PSA or Political AD Evaulation

Jessica Chinedu

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CCT316H5

FINAL EXAM

STUDY GUIDE

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CCT 316 Week 2 The Audience Cracking the Consumer Code: Advertisers, Anxiety, and Surveillance in the Digital Age

Efficacy The first key area of trust is that, “advertisers and their agencies must have confidence in the ability of [the media that carry the ads] to place commercial messages in front of the right consumers at the right times. The second key area of trust involves audiences that the media firms try to reach. Ad executives must have confidence that substantial proportions of the target public will actually pay attention and look at the commercial messages as a prelude to being persuaded.

Turow, 279

Product Placement “with an increasing number of film companies integrating products into scenes to help defray costs, television producers (whose firms were often owned by the same conglomerates) moved to do the same. They were pushed into doing it by a confluence of factors:

subsequently higher production costs program license payments from the TV networks that no longer covered production cots (due to lower read ad revenues) and increasing uncertainty that they could find profits in the local & global syndication markets.

They could get away with it by the late 80s and early 90s One reason was that the National Association of Broadcasters abandoned its code that included limits on prime time length. Another was that federal administrators of the period did not care to regulate commercialism and sympathized with the TV industryʼs difficulties in making money in a multi-channel era.”

Turow, 288

Reaching Out “‘Direct marketersʼ penchant for dividing consumers fit with the movement towards increased specificity about audiences in mainstream advertising.

Nielsen TV audience data MRI and Simmons syndicated data on demographics, psychographics and purchasing patterns geodemographic extrapolations from database firms Prizm and Conquest

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these and other storehouse of information were scavenged by ad, promotion, and publicity people as well as by direct tacticians.

In direct response work, as in standard ad, public relations, and event marketing, the focus was on reaching out - signalling - to a particular population with certain categories.”

Turow, 290

Universal and Transactional “Broadly speaking, direct marketers use two resources for name gathering: universal databases and transactional databases.

Universal databases are complications of information on every individual and household in an area, even an entire nation […] A transactional database is a list of people who explicitly responded to a particular marketing or fund-raising appeal. Marketers would often purchase names form other marketers with products that reflected compatible lifestyles.

Turow, 291

Pushing Away “Loyalty programs involve firms giving customers increasing rewards or discounts based upon their increasing business with the firms. A subset of customer relationship marketing, the basic assumption of loyalty programs is, as one Ad Age writer put it, ‘that companies must discriminate among customersʼ […] This emphasis on individual differences leads to 2 corollary assumptions.

One is that marketers should reward their very best customers. The second is that they should push away, even alienate, those who are less desirable.”

Turow, 292

DVRs and Tracking “TiVo already minutely tracks and categorizes the viewing habits of its users as part of its service contract. The company sells the data in aggregate to potential advertisers. For its own purposes, it analyzes the habits of individual subscribing households. It then recommends, and even records, programs for the households based on preferences inferred from the computer data as well as deals with advertisers who want TiVo viewers to watch those shoes and commercials.”

Turow, 301

Sorting “[L]oyalty programmers believe that properly configured programs based on one-to-one interactions can keep legal discrimination in the interest of

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marketing a private matter Moreover, they believe that inducing anxiety that causes unwanted customers to feel they donʼt belong to a consumption group is good business. Efficient marketing increasingly means ‘managingʼ the customer roster - ‘rewarding some, getting rid of others, improving the value of each of them .̓”

Turow, 304

The Birth of a Vicious Cycle “A society in which media assumptions are based on the values of customer relationship marketing is one which will breed surveillance of consumers, and, consequently, consumer suspicions of individuals, groups and institutions.

Turow, 305

Insecurity “Low loyaltyʼ and ‘personal brandingʼ offer a convenient rhetoric when companies downsize, cut contracting costs, or otherwise alter employer employee relationships. At the same time economic insecurity elevates the importance of personal branding that attends downturns in the job market. When oneʼs job is not guaranteed, when oneʼs work is based on temporary ‘projects ,̓ workers increasingly feel the pressure to hone a professional identity that travels with them, independent of any specific job or project. In response, the gurus of personal branding are offering a potent rhetorical cocktail that is one part self-help and one part career advice, but they do so in a manner and in a context that use widespread career insecurity.

The Problem Critics of personal branding who argue that, by encouraging workers to turn themselves into commodities, personal branding represents an utter capitulation to the very economic forces from which it claims to help them escape.”

Horald, 343

Flexibility “The demand for flexibility is an outgrowth of, among other things, the globalization of the workforce. The days in which employees could expect to work for one corporation over the course of their careers are well past. In result, Richard Sennett suggests that, in many industries, deep skill sets and long-term institutional memory can actually be deficits for employees in a world where flexibility and adaptability are key.”

Harold, 344

Personal vs. Impersonal

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“What is emerging […] is a distinction between […[ ‘personal servicesʼ and ‘impersonal services .̓” Personal services: Impersonal services:

Disposability “So the inherent logic of the meta-discourse about personal branding […[ is a discourse that exploits workersʼ anxieties by insisting they must do all they can to ‘leap to the from of the pack ,̓ to distinguish themselves from the nameless masses , or ‘riskʼ ‘superfluityʼ in the marketplace.

Submission/Objectified “Sociologist Joseph David states that personal branding is less a tool for protecting oneself from market forces than it is an utter capitulation to them. Given that companies already see workers as products, ‘then treating ourselves in the same terms doesnʼt outmanoeuvre business culture; it only submits us further to its logic, its demands and its mode of relationsʼ The problem with submitting to this logic, for David, is that we allow ourselves to be objectified in Marxʼs term, to see ourselves as marketable objects eager to increase our exchange value.”

Harold, 350

Critique We need to have the capacity to critique personal branding as a discourse, if not necessarily as a behaviour. The contemporary global economy is, for many workers, a brand new territory requiring new charts and navigational aids. The problem with personal branding is, in effect, cartographic

Ethos “On its face, personal branding as reputation management shares some basic traits with the ancient Greek concept of ethos, which is commonly understood as the art of convincing oneʼs audience that on his

Prudent, or exercise good judgement (prhonesis) is of good moral character (arete) and is acting with good will toward oneʼs audience (eunoia)

Historically scholars of rhetoric have seen the basis of persuasion as a speakerʼs capacity to understand and tailor oneʼs message according to the complexities of the social situations and human character. Ethos, broadly speaking, is understood as the rhetorical construction of a speakerʼs character.” Ethos has long been considers a crucial component to persuasion, without which no persuasive message can succeed.”

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Harold, 351

The Group Dynamic “Ethos is, like most rhetorical arts, somatic, in that it emerges from commonly held beliefs; it is a construct on which a public collaborates, As Nedra Reynolds (1993) writes: ‘ethos is not measurable traits displayed by an individual; rather, it is a complex set of characteristics constructed by a group, sanctioned by that group, and more readily recognizable to others who belong or who share similar interests.”

Conclusion “The rhetoric of personal branding treats the relationship between individual and community not as one of dwelling, but rather as one of differentiation. In the rhetoric of personal branding, the undifferentiated masses who havenʼt sufficiently evaluated their brand, or reached the necessary three hold of expertise, who have failed to clam leadership

WEEK 3 The New Refeudalization of the Public Sphere

What is “Refeudalization” “I would … like to examine the decline of what Habermas calls the ‘refeudalization of the public shareʼ with an eye to how the current situation has changed since Habermas first wrote the book in 1962. Here, Habermas discussed the pincer-like movement in which late modern consumer capitalism attempts to turn us into unthinking mass consumers on one hand, while political actors, interest groups, and the state try to turn us unthinking mass citizens on the other.”

Warner, 285

The problem for Politics “The rise and entrenchment of a class of specialized political professionals into both the campaign and the governing apparatuses has forced a shift in more than merely campaign tactics the very logic of governing has changed. Not only is the public sphere still refeudalized by Habermasʼ definition, but the language, philosophy, and techniques of consumer capitalism have so thoroughly infiltrated the language, philosophy, and techniques of governing that they are practically unhinged.

Political Marketing “The ultimate goal in political marketing is thus the same as in commercial marketing:

to ‘winʼ a loyal customer base, one that trusts your brand to do the think

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for them, a stance antithetical to the rational-critical discussion so important for Habermas.

While Habermas presciently anticipated much of our current situation, 3 interrelated aspects of political marketing go far beyond Habermasʼ concerns in the early 60s:

the ubiquity of an army of highly specialized, highly paid, technologically savvy professional political consultants, who are now integral components of every major political campaign the movement of these consultants from the campaign into the governing apparatus once the campaign is won the overt championing of such a complete immersion of the political into the logic of capitalism that all aspects of politics - even ideology, belief systems and values - becomes item to be focus group tested, packaged and sold back to the citizen/consumer.”

Warner, 288

“This new campaign intelligentsia is made up of people who often have masterʼs degrees in political management and marketing and/or specific technical expertise in

advertising marketing oppositional research fundraising public relations the media direct mail or polling

thus making itself indispensable to candidates who, by definition, lack such necessary and specialized expertise.”

Warner, 289

Available Data “candidates for political office (or indeed, any organization that wants to ‘sellʼ a particular message) can now buy giant amounts of voter data ranging from

congressional districts telephone numbers ethnicity voter history data party data GIS data census data

to very specific types of consumer data most Americans donʼt even know is being collected such as online activity and buying preferences.

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Following the exponential growth of CRM (‘consumer relationship managementʼ where huge amounts of data are used to design everything from sales to customer support)

in business, political consultants have increasingly utilized the exact same formula for campaigns (called ‘constituent relationship managementʼ), especially since the success of President Obamaʼs 2008 campaign.

Warner, 289

Public Opinions “For opinions to be ‘public;, according to Habermas, they must meet 2 criteria: they have to be formed rationally, ‘in conscious grappling with cognitively accessible states of affairs,̓ in contrast to knee jerk, untested options, opinions like those, for example, manufactured by professional political consultants. ‘publicʼ opinions have to be formed through discussion ‘ in the pro and con of a public conversation,̓ in contrast to opinions ‘ that remained private to correction within the framework of a critically debating public .̓”

Warner, 290

The job of Political Consultants “The job of political consultants is actively to prevent ‘publicʼ opinion from forming. Instead of providing the democratic grist for rational critical discussion of issues, consultant-centred tactics attempt to circumvent rational-critical discussion as much as possible, as rational-critical discussion is much harder to manipulate.”

Warmer, 290

“The Permanent Campaign” “Not only have consultants come to dominate political campaigns, but they are now a ubiquitous presence after the candidate takes office, triggering what Sidney Blumenthal has called the ‘ permanent campaign :̓

image-based, winner-take-all, focus-group-tested, emotionally manipulative, strategic calculations about governing.

These techniques, designed by consultants originally to ‘sellʼ a specific politician during the campaign, are now routinely used after the politician wins office.”

Warner, 291

Curtailing Discourse “No one - not the politicians who are setting their ideological agenda based on polling, nor the citizens/consumers who fill out surveys or register their opinions in a focus group or with their vote - is encouraged to test their ideas or even talk to anyone with whom they disagree.

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There is no allotted space within this exchange-based model for deliberation, compromise, civic duty, to the public good.”

Warner, 293

“regardless” of whether one is persuaded by Habermasʼ flesh and blood account of a historical bourgeois public sphere or even the possibility or practicality of such a sphere the idea that informed citizens

The Main Line “While I realize that to readers of the Journal of Consumer Research a brand means many different things- most of them quite sophisticated - to me a brand is simply a story attached to a manufactured object”

Twitchell, 228

Holophrasm “In academic lingo, the ability of a story to be expressed in a single kernel is called a holophrase. It reduces sentences to a word, for example, or complex ideas to a nubbin. Oddly enough, great art tends to be Holophrasm

Twichell, 228

Birth of the Brand “The process [of creating the ad narrative] entail all these factors:

the storytelling necessity of separating fungible products be they Grecian urns or Wedgwood pottery

the humanizing of the material world in much the same way the Impressionists humanized the natural world the willingness to move back and forth between oneʼs self and a work of artistic or commercial

Twichell, 232

Stories and Manufactured Objects “Colin Campbell, an English sociologist who studies consumption, argues that indeed something happened to the Western imagination in the early 19th century to make the application of stories to inanimate objects possible. He contends that we essentially stopped rationalizing and started dreaming. After all, that is what Romanticism was all about, the end of the Age of Reason. And, as the objects of our dreams became materials and not ethereal, we started to spiritualize the secular, to give stuff of getting and spending a transcendental affect. Ultimately, that is what Industrial Revolution was finally all about - not just making things, but making meaning for things.”

Twitchell, 232

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Why Branding Works The industrial Revolution did not suddenly make us want things and the stories that went along with them. The Industrial Revolutions was the result of our materialism, not the cause of it. But we do not always know what we want. If we knew what things meant, the we could choose things on the basis of some inner need. But we do not know. So, in a sense, we are not materialistic enough! That is why-stories-brands can get between us and objects. We desperately want meaning, things cannot supply it, and so we install it.

Twichell, 232

The Oral Tradition “Since the traditional saga is transmitted orally, the story picks up and discards subplots and characters as it is being continually reformed for new audiences. In fact, the real saga format is interactive. In lit-crib jargon, is is called ‘dialogic .̓ The saga is formed of give and take between audience and storyteller in which the audience clearly participates in the choice of subplots. Rather like telling your kids a good-night tale where the kids say, ‘Tell us Little Red Riding Hood but this time really describe the worldʼs teeth,̓ so the sagameister cocks an ear in the telling. Hence all the variants. The process is rather like an ad campaign in which there is a continual shuffling of idioms. Think of the Absolute campaign, the Energizer Bunnyʼs ends adventures, or Cokeʼs shuffling of claims.”

Twichell, 234

Exclusive and Inclusive “The narrative of stuff, the fictions surrounding machine-made objects, are providing the cultural literacy pessary to form community. As with other stories, Brandsagas are inclusive and exclusive. What separates our modern sense of community from others that have come before is that the ability ti enter these communities depends not on lucky borsht, skin colour, religious affiliation, or a host of other attributes usually installed at birth but a desire to consume both objects and their fictions. I have glossed over the obvious problems of such a culture (clearly, it is wasteful and intellectually shallow for starters), but it may prove to be more fair and democratic than what has come before.”

Twichell, 236

Cross-Media promotion and Media Synergy: Content

“Content is increasingly multiplatform, with redistribution and repurposing

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across variety of digital media; providers seek to move users to profitable, sustained consumption while facing intensifying competition across product, platform, delivery, and consumption markets.

As a way to inform, guide, encourage (re)assure, web of media communications; ‘content about contentʼ has been identified as the fast- growing sector of content creation.”

Hardy, 84

Cross-Promotion and Bias “All the major TV networks are owned by vertically integrated media conglomerates, and this has increased pressure on news programs to exploit those ties by promoting allied content and services, notably entertainment found that network news shows covered the products of their related companies more frequently and more favorably than products in which they had no financial interest. Corporate links were disclosed to TV viewers only in a minority of cases:

‘In the age of synergy, such cross promotion may not raise as many eyebrows as it would have some years ago. Yet what is surprising by any measure is how rarely the parent relationship is disclosed.̓ ”

Hardy, 84

“Soft News” “Entertainment cross-promotion may be normalized as marketing, or accepted sometimes with registration, as ‘soft news .̓ The cross-promotion of other content, channels, platforms, or services is viewed by most practitioners and academics as a business imperative, and increasingly normalized.”

Hardy, 85

“Problems” “Neoliberalism proposes that market mechanisms are generally sufficient and preferable to interventionist measures. For liberal democratic approaches, the key value is not competition to serve consumers but content to serve citizens. Different models of democracy privilege different ‘jobsʼ for media, yet all variants agree on a hierarchy placing political communication, news, and info as most vital for democracy, with entertainment and fiction subordinate.”

Hardy, 85

Self-Censorship “Various writers have identified specific problems arising from media synergy and cross-promotion. Promotions, such as those in the networksʼ morning news shows, may

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substitute for more socially relevant news. Corporate self-promotion has a corollary in censorship and self-censorship. A survey of US journalists and news execs. found that a quarter purposely avoided newsworthy stories, while nearly as many admitted they had softened the tone of stories in order to benefit the interests of their news organizations.”

Hardy, 86

Market Power “One set of problems of cross-promotion concerns market power. Intra-firm promotional resources may strengthen firmsʼ dominance and raise barriers against competitors that serve to limit the range and diversity of content available. Firms may restrict ad oppurtunitues, or otherwisr ‘lock outʼ competitors, for ex by ignoring or denigrating rival suppliers in editorials. TO the extent that these problems are recognized by neoliberalism, the main proposed remedy is behavioural, using competition law and rules on fair dealing between firms.” However, competition law is less able to address problems of media power.

Diversification “Reflecting an increasing importance of channel branding and self-promotion, all the major UK broadcasters rebranded themselves shortly before digital TV services began in 1998. Increased investment in promotions - financial, strategic, and creative - fostered rising professionalization.

Concentration “As cultural markets diversify, the role of promotional communications to inform and engage becomes ever more vital. If, however, there are continuing forms of concentration and control over symbolic meaning production and consumption, then critical concerns regarding crosss-prootion remain salient. In policy, cross-promotion may be regarded as a legacy concern, marking a transition from analogue to multimedia arrangements, yet it is accurate and productive to examine how cross-promotion exposes fault lines across regulatory approaches in rapidly changing environments.”

Hardy, 96

WEEK 4 Absolut:The Metaphysics of Wrap

Aquavit The pull of Absolutʼs magnetic ad is curious because the product itself is so

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blend. Vodka is aquavit, and aquavit is the most unsophisticated of alcohols.

