240MC Lecture Two Who do they Think they are Advertising to? John Keenan

1. 240MC Lecture Two Who do they Think they are Advertising to? John Keenan john.keenan@coventry.ac.uk

2. Last week... Advertising’s role in maintaining capitalism Methods: USP, Freud, semiotics, anxiety Quote 1 http://240mc.wordpress.com

3. The audience as socially-created You’re all individual Yes, we’re all individual

5. Like no other... Discourse Interpellation Conspicuous consumption Inconspicuous consumption Reification Postmodernism Pseudo-individuality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cOuWElMjf8

7. 2. ‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves’ Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements

8. Stereotyping 4. ‘A stereotype is the product of social construction, growing from group relations; an individual is assigned to a group and the supposed attributes of that group are applied to that individual’ Stuart Price, The Complete Media and Communication Handbook, 1997, London: Hodder and Stoughton, p.219 We stereotype ourselves

9. Michel Foucault THE POSITIONS TO WHICH WE ARE SUMMONED

10. Louis Althusser interpellation

11. A discourse 5. ‘self-identity must be validated through social interaction..the self is embedded in social practices’ Jenkins 1996 cited in Elliot p.133

12. We stereotype ourselves Adverts help to give us the tools for the discourses - the meanings.

13. Adverts give products meaning for use in our social identity

15. The discourse is always chosen - played with… BUT ...if we refuse the expected discourse we will be outside of society class age group ethnicity gender

16. Your discourse…. The teenager The student

17. Teen Discourse 404 Cotch Dope Fomo MySpace Munch The Teenager The invention of the Teenager

18. Expectations Belonging

19. AGE TARGETING BY DISCOURSE USE RECREATIONAL DRUGS CONCERNED WITH LOVE-LIFE DRINK CONCERNED ABOUT SOCIAL LIFE ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT MONEY STUDENT LISTEN TO LOUD MUSIC WEAR CASUAL CLOTHES SLEEP IN UNTIL THE AFTERNOON EAT TAKE-AWAYS TRAVEL TO THAILAND/AUSTRALIA WANT TO HAVE FUN

21. Expectations Belonging

22. Conspicuous consumption Thorstein Veblen 1953

23. William H White The Organisation Man inconspicuous consumption = an anti-social act

24. Demographic discourses age gender ethnicity class nationality

25. Targeting by Demographics • Research into a discourse • 2. Use the target in the advert • 3. Include the discourse • 4. Make the product part of the discourse

26. EG BORN MALE AGE-25-35 WORKING CLASS NORTHERN

27. EG BORN FEMALE AGE-18-25 The subject is produced performatively

28. I consume therefore I am I consume therefore I am

29. The postmodern condition

30. 12. ‘The self is a symbolic project, which the individual must actively construct out of the available symbolic materials’ Elliot, p.131

31. Postmodernism: identity The death of God left the angels in a strange position. They were overtaken suddenly by a fundamental question… The question was, ‘What are angels?’

32. Postmodernism All that is solid will melt into air Berman cited in Hebdige, After the Masses, in New Times, Hall S and jacques (Eds),1989: p.76 We are swimming in a sea of signs Jean Baudrillard Postmodern culture is a fragmented culture John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold p.56

33. Postmodernism is both an aesthetic style and a theoretical account John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.58 i Metanarratives ii Simulacrum and hyper-reality

34. Postmodernism pre-modernist times

35. Modernism THE IDEA OF PROGRESS Creation of Metanarratives Rational Thought History Voltaire (1694-1778) - ordered history and set it in a time frame and judged it by a fixed morality and scientific laws Science Newton (1643-1727) - science. 17th Century onwards: ‘science became the major aspect of human life…science could only move one way, forward’SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20 Philosophy Descartes (1596-1650): I think therefore I am Pascal(1623-62): ‘men…as one man, always living and incessantly learning’ cited in THE IDEA OF PROGRESS, SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20

36. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives Science By understanding the world we will control it We exist to make the world better (progress) metanarratives 1 The universe was made by a Big Bang People keep improving life People evolved from apes

37. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives History Cavemen were wild We live to maintain this progress metanarratives 2 Civilisations like The Romans controlled them but were violent and dangerous Democracy came and gave us power Kings established a secure civilised country

38. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives Church God creates world People go bad Jesus dies to save people from Hell Metanarratives 3 Repent and go to Heaven Life is a trial

39. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives Some people have special skills Authority metanarratives 4 These people should use them to serve society Life is about knowing your place in society and serving where you can We must respect those who serve for our good

40. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives State I am born an Englishman metanarratives 5 I like roast beef, drink pints and show no emotion I exist to maintain the natural way of life of my people These values I will fight for my children to have

41. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives Marxism We are all born equal metanarratives 6 Some have more than others, some starve I exist to ensure that the world becomes fair We must take from those with more than they need and give it to those who need it

42. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives Feminism Women are oppressed by men metanarratives 6 Women need to rise up and take an equal place I exist to make the world fairer for women

43. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives Post-modernism Lyotard - an incredulity towards metanarratives

44. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives HighWindows

45. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives • High Windows • When I see a couple of kidsAnd guess he's fucking her and she'sTaking pills or wearing a diaphragm,I know this is paradiseEveryone old has dreamed of all their lives--Bonds and gestures pushed to one sideLike an outdated combine harvester,And everyone young going down the long slideTo happiness, endlessly. I wonder ifAnyone looked at me, forty years back,And thought, That'll be the life;No God any more, or sweating in the darkAbout hell and that, or having to hideWhat you think of the priest. HeAnd his lot will all go down the long slideLike free bloody birds. And immediatelyRather than words comes the thought of high windows:The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep blue air, that showsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

47. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives The loss of metanarratives A culture with No progress No common ideology No common meaning We are free. We are lost.

48. Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives The loss of meta-narratives Dick Hebdige 3 Negations Against totalisation Against teleology – designed for result Against utopia As if (1950s) As if (2000s)

49. Postmodernism: simulacrum and hyper-reality Advertising and the post-modern condition Simulacrum Jean Baudrillard ‘Our society is image saturated…In one hour’s television viewing one of us is likely to experience more images than a member of a non-industrial society would in a lifetime…we live in a postmodern period when there is no difference between the image and other orders of experience’ John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.56

50. Postmodernism: simulacrum and hyper-reality New York There is no authentic reality for us to experience image=reality; reality=image