COMM 3xx: ADVERTISING, COMMUNICATION, AND CULTURE



COMM 499: SPECIAL TOPICS: ADVERTISING AND COMMUNICATION

Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism

Spring 2011 / MW 10:00-11:50am / ASCJ 204

Instructor Information

Prof. Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD

Email: portwood@usc.edu

Office: ASCJ 333

Teaching Assistants:

Course Catalog Description

Theories of advertising as a mode of communication; history of advertising in the US; institutions of the advertising industry; economic and policy context for advertising; critical analysis of advertising texts.

Course Themes

This course will introduce students to advertising as a means of communication and a mode of cultural practice. We will trace the evolution of advertising from its historical roots to the present, paying particular attention to the relationship between advertising and the communications media (including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the internet). We will situate advertising within economic and political systems, in both US and global contexts. Students will develop literacies that allow them to critically analyze contemporary advertising as audiences, consumers, and potential creators of advertisements. Students will acquire knowledge of the various forces and ideologies that shape advertising practices (e.g. capitalism, liberalism, neoliberalism, multiculturalism), and gain experience analyzing ads in terms of these ideas. Students will become accustomed to taking an entrepreneurial approach to critical discussions of the advertisements they encounter in their everyday lives: through blogging and class discussions they will build the confidence and skills needed to communicate with authority about advertising in professional and public situations.

Course Objectives

Students in this course will learn:

To approach advertisements as carriers of meaning and ideology within culture.

To analyse advertisements as a unique mode of communication.

The historical development of advertising in the United States.

To situate advertisements within their economic, institutional, and legal contexts.

To make critical observations about contemporary advertising, and to publicly communicate those observations online.

To formulate and communicate well-informed attitudes toward advertising’s role within contemporary society.

Assignments

Exams (40%): Material from course will be covered on two midterm exams. These exams will be short answer/essay format. Students will be tested on their knowledge of material presented in readings and lectures, as well as on their ability to apply analytical tools to ads they have not seen before.

Final Paper (15%): Students will write a 4-5 page essay in response to a prompt which will require them to synthesize ideas and examples from across the course. This paper will be due at the scheduled final exam time.

Blogs (35%): Each student is required to participate in a class blog, in which they apply course concepts to their own observations of advertising. Prompts for each blog post will be provided by the instructor on a bi-weekly basis. On weeks when there is no prompt assigned, students will read the blog posts of other students and make thoughtful commentary on their classmates’ posts. The cumulative grade for this assignment will be based on the quality of the student’s own posts as well as the quality of participation in the group online discussion. Students may be asked to evaluate the participation of their fellow group-members at the end of the term.

Participation (10%)

Course Policies

Late submissions – including blog posts – will NOT be accepted. All deadlines are firm. If you are aware of a conflict that will prevent you from completing an assignment on time, you are responsible to contact the instructor in advance. Emergencies will require written documentation.

Laptops are allowed for note-taking and research purposes in class. Please don’t let yourself get distracted by other things on your computer!

Academic integrity is crucial in this course. Particularly because you will be posting writings to the web, it is very important that you adequately credit the sources of the ideas you present. It is proper “netiquette” to provide links to any web material you reference. It is also standard academic practice to cite any sources you utilize in producing your own scholarship.

You are expected only to submit work that is 1) your own and 2) done expressly for this course. This means, don’t submit work you have prepared for another course, or work you have found on the Internet or elsewhere. Doing so will result in a zero grade on the assignment, and possible failure of the course or expulsion from the school.

The Annenberg School for Communication is committed to upholding the University’s Academic Integrity Code as detailed in the SCampus guide. It is the policy of the School of Communication to report all violations of the code. Any serious violations or pattern of violations of the Academic Integrity Code will result in the student’s expulsion from the Communication major or minor. The University presumes that you are familiar with its standards and policies. Should you be found to have committed a violation, ignorance of these standards and policies will not be accepted as an excuse. For further clarification, please refer to “University Student Conduct Code” and “Appendix A: Academic Dishonesty Sanction Guidelines” in the SCampus guide.

ADA Compliance Statement

Any student requesting academic accommodation based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to your instructor as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Required Texts

Leiss, William, et al. 2005. Social communication in advertising. 3rd Edition. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Sivulka, Juliann. 1998. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Additional articles and chapters provided on the course Blackboard site.

Course Schedule

1/10: Course Introduction

1/12: Understanding Advertising as Cultural Practice

Leiss Ch. 1: “Introduction”

Blog Prompt #1 given

1/17: No Class (MLK Day)

1/19: Advertising Form

Leiss, Ch. 6: “The Structure of Advertisements”

Blog Post #1 due

1/24: Interpreting Meaning in Ads

Roland Barthes, “The Rhetoric of the Image”

1/26: Interpreting Meaning in Ads

Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, “Advertising in the Age of Accelerated Meaning”

Blog Commentary #1 due

Blog Prompt #2 given

1/31: Roots of American Advertising

Sivulka Ch. 1: “1492-1880 The Beginnings”

Leiss Ch. 2: “From Traditional to Industrial Society

2/2: Roots of American Advertising

Sivulka Ch. 2: “1880-1900 Selling the Goods”

Blog Post #2 due

2/7: The Rise of Consumer Society

Silvulka Ch. 3: “1900-WWI The Rise of Consumer Economy”

Leiss Ch. 3: “Advertising in the Transition from Industrial to Consumer Society”

2/9: The Continued Rise of Consumer Society

Silvulka Ch. 4: “1920-1929 The Roaring Twenties”

Blog Commentary #2 due

Blog Prompt #3 given

2/14: Advertising in Hard Times

Sivulka Ch. 5: “The Depression and World War II”

2/16: Advertising in Prosperous Times

Sivulka Ch. 6: “1945-1960 The Postwar Boom”

Blog Post #3 Due

2/21: No Class (Presidents Day)

2/23: Advertising and Mass Media Formats

Leiss Ch. 4: “Advertising and the Development of Communications Media”

Blog Commentary #3 due

Blog Prompt #4 given

2/28: Exam 1

3/2: Agency Personnel

Leiss Ch. 5: “Advertising and the Development of Agencies”

Screening: Art & Copy

Blog Post #4 due

3/7: The Creative Revolution

Sivulka Ch. 7: “1960-1975 The Creative Revolution”

Thomas Frank, “The Varieties of Hip: Advertisements of the 1960s”

3/9: Critiques from within and without

Thomas Frank, “Advertising as Cultural Criticism”

Leiss Ch. 17: “Issues in Social Policy”

Blog Commentary #4 due

Blog Prompt #5 given

3/14 & 3/16: No Class (Spring Break)

3/21: Goods and Meaning

Leiss Ch. 7: “Goods as Communicators and Satisfiers”

3/23: Evolution of Modern Ads

Sivulka Ch. 8: “1975-1990 From Positioning to Image Building”

Leiss Ch. 8: “Consumer Cultures and Mediated Markets”

Blog Post #5 due

3/28: The Contemporary Advertising Context

Leiss Ch. 9: “Late Modern Consumer Society”

Leiss Ch. 10: “Media in the Mediated Marketplace”

3/30: Contemporary Advertising Campaigns

Sivulka Ch. 9: “1990s and Beyond: The Media Revolution”

Leiss Ch. 12: “Structure and Agency: Tensions at Play in Advertising Design”

Screening: The Persuaders

Blog Commentary #5 due

Blog Prompt #6 given

4/4: Contemporary Audiences

Leiss Ch. 13: “The Mobilization of the Yuppies and Generation X”

Leiss Ch. 14: “Negotiated Messaging for Generation X”

4/6: Lifestyle and Marketing

Leiss Ch. 15 “Mobilizing the Culturati”

Joseph Turow, chapter selections TBA

Blog Post #6 due

4/11: The Youth Market

Naomi Klein, “Alt.Everything: The Youth Market and the Marketing of Cool”

Malcolm Gladwell, “The Coolhunt”

Screening: The Merchants of Cool

4/13: Advertising to Youth for Social Good

Guest Speaker, Readings TBA

Blog Commentary #6 due

Blog Prompt #7 given

4/18: Exam 2

4/20: Advertising and New Media

Mangold & Faulds, “Social Media: The New Hybrid Element of the Promotion Mix”

Eric K. Clemons, “The Complex Problem of Monetizing Virtual Electronic Social Networks”

Blog Post #7 due

4/27: Advertising and New Media

Marc Andrejevic, “Productive Play 2.0: The Logic of In-Game Advertising”

Guest Speaker

4/29: Course Wrap-up

Blog Commentary #7 due

Final Paper Assigned

Finals Week: Final Paper Due; Time and Place TBA

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