Selling the Packaging “For clearly what we are drinking is the container, not the mashed wheat and potatoes. As Iʼve said, the same goes for many products, the more bland and unindividialistic the product,

Pop Art “Certainly the best known Absolute association has been with Pop art, after all this is an art directorʼs campaign in which image does all the heavy lifting, so who best to employ but other artisans? Mr.Roux got more value back than the 65,000 he paid Warhol for the famous ‘blackʼ Absolute bottle with the yellow halo now behind the bottleʼs shoulders/ Has any art movement been more in love with packaging than Pop

Adbusters Although Absolute pandies are all over the Web, the most antarget series has come from north of the border, from Adbusters, a Canadian anti- commercialism group. They ran a parodic series in their magazine of the same name, which included such entries as a hangmanʼs noose in the bottle contour over the tagline ‘Absolute Hangoverʼ and one of a coffin in the Absolut in the Absolute silhouette reading ‘Absolute Nonsense.̓

Twitchell, 182

Winning “If the Absolute campaign shows anything, it is that the ancient yearning for objects of value has continued unabated. Harness this yearning and you can load value into an interchangeable product. Certainly an increase of sales some 14,000 percent in 15 years counts for something, certainly the fact that Absolute is the best selling imported vodka, and certainly the fact that this bottle is now recognized almost as quickly as the golden arches says something.

Twitchell, 183

Content Analysis and Hermeneutics “Blut Slaps.. and Twins”: Hyper-Commercialized Sports Media “Essay”

Framing It Campaign like [The Official Sponsor of You] illustrate the confluence of the 2 trends in media culture

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hyper commercialism gender ideology

Millerʼs campaign is more an example of the discourse of hyper commercialism rather than its political-economic manifestations such as institutional-level financing via product integration of event sponsorship. However, the campaign is nevertheless illustrative of why the intrusion of commercial messages into forms of culture such as sports.

Gender Problems “A significant thread in much of the research on ad is the problematic gender ideology of ad. Tendencies include the narrow range of products and occupational roles associated with women characters, stereotypical and sexualized behaviour, male dominance as signified through the overwhelmingly male voices in commercial narration and the various indications of female subordination.”

M. & K. 238

Male Identity “Although much of the attention of gender in ad focus on female representation, male identity is also constructed ideology. A key concept in mediated representation of males, including ad, to ‘hegemonic masculinityʼ a celebration of traditional constructions of maleness that emphasizes such qualities as patriarchal authority, imposing and domineering physically, heteronormativity and competition.

M. & K. 239

Incentives “There are several incentives for using sexist or highly gendered symbols:

sex as a way to grab attention the use of stereotypes to shortcut the storytelling while also offering non- threatening conventionality the linkage of sexual success to the product as a way to (appropriately enough) fetishize it. and the representational tool for enhancing emotional communication - including eroticism.”

M. & K. 239

Hypercommercialism Several scholars have analyzed the prominence over the last 20 years of very culturally aggressive commercial forms […] label such trends ‘hyper commercialism.̓ We see this manifested in:

product placement, product integration, and various forms of branded entertainment

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forms of sponsorship cross-promotion and licensing deals between media brands and their advertisers commercial hybridity including long-form ad like informercials commercially based websites and social media home-shopping channels and tech integrated marketing campaigns that coordinate various promotional techniques. event ad such as those designed for the Super Bowl or Oscars.”

M. & K. 240-241

Consistency “Advertiser want a consistent brand image, and if their brand image involves problematic gender portals then this gets dragged along and even amplified when the commercial form invades other forms of content.”

M. & K. 242

Brut Slaps “As triumphant music plays, both men are portrayed as being slapped into acceptability.

Conclusion “In the above examples, we see not just the movement of commercialism and materialism into what would have formally been non-ad spaces, but also a rigidity normative and often demeaning gender ideology moving between content and categories as well.

Legacy “From its skilled use of exacting visual rhetoric, deep-seated mythologies, and careful production qualities, the Crying Indian remains on

Boiling It Down The message delivered by the Crying Indian popularized the corporate response to pollution that ‘the trouble was not their industryʼs promulgation of throwaway stuff; the trouble was those oafs who threw it away. Individual responsibility, a foundational cultural concept to this day would be the solution to pollution. The focus on individual responsibility coincided with the corporate push toward disposable consumption after WW2.

Andersen, 405

The ‘Indianʼ as Symbol “Strand writes:

‘In adopting the Indian as a symbol but turning his rejection of

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consumerism into a rebuke to individual laziness, they struck greenwash gold. Their Indian evoked the deep discontents afoot in the culture But they co-opted the icon of resistance and made him support the interests of the very consumer culture he appeared to protest.̓

His sad countenance admonished individuals rather than identifying the ideology of waste

Greenwashing The conflation of pollution with litter also presented a simple solution to environmental destruction, one that could easily be addressed by an ‘informationʼ campaign, making it safe from actual conservation policies. A message designed to obscure, hide, and redefine the environmental consequences of commodity production is the very definition of greenwashing. One study compared corporate environmental policies to a companyʼs use of ‘greenʼ ad, and found that companies that lagged behind in the implementation of environmental safeguards had not focused on.

Co-Exsistence “Today, ad compelling persuasions celebrate the beauty, power, and necessity of haute, sometimes pristine, sometimes highly managed, but always capable of coexisting within the given historical parameters of consumption as we know it.

Integrated Marketing Such campaigns seek to establish partnerships and endorsements from various conservation groups.

What Consumers Want “Survey research shows that consumers in general want to do good and help the environment but simply donʼt know how. Misleading ‘greenʼ ad makes informed consumer decisions more difficult.”

Conclusion The proliferation of misleading green persuasions making false claims about corporate visions serve to disconnect the public from the actual solutions to environment degradation. Though significant gains are continually made by targeted conservation efforts, commercial discourse and corporate PR strategies succeed in preventing fundamental awareness of the destructive consequences of overconsumption.

Andersen, 416

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“Essay” Sex Roles

“For our society, like any other society, must pass on its social heritage form one generation to the next. The social need for continuity and transmission of dominant values may be particularly acute in times of rapid social change, such as our own. Then individuals may not need some familiarity with the past, if the society is to survive, but they must also be prepared to meet changing condition. Nowhere is that need as readily identifiable as in the case of sex roles - sex roles are social guidelines for sex-appropriate appearance, interest, skills, behaviours and self-perceptions.

Sex-Roles Stereotypes They are more stringent than guidelines in suggesting persons not conforming to the specified way of appearing. feeling and behaving are inadequate as males or females. A boy who cries is not masculine and a young woman who foreswears makeup is not feminine. Stereotypes present individuals with a more limited range of acceptable appearance, feelings, and behaviours than guidelines do.

Tuchman, 42

Symbolic Representation “Dominant American ideas and ideals serve as resources for program development even when the planners are unaware of them, much as we all take for granted the air we breathe. These ideas and ideas are incorporated as symbolic representation of American society, not as literal portrayals. Take the typical TV family of the 50s: mother, father, and 2 kids living in an upper middle-class, single residence suburban home.

Symbolic Annihilation “We may say that either condemnation, trivialization, or ‘absence means symbolic annihilation .̓ Those working women who are portrayed are condemned. Others are trivialized: they are symbolized as child-like adornments who need to be protected or they are dismissed to the protective confines of the home. In sum, the are subject to symbolic Annihilation.

Tuchman, 43

The Role of the Mass Media “The mass media perform 2 tasks at once. First, with some culture lag, they reflect dominant values and attitudes in the society.

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Second, they act as agents of socialization, teaching youngsters in particular how to behave. Watching lots of TV leads children and adolescents to believe in traditional sex roles: Boy should work; girls should not. The same sex role stereotypes are found in the media designed especially for women. They teach that women should direct their hearts towards hearth and home.”

Tuchman, 56

WEEK 5 Consumption as Rebellion Dissent as Enticement Cause Marketing and the Rise of Values-Based Brands: Exploring Compassion in Pursuit of Profits

Popularity “Hundreds of caused-related marketing (CRM) campaigns that have become the go-to form of promotion for an increasing array of products and services. According to 2010 PRWEEK/Barkley PR cause Survey 75% of brands used cause marketing in 2010, a significant increase from 58% only the year before.

Einstein, 374

The problem “In the U.S, these campaigns are problematics attempts to fill the void left by the gutting of the social safety net in the 80s. While nonprofits took over the work of offering services the government no longer provided, these charitable organizations were left to fend for funding. As cause campaigns increased in the 90s and mushroomed in the 00s, many nonprofits were more than eager to take advantage of them, as they can provide a steady stream of money and generate significant publicity which increases awareness of the cause.

Einstein, 374

Nonliberal Focus “Other issue raised by CRM included the neoliberal focus on individuals as the solution to societal issues, the belief that the market can become an acceptable arena for expressing oneʼs politics, an the increased power of corporations to drive social policy through the market.”

Einstein, 374

Branding (Again) “Branding - a logo, a tagline, and a mythology connected to a product - attaches meaning to an object or service Companies do this in order for consumers to more readily connect with products, particularly in an overcrowded marketplace of competing consumer messages.

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Spill-Over Spirituality in the consumer marketplace reflects a broader blurring of the sacred and secular in postmodern societies. One aspects of secularization theory posited that the more people prattled faith outside of traditional religious institutions, the more that spirituality would be reflected outside of traditional religious institutions, the more that spirituality would be reflected in mainstream pursuits. But this melding of spheres is not limited to TV; Its evident through popular culture as well in science and most obviously in politics - enough said. Therefore it should not surprise us that the need to appeal to the core values of consumers has spilled over into realm of marketing. The most obvious way in which this occurs is through cause-related marketing, also associated with concepts like ethical-branding, corporate social responsibility (CSR)) and social entrepreneurship, among others.

Einstein, 375

The Process “Marketers implore consumers to help spread the word about a cause, which at the same time also provides word-fo-mouth ad for the product. After all, which consumers might not tell friends to use a product, they might ask them to join a FB page, if doing so is going to raise money for kids with cancer. Finally, as traditional media, and in particular TV have become more fragmented, marketers rely on database marketing to customize messages and further develop customer relationship management

Einstein, 376

Differentiation Marrying a cause to a brand is a form of brand differentiation - a way to distinguish one brand from another. Since products no longer compete on attributes because most are in essence commodities, they compete on how well they serve the world, or how well they can persuade us that they do.”

Einstein, 378

Compassion Fatigue “In the long, scholars not concerns about ‘compassion fatigue.”

Einstein, 379

Where Does the Money Go? “Buying products with positive messages turns our focus away from the wreckage of neoliberalism. CRM campaigns pull at our heartstrings and play on our sense of altruism

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while obscuring the reason why these campaigns have to exist in the first place. And, importantly, which government is required to be transparent about its programs, the private sector is not. Therefore consumer donations may or may not be spent the way they expect, and they cannot know and where to go.

Einstein, 379

“Buycotting” What is new .. is that more and more boycotting(not buying to protest against injustice) is replaced with buycotting (buying with a purpose). This could be purchasing fair trade products, buying clothing made with organically grown cotton, or participating in anything connected to a cause marketing initiative”

Einstein, 380

Lack of Certainty “We simply cannot know if consumers are purchasing a product because of its political content, or because they need the head of lettuce and it just happens to have a pink ribbon on it.

Negative Consequences “Exaggerated perception of corporate generosity misleading consumers about the relationship between the cause and the corporate partner shifting in giving tarnishing the causeʼs image variable duration of relationship shifting of a causeʼs activities reduced overall giving

Einstein, 381

Credit Where Credit Is Due “No less an observer than Marshall McLuhan is often quoted for the famous saying that ‘ ad is the greatest art form of the 20th century. And Twitchell argues that ‘ by adding value to material, by adding meaning to objects by branding things ad performs a role historically associated with religion .̓

C-A & A, 421

Inclsding Consumption According to Rasmussen (2008), modern economies identify consumerism with ‘soulcraft ,̓ so that the act of consumption itself becomes framed as civic engagement, despite the obvious threat that rampant consumerism poses to

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the health of the planet. This in turn, has led some consumers to seek out goods and services from companies that share their environmental concerns. In the very act of selling their ethics corporations are also promoting a de facto view of environmentalism that necessarily includes consumption

C-A & A ,421

Categories Wanger and Hansen (2002)place enviornemtal ad into on of 3 categories

they can express a positive relationship between a product or service and the environment they can present a corporate image of environmental responsibility or they can promote a green lifestyle

C-A & A ,422

The Relevant Factors Ivey and Benerjee (1993) established a primary green ad taxonomy that included both audience and message factors:

ad target (planet, animal or personal preservation emphasis) ad objective (corporate or product/service focus) economic chain (production, consumption, or disposition) and ad appeal (zeitgeist, emotional, financial euphoria, management, other)

C-A A ,422

Positive Environmental Consumers “By far the most common consumer-focused ad portrayal was the positive environmental consumer The overriding characteristic of these consumers is their passivity Their function within ad is to make good product choices, and to leave the environmental thing to the corporations Positive environmental consumers are not asked to sacrifice anything to achieve their free status

Negative Environmental Consumers “While the positive environmental consumer is characterized by passivity, the negative environmental consumer is characterized by activity - beyond simply buying something Advocating for the long-term viability of the planet - even non-verbally - is intimidating. The function of negative environmental consumers is to underscore the point that the positive environmental consumers

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Anti-Envionrmental Consumers The characterization of the anti-envionrmental consumer is far more sympathetic than that of the negative environmental consumer They may be feckless and uninformed, but they are certainly not dangerous. They simply need information about what products they need to purchase or what retail establishments they need to frequent

Philanthropic Environmental Consumers. “They are characterized by their solidarity with a particular cause Unlike the positive environment consumer, they cannot be passive In order to claim their green identities, these consumers are required to participate in environmental activities beyond the simple purchase of a product. They have macro levee concerns and they are willing to make small sacrifices in an effort to solve environmental problems. These sacrifices may be physical, temporal, or financial. But the sacrifice is linked discursively.

Consumption-Neutral Environmental Advertising Sometimes classified as advocacy marketing Consumption-neutral environmental ad does not make a direct appeal between a product or service and a potential consumer. Instead, consumption-neutral environmental ad focuses on corporate/industry innovation and behaviour The public sis understood to benefit from and appreciate these environmental innovations, but no particular action on the part of the customer - not even the purchase of a product - is suggested The information in these ad create a green image for the corporations that sponsor them, but gives consumers no direct means to claim a green identity of their own

C-A A ,430-431

In Practice This is the traditional rhetorical turf for fights over greenwashing

informational messages with specific, verifiable claims. But most green ads, and especially the types of green ads broadcast to mass audiences during prime time, operate at a different level. The meaning of being green is developed through a complex interplay between symbols of product and consumer … Taken together, the dominant function of the green consumer is consumption. in many cases this takes the form of product substitution (replacing a good they already use with a green version), but in many cases it is replacement (buying a new Audi and getting rid of the old inappropriate vehicle)

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C-A A ,432 - 433

Week 7 AD: The Magic System (Raymond Williams)

Going Back to the Beginning In the 1850s ad was mainly of a classified kind, in specified parts of the publication. It was still widely felt, in many kinds of trade that as a local newspaper summarized the argument in 1859

it is not respectable. Ad is resorted to for the purposes of introducing inferior articles into the market.

Rejecting this argument, the newspaper continued: Competition is the soul of business, and what fairer or more legitimate means of competition can be adopted than the availing oneself of a channel to goods to public notice which is open to all? Ad is an open, fair, legitimate and respectable means of competition; bearing upon its face the impress of free-trade, and of as much advantage to the consumer as the producer.”

p.16-17

Public Relations Advertising was developed to sell goods, in a particular kind of economy. Publicity has been developed to sell person, in a particular kind of culture. The methods are often basically similar: the arranged, the ‘mention ,̓ the advice on branding, packaging and a good ‘selling line .̓ I remember being told by a man I ken at university (he had previously explained how useful, to his profession as an advertiser, had been his training in the practical criticism of ad) that ad you booked and paid for were really old stuff; the real thing was what you got through as ordinary news.

p.19

Personality Items Certainly readers of newspaper should be aware that ‘personalityʼ items, presented as ordinary news stories or gossip, will often have been paid for, in one way or another, in a system that makes straightforward ad, by comparison, look respectable. Nor is this confined to what is called ‘showed business ;̓ it has certainly entered literature, and it has probably entered politics.

p.19

Materialism It is often said that our society is too materialist, and that ad reflects this. We are in then phrase of a relatively rapid distribution of what are called

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‘consumer goods ,̓ and ad, with its emphasis on ‘bringing the good things of life ,̓ is taken as central for this reason. But it seems to me that in this respect our society is quite evidently not materialist enough, and that this, paradoxially, is the result of a failure in social meanings, values and ideals.

p.20

Magic The short description of the pattern we have is magic, a highly organized and professional system of magical inducements and ratifications, functionally very similar to magical systems in simpler societies, but rather strangely coexistent with a highly developed scientific technology.

p.20-21

Individual and Collective Since consumption is within its limits a satisfactory activity, it can be plausibly offered as a commanding social purpose. At the same time, its ambiguity is such that it ratifies the subjection of society to the operations of the existing economic system. [Consumers] ask for the satisfaction of human needs which consumption, as such, can never really supply. Since many of these needs are social - roads, hospitals, schools, quiet - they are not covered by the consumer ideal:

They are even denied by it because consumption tends always to materialize as an individual activity.

p.22

Real Sources Ad, in its modern forms, then operates to preserve the consumption ideal from the criticism inexorably made of it by experience. If the consumption of individual goods leaves that whole area of human need unsatisfied, the attempt is made, by magic, to associate this consumption with human desires to which it has no real reference. You do not only buy an object:

you buy social respect, discrimination, health, beauty, success, power to control you environment.

The magic obscures the real sources of general satisfaction because their discovery would involve radical change in the whole common way of life.

p.23

The New ‘Real Womenʼ of Ad (Duffy) “Essay”

Progress?

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Certain promotional spaces now enable ordinary women to participate as representative subjects and content producers. On the heels of the Dove Campaign for Read Beauty - Unileverʼs widely celebrated, and perhaps equally widely condemned, promotion featuring ordinary women of various ages, shapes, and sizes - a number of marketers followed suit by incorporating realistic-looking models.

Newly Empowered Conusmers Not only are ordinary women being incorporated into ad texts as representative subjectivities, but they are also participating in the cultural production process vis-a-vis the litany of blogs, online communities, and social networks. These sites fit cozily into the wider context of convergence culture, where the boundaries between production and consumption are blurring and power is ostensibly being redeployed to the ‘newly empowered consumer .̓

p.224

Giving Back A noteworthy shortcoming in debates about convergence culture and articulations of the labouring audience is the tendency to overlook issue of gender. As Byerly and Ross argue, ‘ the level of interactivity that is enabled by technologies such as the Internet or digital tv means that the viewer really can exert control over how she watches, listens and reads popular media: finally, there is a realty to the rhetoric of audience power.”

p.227

Magazines Womenʼs magazines, which Gloria Steinem famously describes a vehicles to ‘mold women into bigger and better consumers ,̓ have long been criticized for their stereotypical depictions of femininity. Yet, coincident with the rise of ‘real womenʼ ad appeals (e.g. Dove, Nike, Fila), a number of fashion and beauty titles have incorporated more realistic and accessible representation of womanhood.

p.228

Favorites As Campbell explains in his case study of the iVillage online network, the ‘labour of devotionʼ involves (female) consumerʼ use of interactive communities to promote brands to other members of the community. This construct, rooted in adsʼ belief about gender identity, assumes that ‘men loyally consume their favourite brands whereas women actively promote their favourite brands to other women.

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p.229

Agency As feminist media scholars Carter and Steiner contend, ‘ a logic within capitalism demands that femininity be defined and continually re-defined in ways that are financially profitable. Although blog writ large purport to democratize creative and communication processes, there is a discernible hierarchy that distinguishes prominent fashion, beauty, and service topics. There are perhaps a handful of individuals who have achieved a level of success necessary to pose a true threat to the commercial system.

p.232

Week 8 Audience at Work Commodifying Free Labour Online: Social Media, Audiences and Advertising (Cohen)

Sponsored Stories Online ad became very personal in January 2011 when Facebook, the worldʼs largest social network, began transforming information members input into their profiles into ads that appear on friends page Now when someone mentions a business or product, that bit of information is turned into an ad - or a ‘sponsored story ,̓ in Facebookʼs more obfuscating term - with the personʼs name and photo alongside a corporate logo.

p.177

Prosumers Social media have ushered in a major adjustment in the role of the audience. Users, formerly known to media companies as consumers, are now integral to the production process. On social media sites (or sites that incorporate social media elements), consumers are transformed into producers, creating the content that is fundamental to these siteʼs existence. The sites then capitalize on the time users spend participating in communicative activity. As media consultant Tim OʼReilly notes, using similar terminology to Marxist scholars, Web 2.0 harnesses the ‘collective intelligenceʼ of crowds to create value from information that participating. This productive activity is transformed into profit for privately owned companies.

p.178

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Double Commodification A double process of commodification is underway on social media sites: sudiences are attracted to sites and access to them is sold to advertisers, but audiences also create a new commodity that generates value for social media. Information they generate through online activity is mined for profit, a crucial component of a growing market in metadata. The notion of double commodification speaks to the duel role of social media users: a source of free labour as well as providers of information that is sold for profit or used in the process of profit generation. This practice reflects larger patterns of capitalist exploitation, under which general social relations are increasingly becoming productive

p.179

Co-Creators The term ‘co-creationʼ implies a partnership, whereby companies and consumers collaborate for equal benefits… Co-creationsits recognize that value is generated from userʼs interactions with social media, firms harness the activity of Internet users and frame this practice in a discourse of benign interaction, obscuring the economic relations circulating through these spaces… When information is collected from every user clicking through social media sites, and when users have no control over how this information is collected, processed, or disseminated, significant power disparities are at work.

p.180-181

Permission Crucially, users are no longer asked for permission The development of digital technology enabled information to be collected, sorted, and transmitted faster and more precisely than ever before, and the Internet has vastly increased the possibilities of extracting value from information.

p.183

Monetizing Data Profiles created about individuals are bought and sold on, ‘stock market like exchangeʼ such as Blukai, which sells 50 million pieces of information about individualʼs online behaviour daily. Companies like ReSheriif, Axiom, RapLEAF, and Phrom have developed sophisticated ways to track and bundle data, transforming what used to a scattering of niche companies into a rapidly growing consolidated industry.

p.184

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Capitalist Accumulation The capacity to track an process data is viewed as ‘a key competitive advantage in contemporary information capitalism ,̓ and social media are becoming leaders in this area. Positioned in terms of the valorization of surveillance and commodification of users information, social media cannot be understood outside of the broader context of capitalist accumulation in a digital age, where the relentless drive to accumulate and to rationalize production has moved online, speeding up processes of commodification and exploitation already underway in the broader economy.

p.185

From Advergamers to Branded (Grimes)

The Numbers “According to industry analysts, the digital game marketʼs overall worldwide revenues were estimated to have reached $74 billion in 2011, and are expected to exceed $112 billion by 2015. The market for online games alone has nearly reached $16 billion, drawing profits from a variety of sources that included subscription fees, online ad, and digital downloads. Industry analysts estimate that there are currently 500 million players of players of social games worldwide, while the number of registered accounts for virtual worlds worldwide hit 1 billion in 2010.

p.386

Good or Evil Academic opinion about advert games and their potential impact on both play and players is accordingly mixed. For instance, Jenkins argues that advertgaming is merely a new form of ‘transmedia storytelling,̓ one that could act as an important force in expanding the (largely male oriented games market to include more women. Conversely, studies by Kline, Dyer-Witherford, and de Peuter and Schoo suggest that branded game content is both restrictive and constraining, and that an increased presence of advertgaming within childrenʼs digital culture in particular could have negative consequences.

p.387

3 Types of Advertgaming A major influence in thinking about advert gamers as a diverse and evolving genre is Chen and Ringelʼs early research report on advert games and the future of interactive advertising. The report outlines 3 different ‘typesʼ or ways products and brands can be

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integrated into digital games. The first type, associative advertgaming, attempts to drive ‘brand awarenessʼ by associating the product with the lifestyle or the activity featured in the game. The second, illustrative advertgaming, consists of games that ‘prominently feature the product itself in gameplay. The third, demonstrative advertgaming, invites the player to interact with and ‘experience the product within the virtual confines of the gaming space… boosting messaging effectiveness by presenting the product in its natural context.

p.389

In Game Advertising In an article appeared in MediaPost … in early 2005, Massie [an in-game advertising broker] is described as inserting ads in ‘places where the characters would naturally expect to see them - on billboards … or posters, scatted throughout the game world. These ads could then be updated as often as desired through the systemʼs Internet connection over time and in conjunction with the advertiserʼs specific demographic or behavioural targeting goals.

p.390

RMT The inclusive of real money transactions (RMT) or ‘micro-transactionsʼ as part of the game design, enabling players to purchase special weapons, magic potions, and various other items required for successful gameplay, is a growing trend within the game industry. The micro-transactions model was subsequently developed and significantly refined within the context of childrenʼs online games. Yet, as Kücklick reminds us, the underlying notion of its ‘pay-to-play - revenue model also bears fundamental similarities with coin-operated arcade games.

p.390-391

Online Enabling The shift towards online and web-enabled gaming has considerably broaded corporate mandates to use games for advertising purposes. This is true not only because online connectivity enables regular updates to promotional materials and the fostering of ongoing cycles of consumption, but also because it allows for much greater levels of corporate control over branding and promotional content.

p.392

Kids

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Whereas ad to children in other media (both digital and traditional) must follow special regulatory and ethical requirements, advertgaming and branded games have largely gone unchallenged through a convergence of regulatory loopholes, jurisdictional ambiguities, and as an as yet unfulfilled promise of industry self-regulation. The combined result of these trends is the emergence of an increasingly immersive and interactive area of consumer culture, within which children become engaged in complex economic relationships which are seemingly unfolding beyond then purview of existing regulatory frameworks.” Children in Canada and the US are protected against ad messages that are misleading or that might prey on young peopleʼs credulity and lack of experience. Childrenʼs media producers are also required to clearly distinguish between ads and content. Nonetheless, many go the strategies found in branded games and advergame conflict with these regulatory requirements, or else apply them so loosely that have fail to function as intended. This is especially the case in games that feature immersive ad and other forms of in-game ads and product placements.

p.392

Brand Ambassadors Within the rubric of the type of data-mining and market research that takes pace in digital games, playersʼ immaterial labor produces an important hidden commodity in the form of their personal and behavioural data. There is also an important affective dimension to this process, which helps explain the emergence of ‘brand ambassadorsʼ as a feasible marketing strategy. As Coté and Pybus explain affect is both the product of the conflation of sisal and economic relations that occurs within Web 2.0 Apps, and what actually ‘causes them to coalesce.

p.395

Limitations While virtual billboard ads and digitalized products continue to appear in certain types of games with great frequently, both the mainstream game community and the industry itself have proven surprisingly resistant to this particular form of commercialization. Indeed, research conducted by Bogost, Jenkins, and Gee and Hayes shows that, even when ad and marketing are successfully integrated into digital games, many players - children included - are able to subvert and resist the ‘strategic limitationsʼ of promotional content.

p.396

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Conclusion Increasingly sophisticated branded environments and subtly cross- promotional games continue to challenge our ability to distinguish ads from content particular when tactics aimed at commodifying both players and content are involved.

p.397

Week 10 The Impact of Social Media on Imaginary Social Relationships with Media Figures (Alperstein)

Setting It Up The development of media like radio and TV, as well as gossip magazines, allowed the imaginary relationships with celebrities to proliferate and become a part of consumersʼ everyday lives. With the emergence of a Web 2.0 participatory culture in the 90s, the influence that media figures have on consumers, in terms of how figures may model for consumers how to manage their own identities and learn how to operate in their own social world arguably has intensified.

p.192-193

Imaginary Social Relationships Establishing and conducting imaginary social relationship with a media figure is an idea that grew out of early TV research based on observations of para social interactions between viewers and media personalities who looked out of the TV set at the viewer, giving the impression that the viewer was being spoken to directly Anthropologist John Caught coined the term ‘imaginary social relationships ,̓ which he described as one-sided relationships in which the consumer knows a great deal about the media figure, but the relationship is not mutual.

p.193

Isolation The paradox of sociality or togetherness refers to the changing nature of our social world in which connections to others are weakened like the superficial nature of many ‘friendsʼ on Facebook. We increasingly live in a world where we can be physically alone but connected to others avi technology.

p.194

Reverie While consuming multiple media, the individual may engage in reverie,

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weaving together thoughts and imagining with the relevant content from the various media they are consuming. In this process the lines between gossip, news, or information, and thought become intertwined, and perhaps the sources - oneʼs own fantasies or media information - blur together.

p.195

Non-Productive Behaviour There is a culture at work here, as daydreaming that is imagining, is considered by western standards non-productive behaviour. And young people are taught never to be idle. Therefore engaging in an imaginary social relationship with a media figure is considered non-productive by Western standards. This provides a partial explanation as to why many people have difficulty admitting they conduct such relationships as they show a side of themselves that is not consistent with dominant cultural beliefs.

p.196

The Negative Side Imaginary social relationships are not always positive, as sometimes individuals hold antagonistic feelings towards a media figure, despising or perhaps hating them.

p.197

Needs Fulfilled In addition to the basic human need to belong, psychologists maintain that imaginary social relationships fulfill the need for affiliation and companionship. The new-media marketing environment provides an ideal social-sphere for individuals to cling ever so tightly to media figures as suitable replacements for or extensions of actual relationships in order to find friendship, moral grounding, and advice, just to name a few ways in which media figures fill the gap in everyday social life.

p.200

Social Media A media figure may create a sense of intimacy by allowing the fan to eavesdrop by reading tweets that are intended to be between the celebrity and individuals in their social circle, like Kim Kardashian tweeting to one of her sisters. By allowing a fan to vicariously follow such micro-blogging interchanges, the fan feels like an insiders. The paradox of togetherness suggests that the kinds of feelings that fans develop with media figures through traditional media are amplified by social

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media. p.202

Trainwrecks Oftentimes there are, as in the case of Micheal Vick and his endorsement deal with Coca-cola that came to a speedy end, marketers who are willing to take the risk, believing that the ways in which consumers connect to celebrities are imperative for brand recognition especially in the world of parity products. The 2009 sex scandal involving Tiger Woods highlights the risks that brands take when they align themselves with celebrity endorsers.

p.203

The Space Between Within the boundaries of this particular aspect of the imaginary social relationship, individuals engage in identity formation. The space between objective reality and the imaginary social relationship is where culture does its work, a space where we judge and evaluate others and ourselves within a mediated marketing communication systems that paradoxically connects us as consumers to media figures that we do not know who offer the illusion of social connection and make us feel closer to our humanity.

p.204

Now Hear This (Powers)

The Music Racket In a branded arrangement, for instance “artists share not just revenue from their album sales but concert, merchandise and other earnings with their career label in exchange for more comprehensive career support. comprehensive career support is a prerequisite for a more cohesive image: a rocker whose bad-girl attire, edgy website, Warp Tour appearances, alcohol endorsements, and angst-ridden songs all work together toward a carefully managed whole”

p.314

Assumptions Embedded within the act of playing music promotionally is an assumption about how humans react to musical sound, one that presumes that music has the potential to be so alluring that a person cannot help but be smitten with it. While this is far from how people actually experience music (certainly we hear songs all the time that we forget, dislike, or ignore) unlike visual media there are few conventions for literacy around that which is aural — and, it can be argued, a general belief that there is less need for such critical skills

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p.316

Oversaturation The cumulative effect of both audible and the non-audible forms of promotion can discourage or debase the sale of albums, singles, concert tickets, merchandise and the like. In the account of the fictional “summer jam” mentioned above, what usually follows omnipresence is over-exposure when even fans of a song decided that enough is enough.

p.317

Journalism For culture, meaning is produced, and it is production that becomes instrumental in shaping the creation and positioning the reception of musical object. Journalism matters for many different reasons.

First, it can serve as a metric by which label personnel determine whether to allot more resources to an act or to shift their priorities in the face of bad reviews, with raves becoming directly incorporated into promotional materials.

The adage that ‘no publicity is bad publicityʼ communicates another kind of service journalism provides:

if, as established above, the goal of promotion is not sales but notice, journal of any kind is better than no journalism at all.

p.319

Emotional Work In producing meaning that may be used promotionally, cultural intermediaries function like consumers insofar as their attachments to music may be utilized toward building the promotional effort. Put another way, to labour promotionally is to fro emotional work that mimics and easily coincides with fan sentiments. This does not mean that all promotional labourers are fans. I simply mean that to point out that promotional labor communicates endorsement or belief - the expenditure of time, money, and attention on this music and not that. Ironically, such anointment exists even when when views are negative; a blogger who posts about a band he despises still has chosen that artist, out of all for special recognition and heated debate

p.319

Overexposure Overexposure is pop musicʼs version of a chronic winter cough:

easy to catch, miserable to endure, and enormously difficult to get over.

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The ubiquity of music in public life is an indication not only of musicʼs cultural and emotional value, but also of an industrial strategy gone off course - an instance where the attempt to make a song more popular has resulted… in dislike and derision.

p.323

The Catch Creating an environment predisposed towards selling does not mean that everything sells;

the drive toward a unified meaning or image is naive in the sense that it does not account for the wide range of interpretations various stakeholders may have.

Music clearly illustrates how promotion is often a product of coincidence and circumstance rather than an orchestration, and can backfire just as easily as it can hit.

p.323

(Aronczyk)

A Nationʼs Brand A nationʼs brand is seen by its proponents and practitioners as a modern-day version of the national flag:

a metonymic marker of identity and allegiance outfitted for the contemporary realities of global media and commerce.

Or, as advertising executive turned nation-branding guru Simon Anholt puts it, Nation brand is national identity made tangible, robust, communicable, and above all useful

p.160

Tropes In its ability to marry tropes of heritage and modernization, domestic and foreign concerns, and economic and moral ideologies in the project of national identity, a nationʼs brand is meant to offer a version of nationalism rooted in the unifying spirit of benign commercial ‘interestsʼ rather than in the divisions of antagonistic political ‘passionsʼ

p.160

Whoʼs Involved For the project of branding the nation, this class includes:

national government departments, consular and diplomatic representatives, and transnational institutions whose mandate revolves around the protection and promotion of national heritage, investment and tourism.

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Marketing and management academics at international business schools and affiliated think tanks; Multinational private consultancies operating in a range od capacities related to the promotion of national territory, from location and tax advisories to place-based public relations strategies and market research agencies; advertising, design, and branding shops whose clients include national governaments and specialized media outlets that cater to international investors and tourists.

p.162

The Transnational Capitalist Class The transactional capitalist class is devoted above all to the perpetuation of a global capitalist system of continuous profit and accumulation. The concept of the nation as a cultural or political form is almost entirely absent from the globalizing work of the TCC. The TCC admits the nation into its vision on the condition of what Solar terms ‘global nationalismʼ - the perspective that the nationʼs interests ‘are best served if it can find a best served if it can find a lucrative set.

p.163

The Transnational Promotional Class The transaction promotional class, by contrast, is heavily invested in the cultural and political dimensions of a nation. They see national distinctions in matters of territory, industry, or identity both as tools for generating economic value and as sources of cultural recognition and political possibility . In this version of global nationalism, national identity is put forward not only as a source of legitimatcy, recognition, and value, but as actual responsible for a nation-stateʼs continued legitimacy recognition and value. In the hands of the TPC, national culture becomes a key explanatory variable for the nation-stateʼs ability to remain relevant in the 21st century.

p.163

The Strategy Activities such as ad and consulting clients, creating brand identities and ad campaigns, developing media or public relations strategies, or ranking and benchmarking performance are characterized as ways of primarily communicating the vision and values held by their clients. One idea that emerges from this self-description is that the work of communicating is not about producing, owning or creating anything; itʼs about promoting already existing facts and features. In their ability to present themselves as ‘mereʼ communicators ( or as they

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describe their function in their own promotional materials as calculators, conduits, facilitators, guides, intermediaries, mamangers, middlemen, prmoters, strategists or shepherds), these transnational actors claim the ability to mediate - rather than to create - forms of value across territorial space in a variety of ways. Their power lies not in maintaining control over assets but in maintaining control over

Micheal Porterʼs The competitive Advantage of Nations Porterʼs insight into the Competitive advantage of Nations was to expand this idea to the nation as a whole. If the locus of economic productivity was set in entire national industries, it was the space of the entire nation that constituted the external environment. From this logic it followed that the focus of national policy should be not on creating regulation to shape the actions of firms, but on adjusting the terms of the national environment to ‘fitʼ the requirements its key industries.

p.164

Week 11 Micheal Porterʼs The Competitive Advantage of Nations

porters insight into the Competitive Advantage of Nations was to expand this idea to the nation as a whole

Object of Management By reimagining the state as facilitator of industry instead of leader of populations, Porter - a member of a rapidly expanding class of business and academic thinkers - also imagined a new relationship between business and the state. In Porterʼs formulation, states were not subjects of governance but object of management and, as such, required the expertise and knowledge of management thinkers to function effectively. With competitiveness as the primary figure, a virtue that governments had not previously considered in their active portfolios, the suggestion was that a new kind of new knowledge.

Goals and Failures The ultimate goal, Lindsey and Fairbanks explained, was to ‘change the mind of a nationʼ that is, modify citizensʼ behaviours and attitudes to make them more conductive to competitive behaviour and, by extension, economic success. By proposing that it was the values and attitudes held by the nationʼs people, rather than those exposed by the strategies, that led to the countryʼs economic success or failure, these entrepreneurs could mitigate their own

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responsibility for the success or failure of their initiatives p.166

The Vanishing Act As we have seen members of the transnational promotional class are engaged in the active creation of global opinion, which functions as a source of discipline at the domestic level. In the process of mobilizing foreign and domestic discourses and practices as constitutive elements of the contemporary nation, however, promotional intermediates discount their own participation in the narrative and practices.

p.170

Demanding Environments In Technologies of Public Forms: Circulation, Transfiguration, Recognition” Goanker and Povinelli explore how value is determined in the power relations between cultures of circulation, and how these power struggles contribute to turning social life into what they call a demanding environment. By demanding enviornment, they are referring to a social environment in which various intermediaries are able to demand certain forms of subjectivity and disable others, make certain texts and practices palpable and intelligible and others useless, and validate certain kinds of recognition which invalidating alternatives.

p.170

Cultavating the Romance of Place (Popp)

Dreamscapes I argue that tourism has in fact had a very material impact on consumer culture, acting as a powerful shaping agent on the broader aesthetics of mass marketing. Ad, industrial design, fashion, retail outlet all bear the mark of touristic ways of thinking about space and place. Indeed, tourist travel provides a whole body of narratives and symbols that pass through everyday life, helping to constitute the basic lexicon of consumer enticement:

travel landscapes double as ad dreamscapes, leisure time nourishes fantasies of abundance, and ways of being mobile speak to desires for autonomy of desire.

Consumer Fantasy The tourist imagination offers a window into how notions of place, identity, and social power have shaped the backdrops of consumer fantasy, and in turn helped to produce in both an enabling a limiting sense, the spatial

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environments of consumer culture. p.54

Desires Behind the ersatz architectural flourishes and spectacular interiors lay the basic message the everyday spending could sate the same desires for power and privilege as imperial conquest.

p.58

Absolute Mobility Instead of taking imperial conquest as its chief reference point, modernist consumer culture was more fundamentally shaped by fantasies of absolute mobility. Streamlined appliances were made to resemble speeding bullets, car culture, range homes, sportswear, furniture, and shopping malls all reflected aspects of modern tourist culture, the world as already traversable space. Symbolically, then, vacation travel was the apogee of a prosperous and technologically empowered society that had bested austerity and staked out time to play

p.61

Simulation and Self-Actualization These symbols speak to very different idealized landscape but they share a touristic ethos anchored in leisure worlds where an authentic self can fully bloom. And again, this idiom hopes the built enviornment of buying and spending in important ways. Nowhere is this more evident than in the elaborate landscapes that characterize many of todayʼs retail chain.

p.64

Race in Mad Men Though some have criticized Mad Men for not featuring any significant characters of colour, Winfery Harris this is precisely the point. The showʼs ‘unyielding Whiteness and causual racismʼ illustrate Ralph Ellisonʼs notion of Black invisibility: “they way race is there, but not there in the live of the White protagonist,̓ whether it be a minstrel at a garden party, a Black elevator operator in the office or a Black maid at home. Race in mad Men is like a telltale heart, often out of sight, yet always beating just below the surface Matthew Seiner, Mad Menʼs creator and head writer, contends that the showʼs depiction of race is not only true to its own time but still reflects today

p.258

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The Boyʼs Club While the account management aspect of ad - while interfaces directly with the client - has become increasingly gendered as female space over time, creative - which generates the ideas for campaigns - has remained stubbornly male. Crucially, these notions of ‘common senseʼ are not jest imposed from without, some emerge from within. Many of my female informants promulgate clichéd gender essentialism, arguing that women are naturally ‘less competitive ,̓ ‘better organizedʼ , and ‘more collaborativeʼ than men - a sort of ʼsoftʼ skills that makes them better suited for account and project functions, not to mention HR Thus, in contrast to the more explicit chauvinism depicted in Mad Men, gender roles in ad now tend to be more internalized than enforced, though some sexist assumptions are still simply stated outright.

p.258

Self-Censorship All thing being equal, like hires like, and euphemisms of fit and chemistry conceal adʼs structural system of White affirmative action.

Regulating Integrating Advertising (Spurgeon)

Setting the Debate Critical social theorists have persuasively argued that ad is one of many means by which the rhetoric of ‘ promotional cultureʼ circulates in an ever- expanding range of social spheres as capitalist forms of exchange come to dominate all others. Integrated ad challenges conventions established in the analog print and broadcast media era about the separation of commercial and non-commercial elements of media content. On the one hand, integrated ad is a major driver of innovation in media and entertainment genres, forms, and business models. On the other, there is uncertainty about the extent to which media consumers are adequately informed about the prescience of ad communication, or the underlying publicity intent.

p.71

Nothing new Under the Sun There is nothing particularly new about integrated ad. Radio and TV histories are a rich source of insights into contemporary policy problems of integrated ad, as well as the current attraction of integration for advertisers.

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Sponsorship Sponsorship is of particular interest her for 3 reasons:

Historically, sponsorship has proven to be a powerful mechanism for integrating the domains of commerce, media, and culture.

This is because its use and influence are not limited to media, but extends a broad range of activities including arts, culture, sports, not- for-profit, and public benefit activities.

Sponsorship is the ordinary form of an expansive array of what Grant Hackley called embedded marketing practices, and what is described here as integrated advertising. Sponsorship provides a point of comparative study across a number of regulatory jurisdiction. Positioned as a constant variable, sponsorship provide a focus for looking at how regulations have responded to the industry case to liberalize restraints on integrated ad practice.

p.72-73

Movies Indeed, the integration practices developed for Hollywood cinema inspired fresh approaches to embedding brands into TC and other media and entertainment forms. In this convergence of media and entertainment industries and platforms, distinctions between advertising and non-advertising content collapsed in ways that ran far ahead of media-specific regulation.

p.73

Music Practices such as embedded brand names into the lyrics and MV images for songs that feature in commercial FM radio playlists are generally beyond the reach of broadcasting regulation.

p.73

IMC In professional communication disciplines integrated ad is understood as evidence of a wider trend to ‘integrated marketing communicationʼ and also as evidence of the limits of the IMC project. In critical social theory, integrated ad is seen as evidence of promotional culture and the relentless colonization of social space by the logic of markets and capital.

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Deregulation Deregulation associated with the influence of neo-liberal economics in public policy, and ‘a more general shift towards entrepreneurial forms of governance by a wide range of institutions ,̓ also had far-reaching consequences for commercial media and ad industries and practices, including integrated ad. It contributed to ‘creating a promotional environment that has no precedent in modern historyʼ and has followed 2 distinctive tracks:

There was the withdrawal by competition regulators of approval for anti- competitive arrangements that underpinned the commissions system, the main business model for full service ad agencies for much of the 20th century. As discussed in detail shortly, ad restrictions on broadcasting services were relaxed.

By the new millennium, broadcast media had reached and passed their zenith in mature consumer societies such as the U.S., Australia, and much of Europe.

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Desperation At the beginning of the 21st century there was an international trend to increased regulatory tolerance of integrated ad. This coincided with increased competition in the global media and entertainment markets, and increased industry pressure to remove industry- specific approaches to media regulation. Ad and commercial media industries forcefully argued in all of the reform initiatives considered here that integration was crucial to the viability of contemporary electronic media business.

p.80

Legitamacy The legitimacy of integrated ad forms and practices has always been subject to considerable public and scholarly debate. The controversy about these practices turns on the extent to which audiences are aware of advertiser involvement in securing publicity. Corner advocates 2 complementary courses of action for academic teaching and research to advance knowledge and public debate.

p.80

(Turow) The Media Support System

Often lost in discussion o the ads is the ad industryʼs major role as a media support system. That is, ad involves payment of a media firm (a particular magazine, TV network, or website) in return for the right to reach the mediumʼs audience

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members with persuasive messages. This process provides core funding of many media, including digital media in the U.S. and elsewhere. Central to this work is a sector of the ad business called media planning and buying ( media buying, for short), which revolves around the choice of media for an ad campaign and the provision of funds to pay for the placement.

p.99

A lack of Openess Note that the cookie could not by itself distinguish between 2 separate people using he same computer. That was the result of Montilli and Giannandreaʼs decision to have the cookie work without asking the computer user to accept or contribute information to it. There was an ominous downside to that seamless approach:

By not making the computer userʼs permission a requirement for dropping the cookie, the 2 programmers were building a lack of openness into the centre of the consumerʼs digital transactions with marketers.

p.101

SEO Search Engine Optimization aims to exploit organic search results. That is the list of websites you get when you type key words into the search box. In response to the words, Googleʼs computers determine whether a site should appear on the organic list and how high it should appear. although many of the criteria are secret, 2 core values that guide a siteʼs presence and position are well know: the extent of the siteʼs connection to the search items and its reputation as one that has many other sites linking to it. A site that reflects the search items and has many high-reputation sites linking to it will appear higher on the organic

Cookies and Ratings 2 audience rating companies, Nielsen and comScore, are central to the development of the webʼs power structure. As the dominant players in that space

WEEK 11 (Turow) Location, Location, Location

Traditionally, ads executives tried to place ads where the environment of editorial matter or programming would fit with the tenor of the commercial message or the personally and status of the product. So, for example food ads in magazines would be best be placed among

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recipes, while creators of TV commercials generally want them to air on the types of shows that they believe draw attention and sales. In the digital environment, this concern has narrowed to not wanting to have ads served near salacious content that might hurt the brand in the eye of the audience. Media buyers agreed in interviews for this study that in the new century marketers were putting greater pressure than ever on print publishers to have the commercial messages cross into editorial materials.

p.107

Weakening The battle to weaken the barrier between advertisers and editorial standards began in the late 20th century as the new media world unravelled stable traditional approaches. TV program producers around that time were chaffing under the lower license fees the broadcast TV networks were paying them now that they compared with cable TV for ad.

p.107

2008 The economic downturn around 2008 together with the increasing movement of advertisers online pushed on increasing number of publishers to signal to advertisers that they would be open to friendlier relationships between the editorial and marketing side of the business

p.107

Content Farms These are new firms that pump thousands of articles every day onto the internet, written by freelancers who are paid small amounts (often less than 10) per article and told what subject to choose based on trending topics: the popularity of words searched on Goggle, Twitter, and other search and social media platforms. Content farms help websites without writing staffs or journalistic commitments to survive even while charging advertisers low prices for impressions. Legacy firms from the print, radio and TV industries, suffering under higher costs, place content farm material on their sites (and share revenues) for the same reason

p.108-109

Survival About.com and Huffintonpost.com, for example, craft them topic-selection, headline-creation, and advertising strategies with an understanding that their fare attracts individuals who ‘stackʼ on individual pieces that they have

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http://About.com

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chanced upon through traditional or social search activities. The sites carry out these activities with an awareness that, by attracting individuals to their pieces, they are setting into motion the data-gathering, media-buying, and ad-searching ecosystem that, often in real time, will bring them the revenue they need to survive in the web environment.

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“Back to the Future: Gifts, Friendship, and the Re-Figuration of Advertising Space” (MacRury) The Paradox

And her is the paradox ad and consumerism, cultural sub-functions of marketing were driven by and drive forward an ethic of affective richness, expression, and self- actualization through objects and consumption

They became elements in the deconstructive antagonisms (for good or ill) undermining the decline of ‘public manʼ and some aspects and values attaching to ‘hisʼ discursive public sphere. However today, and with some irony, ad and other forms or promotional publicity seem now themselves to be facing erosion and transformation - with social media undercutting publicity with a new, more intimate discourse

p.359

Ritual and Spectacle Thinking about social media promotions it can be proposed that the social mediation proxies for ‘witchcraftʼ are instrumental abstractions. As and where a brand or an individual enacts or appears to enact, an instrumentalism that smacks of market abstractions and ‘usingʼ or ‘broadcastingʼ to networks, or where ‘sharing; becomes surveillance, if not stalking, this is likely to diminish the ‘fameʼ or ‘regardʼ of the brand/ person/ friend. Such interactions risk bringing about a kind of tragedy of the commons in the wider social media community deadening the space. Victor Turner provides a way of thinking about such circumstance

He distinguishes between ‘ritualʼ and ‘spectacleʼ Ritual points to the intimacy and meaning making of reciprocal social interactions. While spectacle indicates in abstraction or instrumentalism of ritual and pacification of spectators - amounting to a dimension in the value of any exchange.

p.369

The Up Side Social media amount to tat once a bypassing of main media, a deconstructive

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de-compilation of main media forms and contents and an aggregative redistribution of media culture and contents. Users seek and enjoy autonomy, the promise of authentic relating, a loose-ties sociality, and a reassuring (disorganized) ambient co-presence - flexible- virtual time and space.

p.370

"Rate Your Knowledge: The Branded University” (Banet-Weisers) Flipping the Script

What is an issue for higher educationʼs future, however, is the increasing normalizing of branded logic, narratives, and strategies as critical factors in how a university as organized, governed, and promoted to a general citizenry and future students. Using business and branding models to structure institutions of higher learning is a process that has been occurring for decades, as neoliberal economic practices have organized most cultural and social formation in the West since the 1970s.

p.299

Digital Promotion The imaging and packaging or universities now encompass digital and social media, and have many material components including:

Trade-marked logos such as the interlocking “SC” of the University of Southern California The design and naming of buildings Multi-media public relations Facebook pages. The governor professionalization of university governance and student recruitment Recruitment brochures The trademarking and patenting of faculty research Youtube promotional videos Continued fund-raising from private donors (such as endowed chairs

p.298

Brand Culture Broadly defined as the deliberate association of products trademarked names with ideas, concepts, feelings, and relationships, brand culture creates a context within which consumer participation is not simply (or even most importantly) indicated by purchases, but by brand identity and affiliation linking brands to lifestyles, politics and social activism. Brand culture, then is not simply a space which one inhabits, it also provides a normative context for individuals to understand themselves as ‘free agentsʼ in

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a ‘free market .̓ This market organizes - indeed, depends upon - people to understand themselves as free to make choices and exercise agency, and the logic of brand culture offers a template for such understanding.

p.299

Learning as Product “If the product to be branded and ‘soldʼ is intellectual knowledge and inquiry, and students are consumers of this product, we need to interrogate the ways in which the contemporary university is governed by and organized within this kind of political economy.

p.301

Care of the Self But how are universities and professors ‘packagedʼ? What goes into the formulation of an ‘attractive containerʼ of knowledge. Professors do not use social media only to help build the brand of the university. There is also an increasing pressure to self-brand in the contemporary neoliberal context, what Nikolas Rose called ‘governing of a distanceʼ involves the explicit ‘care of the selfʼ The care of the self id expressed as a form of freedom, as in the freedom to govern oneself, to make individual and privatized choices, free to be an innovate entrepreneur using the resources of privatized brand culture.

p.302

Celebrity professors The culture of the self-branding is authorized in part by contemporary celebrity culture and visibility The ‘celebrity professorʼ has come into vogue in the past several decades where professor an advised to takes from celebrity culture in terms of self- promotion and careerism, and are often advertised by university to recruit new students.

p.302

Rankings On the US News and World Reportʼs best Us universities list, the rating or ranking a university receives is crucial to student recruitment, fund-raising and general repetitional and cultural capital The ranking is used in obvious places such as recruitment brochures and promotional materials, but also has currency in faculty grant proposals, external funding, and private donations.

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Thumbs Up Importantly this proliferation of reviewing and rating information what Chris Colin calls the Yelpification of the universe has become so inebriated into the culture that it is practically invisible.

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Empowerment The ability tis rank is part of the freedom of students/consumers

it affords a veneer of control over what has historically been known as an opaque dynamic - the transfer of knowledge, the evaluation of intellect.

Yet, despite this illusion of control over the educational process, ‘universities under academic capitalism perceive students as captive markets to be leverged fro corporate resources.

p.305

From Students to Consumer. RMP then, is a clear reflection of the branded university where institutions of higher education, a multi-national media conglomerate, and WEB 2.0 marketing are synergized to create a branded cultural space where students can feel empowered as consumer-citizens

RMP is actually trying to add value fro students as consumers of university education, rather then merely being a spot to complain about teachers

The complete spillage here, from students to consumers, both creates and perpetuates

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Youʼre On Your Own Within the context of the branded university, students are charged with servicing their own goals needds and ambitions outside the realm of university responsibility and obligation. This is a characteristic of neoliberal market exhange, which not only authorizes the individual entrepreneur, but also provides a template for how to service oneʼs goals and needs. Students are increasingly conceptualized by university administration as customers, and consequently students frequently craft and experience their identities in the college setting this way.

p.310

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