Advertising: A Cultural Economy

Both a history and a deconstruction of the "quaint device" that is advertising, McFall's Foucauldian study describes the ad- related institutions, practices, and products prevalent in the UK and US between 1780 and 1935. McFall (sociology, Open U., UK) writes that her analysis (lightly illustrated in b&w) is intended as a response to critical characterizations of the role of advertising in sustaining societies driven by the logic of "commodity consumption"; McFall finds that advertising merits close study as a specific commercial entity in its own right, with a capacity to reinvent itself in response to the environment in which it's conducted. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR