Undressing the Ad aims to empower readers to become media literate through the work of deconstructing the consumer culture that surrounds them. By introducing critical scholarship on advertising in a way that is accessible, the book attempts to show how issues of race, class, and gender are expressed in contemporary advertising. The readings in this book take a decidedly critical political perspective and explore how representation in advertising upholds certain economic and political structures and subverts others, and exposes the myth that advertisements are merely messages aimed at selling goods and services. Rather they are texts that shape contemporary culture and shape our images of ourselves.

“Immediate, sensual, unrelentingly intense.” —NPR A breathtaking volume about the violence of desire and the peace of love from celebrated poet Li-Young Lee, The Undressing is a tonic for spiritual anemia; it attempts to uncover things hidden since the dawn of the world. Short of achieving that end, these mysterious, unassuming poems investigate the human violence and dispossession increasingly prevalent around the world, and the horrors the poet grew up with as a child of refugees. Lee draws from disparate sources including the Old Testament, the Dao De Jing, and the music of the Wu-Tang Clan. While the ostensive subjects of these layered, impassioned poems are wide-ranging, their driving engine is a burning need to understand our collective human mission.

This new inter-disciplinary book is the first comparative, case-based analysis of media panoply in (and out of) Asia today. Examining what the authors call the "media/tion equation", the contributors demonstrate the multiple links between media, society and culture, and advance the claim that media is the key means through which Asians experience, understand, effect and are affected by the worlds containing them. Exploring a relatively neglected principle in cultural studies - that context counts - medi@sia highlights how the experiences of those encountering media messages differ depending on social, economic, politial and ideational conditions. Balancing social, cultural and media theory with empirical research, the essays in this collection provide a better understanding of the complex relationship between media and people’s practices, values and behaviour in contemporary Asia.

Through its artful engagement with consumers, advertising subtly shapes our everyday worlds. It plays upon powerful emotions -- envy, fear, lust and ambition. But the industry itself is far more subtle and complex than many people might assume. Through an innovative mix of business strategy and cultural theory, this pioneering book provides a behind-the-scenes analysis of the link between advertising and larger cultural forces, as well as a rare look into the workings of agencies themselves. How do advertisements endeavour to capture real life? How do advertising agencies think of their audience: the consumer and their corporate client? What issues do agencies have to consider when using an advertisement in a range of different countries? What specific methods are used to persuade us not only to buy but to remain loyal to a product? How do advertisers fan consumer desire? An incisive understanding of human behaviour is at the core of all these questions and is what unites advertisers and anthropologists in their work. While this link may come as a surprise to those who consider the former to be firmly rooted in commerce and the latter in culture, this book clearly shows that these two fields share a remarkable number of convergences. From constructing a Japaneseness that appeals to two very different Western audiences, to tracking advertising changes in the post World War II period, to considering how people can be influenced by language and symbols, Advertising Cultures is an indispensable guide to the production of images and to consumer behaviour for practitioners and students alike.

The dominance of advertising in everyday life carries potent cultural meaning. As a major force in the rise of "image based culture," advertising spreads images that shape how people live their lives. While scholarship on visual images has advanced our understanding of the role of advertising in society, for example in revealing how images of extremely thin female models and athletic heroes shape ideals and aspirations, images circulated through lagnuage codes--or "verbal images"--in advertising have received less attention. Imaging in Advertising explores how the verbal and visual work together to build a discourse of advertising that speaks to audiences and has the power to move them to particular thoughts and actions. In this book, Fern L. Johnson presents a series of case studies exploring important advertising images--racial connotations in cigarette advertising, representations of cultural diversity in teen television commercials, metaphors of the face appearing in ads for skin care products, language borrowed from technology to sell non-technology products, and the illusion of personal choice that is promoted in many Internet web sites. Johnson argues that examining the interplay of verbal and visual images as a structured whole exposes the invase role of advertising in shaping culture in 21st century America.

From Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy, to sharp-suited gangsters in Tarantino movies, clothing is central to film. In Undressing Cinema, Stella Bruzzi explores how far from being mere accessories, clothes are key elements in the construction of cinematic identities, and she proposes new and dynamic links between cinema, fashion and costume history, gender, queer theory and psychoanalysis. Bruzzi uses case studies drawn from contemporary popular cinema to reassess established ideas about costume and fashion in cinema, and to challenge conventional interpretations of how masculinity and femininity are constructed through clothing. Her wide-ranging study encompasses: * haute couture in film and the rise of the movie fashion designer, from Givenchy to Gaultier * the eroticism of period costume in films such as The Piano and The Age of Innocence * clothing the modern femme fatale in Single White Female, Disclosure and The Last Seduction * generic male chic in Goodfellas, Reservoir Dogs, and Leon * pride, costume and masculinity in `Blaxploitation' films, Boyz `N The Hood and New Jack City * drag and gender confusion in cinema, from the unerotic cross-dressing of Mrs Doubtfire to the eroticised ambiguity of Orlando.

Advertising is something which we are exposed to from a young age and which can affect us in many different ways. Centered around the question “Does advertising improve society?” this volume explores the impact and issues of advertising and questions its social responsibility, with a focus on Hong Kong society. The collection of essays offers a broad view of the interaction between society and advertising, from an introduction to semiotic studies, exploring the use of gender stereotypes to the employment of brand placement as a new form of product promotion. Written by professors of advertising with experience from both within the industry and from international research, this is a senior level textbook designed to augment any studies in advertising, marketing, public relations or media studies.