Advertising and Consumer Culture

Critical approach to the study of advertising and consumer culture, challenging students to reconsider entrenched assumptions and ideas about advertising and consumer culture more broadly. Issues of representation, production, reception, and citizenship, considering the material advertisement as well as its relationship to individuals and larger institutional structures. Application of theoretical concepts to historical and contemporary advertisements and objects of consumer culture. Application of different methodological approaches to the study of advertising including ethnography, focus groups, and textual analysis.