Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising

by Anthony J. Cortese

Overview

In the fourth edition of Provocateur, sociologist Anthony J. Cortese offers an up-to-date, critical analysis of modern advertising. Though we often hear that we live in a period of unprecedented gender and racial equality, both racism and sexism persist in a most telling area—the ads with which we are inundated every day in newspapers and magazines and online. Cortese examines the ideologies surrounding gender and race by delving into the presentation of women, ethnic minorities, children, and anyone who is qualified as “other” in society.

Featuring a fresh selection of nearly 400 advertisements, this edition includes new scholarship from gender, racial, and cultural studies, new chapters on gay and lesbian marketing and aggression and violence in the media, an expanded chapter on race in advertising, and more. This edition is ideal for sociology, communication, and gender and ethnic studies courses as well as for use as go-to reference.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442217201
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/01/2015
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Anthony J. Cortese is professor of sociology at Southern Methodist University.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Fourth Edition
1. Representations, Multiculturalism, and Mass Media
2. Visual Attraction, Body Display, and Advertising
3. Gay and Lesbian Advertising
4. Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Gender: Sexism in Advertising
5. