Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, ON
Department of Communication Studies
CS 341C
Critical Advertising Studies
Winter 2013
Fridays, 8:30-11:20am
DAWB 2-101
Instructor: Dr. Matthew Flisfeder
Office Location: DAWB 3-127
Office Hours: Fridays, 12:00-1:00pm
Email: mflisfeder@wlu.ca
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course is an introduction to the critical study of advertising as a form of
social communication. The purpose of this course is to examine advertising as a
social, political, and cultural text. Over the course of the semester students will
examine the role of advertising and promotional communication in the context of
everyday life. The key objectives of this course are to provide an historical
perspective on advertising's role in the expansion of the market economy and
consumer culture since the nineteenth century.
Students will be asked to consider how the promotional discourses of
advertising have become entrenched in modern culture and in broader channels of
social communication. Topics may include: conspicuous consumption, the semiotics
of advertising, advertising to children, people as consumers/audiences, the
marketing of gender, sexual and racial difference, the relationship of advertising to
mass media, advertising as visual culture, the role of advertising in shaping various
social phenomena such as work, leisure and desire, and opportunities for resistance.
The main concern of CS341 is not whether or how well advertising succeeds in
generating sales of a given product or service, but how it functions as a practice of
power in communicating the norms, values and ideals of the world in which we live.
This is not a practical, “how-to,” course in the methods of advertising but will
provide students with the tools to critically evaluate the address of individual
advertisements and the place of advertising as a fundamentally ideological
communication system in society.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:
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Joseph Turow and Matthew P. McAllister, eds. The Advertising and Consumer
Culture Reader (Routledge, 2009). (ACCR)
Zygmunt Bauman. Consuming Life (Polity, 2007)
John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Penguin, 1972)
RECOMMENDED TEXTBOOKS:
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Kalle Lasn, Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America (Harper Collins, 1999).

Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t Be
Jammed (Harper Collins, 2004).
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS AVAILABLE ON MY LEARNING SPACE
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Deconstructing an Advertisement
Deconstructing a Video Advertisement
Advertising: Industry Exposure and Statistics
COURSE ASSIGNMENTS/EVALUATION:
Assignment
In-Class Ad Analysis #1
In-Class Ad Analysis # 2
Final Essay
Final Exam
Participation
Due Date
February 1st, 2013
March 8th, 2013
March 22nd, 2013
TBA
Cumulative
Grade Value
10%
15%
35%
30%
10%
*Details for final essay will be distributed on a separate handout
Participation
You are expected to attend classes regularly, and be prepared to make informed
contributions to class discussions, having completed assigned readings prior to the
classes for which they are assigned. Participation is also based upon timely and
appropriate submission of assignments and appreciable endeavours to improve
academic and learning skills. This mark does not include attendance, however,
poor attendance will result in a lower participation mark.
POLICY ON LATE ASSIGNMENTS
All assignments are due at the beginning of class. Late assignments will be
deducted one mark per day (off of your final grade). Students should submit late
assignments (hard copy) by email for time/date verification only. Hard copies must
be submitted the day following the submission of a digital copy. A hard copy of
your assignment is required for grading. Late assignments will not be accepted
one week after the scheduled due date (unless there is a legitimate reason, which
will require official documentation).
Extensions: If you feel that you might need an extension on an assignment, please
speak with me at least one week prior to the assignment deadline. Granting of
extensions is solely at the discretion of your Professor, and only if, after speaking
with me, I feel that your reason for needing an extension is justified. Otherwise,
extensions will be granted only under extenuating circumstances, in which case
official documentation will be required in order to justify the submission of a late
assignment. Extensions will not be granted after the deadline has already passed.
CLASS CONDUCT AND EXPECTATIONS
You are expected to conduct yourself in a manner respectful of your instructor and
your fellow students. This includes, at a minimum:
 Arriving on time
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Turning off your cell phone upon arrival
If late, entering the classroom with the least disruption
Not interrupting or speaking when someone else has the floor
Using your laptop appropriately (i.e. not for email)
EMAIL
I will only respond to email on regular weekdays, before 5pm. You must use your
Laurier email account when sending emails. I will only respond to emails sent from
a Laurier email account. Please review the course outline and My Learning Space
before asking questions by email. I will not respond to email questions if the
answers can easily be found in course materials. Please keep emails short. A
long email indicates that it might be a better idea to make an appointment to see me
during my office hours. I will not respond to mark/grade inquiries by email.
WEEKLY CLASS SCHEDULE:
January 11th: Course Introductions/The Commodity
Readings:
Joseph Turow and Matthew P. McAllister, “General Introduction: Thinking
Critically About Advertising and Consumer Culture” (ACCR)
Screening: The Persuaders
January 18th: Advertising and Consumer Society
Readings:
Sut Jhally, “Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse” (ACCR)
Gary Cross, “A New Consumerism, 1960-1980” (ACCR)
Screening: Advertising and the End of the World
January 25th: The Commodity and Commodity Fetishism
Readings:
Karl Marx, “Commodity Fetishism and Its Secret” Online
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4
Raymond Williams, “Advertising: The Magic System” (ACCR)
Michael Schudson, “Advertising as Capitalist Realism” (ACCR)
Screening: No Logo
February 1st: Corporations: Situating Advertising in Big Business
*In-Class Advertising Analysis # 1 at the Beginning of Class
Readings:
Susan Strasser, “The Alien Past: Consumer Culture in Historical Perspective”
(ACCR)
Stuart Ewen, “Educate the Public!” (ACCR)
Greg Dickinson, “Selling Democracy: Consumer Culture and Citizenship in
the Wake of September 11” (ACCR)
Screening: The Corporation
February 8th: Censorship and Ideology in Advertising
Readings:
Jef I. Richards and John H. Murphy, II, “Economic Censorship and Free
Speech: The Circle of Communication Between Advertisers, Media, and
Consumers” (ACCR)
Aidan Kelly, Katrina Lawlor, and Stephanie O’Donohoe, “Encoding
Advertisements: The Creative Perspective” (ACCR)
Ben H. Bagdikian, “Dr. Brandreth Has Gone to Harvard” (ACCR)
Screening: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
February 15th: Media Old and New – Grabbing Our Attention
Readings:
Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapters One and Two
Mark Andrejevic, “The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the
Exploitation of Self-Disclosure” (ACCR)
Joseph Turow, “Advertisers and Audience Autonomy at the End of
Television” (ACCR)
Devin Leonard, “Nightmare on Madison Avenue: Media Fragmentation,
Recession, Fed-Up Clients, TiVo – It’s All Trouble, and the Ad Business is
Caught Up in the Wake” (ACCR)
Screening: Behind the Screens
February 22nd: READING WEEK – NO CLASS
March 1st: Representations of Beauty
Readings:
Bauman, Consuming Life, Introduction and Chapter One: Consumerism
Versus Consumption
Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapters Three and Four
Inger L. Stole, “Televised Consumption: Women, Advertisers and the Early
Daytime Television Industry” (ACCR)
Katherine Frith, Ping Shaw, and Hong Cheng, “The Construction of Beauty: A
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women’s Magazine Advertising” (ACCR)
Screening: Killing Us Softly 4
March 8th: Representing Race and Sexuality
*In-Class Advertising Analysis # 2 at the Beginning of Class
Readings:
Bauman, Consuming Life, Chapter Two: Society of Consumers
Elizabeth A. Smith and Ruth E. Malone, “The Outing of Philip Morris:
Advertising to Gay Men” (ACCR)
Eric King Watts and Mark P. Orbe, “The Spectacular Consumption of ‘True’
African American Culture: ‘Whassup’ With the Budweiser Guys?” (ACCR)
J. Robyn Goodman, “Flabless is Fabulous: How Latina and Anglo Women
Read And Incorporate the Excessively Thin Body Ideal Into Everyday
Experience” (ACCR)
March 15th: Selling to Children and Teens
Readings:
Naomi Klein, “Local Foreign Policy: Students and Communities Join the
Fray.” (ACCR)
James B. Twitchell, “Reflections and Reviews: An English Teacher Looks at
Branding” (ACCR)
Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor, “Every Nook and Cranny: The Dangerous
Spread of Commercialized Culture” (ACCR)
Matthew P. McAllister and J. Matt Giglio, “The Commodity Flow of U.S.
Children’s Television” (ACCR)
Screening: Merchants of Cool
March 22nd: ‘Failed Consumers’
*Final Essays Due at the Beginning of Class
Readings:
Bauman, Consuming Life, Chapter Three: Consumerist Culture and Chapter
Four: Collateral Casualties of Consumerism
Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapters Five and Six
Screening: Overspent American
March 29th: Good Friday (no class)
April 5th: The Politics of Advertising
Readings:
Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapter Seven
Maitrayee Chaudhuri, “Gender and Advertisements: The Rhetoric of
Globalization”
Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, “Just Do It,” But Not on my Planet”
Bruce W. Hardy, “Political Advertising in US Presidential Campaigns:
Messages, Targeting, and Effects”
Christine Harold, “Pranking Rhetoric: ‘Culture Jamming’ as Media Activism”
Screening: This Land is Our Land: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons
April 8th: Final Exam Review