installations of a country.
 Modernity in America occurred over several hundred
years and is most often associated with the rise of
industry (factories, urbanization, etc.) in the 19th and
early 20th centuries.
 Globalization describes an ongoing process by which
regional economies, societies, and cultures have become
integrated through globe-spanning networks of
communication and trade; a process whereby an
increased portion of economic or other activity is carried
out across national borders
 How do spaces become gendered in Peiss?
 do these gendered spaces shift?
 What is consumer citizenship?
 What is uplift?
CMNS 130

10

Hours per year spent by average
citizen watching TV: 1679

Price of air-time for a 30-
second commercial during
2006 Superbowl: $2.5 million

Total amount spent on
advertising in the US (2005):
$280 billion

Total amount spent on
advertising in the rest of the
world: $241 billion

Americans who expressed
interest in products to block
advertisements (2004): 69
 Means “to make known” and is utilized by the media industries
to “attract attention” to products available for purchase to a
Target audience: humans 18-49.
 Creates “desire” for products.
 what is desire?

 Uses techniques of persuasion that are often linked by scholars,

including Berger, to our “unconscious mind.” What is that?
 Usually printed as opposed to a commercial, which is filmed.
 If so, how?  If not, why not?
 How do you read
advertising?
 Have you ever bought
anything based upon an
advertisement for the
product?
 Analysing advertisements

Berger uses the following approaches (methodologies) to

analyse ads, including:

• Semiotic analysis
• Psychoanalytic theory
•Sociological analysis
• Feminist analysis
• Historical analysis
• Myth/ritual analysis
 Psychoanalytic theory
Freud suggested that our ego continually balances
the primitive subconscious desires for satiation of
our id against our superego, which provides critical
self-examination and anticipates the potential
damage of actions proposed by our id.

I call this a “filter.”

Advertisers frequently try to encourage our id in

order to get us to notice and desire their product

• How does the advertisement make use of

the human psyche to sell products?
1966
Psychoanalytic theory
• the snake: phallic symbol
• the snake: anxiety, corruption
• the word “sex” contained in the
ad (“subliminal”)
• removal to the tropics from the
“civilizing” influence of home

A blogger’s review: “Fidji, ‘the perfume of

paradise found,’ rather than being a soliflore
representation of an island flower like those
simple souvenir perfumes, instead creates an
olfactory translation of paradise, with notes
that evoke the dreamlike mood you feel lying on
the beach as an island breeze blows the scent of
tropical flowers your way and the sun warms
your skin.” - emphasis added.

This ad appeared in some

countries without the snake.
Why?
 male/female BIOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM / DETERMINISM
 gender/sex
 The ―natural physical body itself determines
human ―natural and/or what it means to be a
 culture/nature man or a woman, “sexual difference.”
 This structural theory about the human body
 mind/body (along with binary oppositions) stems from
Enlightenment (18th C) philosophers, including
 rational/emotional Descarte (―I think therefore, I am), who posited
 universal/particular that human consciousness is what separated
“men” from other animals.
 light/dark  Men were the universal human subject associated
with culture, reason and the mind. When
 straight/curved considered, women in early western cultures were
property of the men in their lives and associated
 presence/absence with nature through their bodies
 active/passive (menstruation/reproduction) and thought to be
driven by emotion rather than intellect.
 objective/subjective
Semiotic analysis

Semiotics is the study of signs – how things can be

used to deliver some kind of message.

The important point to remember when considering

how things functions as signs is that the meaning
attached to them is arbitrary. The meaning of signs is
a convention that is learnt within a group/society, it
is not a natural and universal meaning.

• What signs, symbols and codes can be

found in the advertisement?
Psychoanalytic theory

Freud suggested that our ego continually balances

the primitive subconscious desires for satiation of
our id against our superego, which provides critical
self-examination and anticipates the potential
damage of actions proposed by our id.

Advertisers frequently try to encourage our id in

order to get us to notice and desire their product

• How does the advertisement make use of

the human psyche to sell products?
Sociological analysis

Consider how elements of the text are relevant to

such matters as socio-economic class, gender, race,
sexuality, status and role.

• How does the advertisement reflect social

concerns, and the problems of people in their
daily lives?
Feminist analysis

As a specialist application of sociological analysis,

feminist analysis is particularly concerned with
power structures in society, especially those that keep
women in an inferior position.

• How does the advert reflect the values of

male-dominated society?
Historical analysis

Here the advert can be evaluated in terms of the

changes that have taken place in advertising over the
years, how the advert fits into a larger campaign
and/or previous advertising campaigns.

• How does the advertisement relate to

historical events?
Myth/ritual analysis

Advertisements often contain allusion to

contemporary popular culture. In addition, there is a
vast wealth of shared cultural knowledge relating to
mythical knowledge, such as biblical stories or
classical mythology.

• How does the advertisement relate to

ancient myths?
An example: Fidji perfume advertisment

How might we use

Berger's six different
approaches to analyse
and understand this
advertisement?
Semiotic analysis

• empty space
• position of mouth in photo
• posture of mouth/lips
• Polynesian woman?
• long, dark hair
• orchid
• Fiji: the tropics (escape)
• language: French
Psychoanalytic theory

• the snake: phallic symbol

• the snake: anxiety
• the word 'sex' contained in the
advert (subliminal)
• removal to the tropics, away from
the civilising influence of home
This advert appeared in some
countries without the snake. Why?
Sociological analysis

• value and importance of

romantic heterosexual love
• target audience: young
women seeking escape?
• prestige product: expensive
perfume, French language
and associations with high
culture
• role of women: providers of
sexual pleasure, temptress
• ethnic assumptions: women
from less developed nations
seen as less repressed, more
passionate (more primitive)
Feminist analysis

• snake: phallic symbol? =

subjugation, dominance
• women's role as objects of male
pleasure
• objectification of women in
adverts: accessible to the male
gaze, on show to gratify male
desires
• holding the “desirable” bottle of
perfume, but perfume's purpose
is to please men: women
perpetuate male dominance?
• return to paradise = return to
male dominance? (Garden of
Eden: “And [your husband] shall
rule over you”)
Historical analysis

• Cleopatra killed by a snakebite

• Advertising: historical context
Myth/ritual analysis

• Medusa
• Garden of Eden
• Women as dangerous, snakelike,
venomous
• Temptation
Advertising as communication
Berger's model of “focal points in the study
of communication”

Art Audience

Medium

Artist Society
Interactive oral assignment: instructions
You (the whole class) have been chosen as the committee that will
nominate and choose the best print advertisement of all time.

Criterion: The advertisement that communicates the most

meaning
1. Work in pairs (preparation: HMWK)
Each pair will nominate one advert. You need
to select that advert, and prepare a short
presentation of the meaning contained within
that advert.

2. The meeting (next lesson)

Each pair presents their advertisement,
after which the whole group discusses the
adverts and decides on the winner.
References
Berger, Arthur Asa (2007) Ads, Fads and Consumer Culture: advertising's impact on American
character and society. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield