San Antonio College Library

"Composed with a touch of the panache of a former advertising copywriter, Kelso challenges readers to reflect on the social impact of advertising from multiple angles. The book uniquely combines personal anecdotes with a penetrating look at some of the most critical perspectives toward the field advanced by media scholars. A play on David Ogilvy's legendary Confessions of an Advertising Man, the text disrupts the creative guru's account with a highly...

Does advertising have the power to alter minds and behavior? Or is it merely a simplistic and often vulgar form of enticement? Advertising and Popular Culture is the first comprehensive text to provide a balanced analysis of advertising as a business practice and as a creator of symbolic environments. Advertising - its images and messages - has permeated our popular culture for over forty years. Reflecting current theories, this thoughtful critique...

Adcreep pulls back the curtain on the curious and sometimes troubling world of modern advertising. An array of techniques that might seem like the stuff of science fiction--biometric scans, automated online spies, facial recognition software--are now routinely deployed to study and stimulate consumer desire. Sometimes today's advertisers can hide in plain sight, converting historically ad-free spaces into commercial canvases by infiltrating schools...

"In the mid-nineteenth century, two industries arrived on the American scene. One was strictly a business, yet it helped create, define, and disseminate American culture. The other was ostensibly just a game, yet it soon became emblematic of what it meant to be American, aiding in the creation of a national identity. Today, whenever the AT&T call to the bullpen is heard, fans enter Minute Maid Park, or vote for favorite All-Stars (brought to us by...

"In Slave in a Box, M.M. Manring investigates why the troubling figure of Aunt Jemima has endured in American culture. The author traces the evolution of the mammy from her roots in Old South slave reality and mythology, through reinterpretations during Reconstruction and in minstrel shows and turn-of-the-century advertisements, to Aunt Jemima's symbolic role in the Civil Rights movement and her present incarnation as a "working grandmother." The...

Affluenza is a fascinating look at one of the greatest social maladies of our time: overconsumption and materialism. Hosted by National Public Radio's Scott Simon, the program explores both the comical and sobering aspects of our consumerism and its enormous impact on families, communities and the environment. With the help of historians and archival film, Affluenza reveals the forces that have dramatically transformed us from a nation that prizes...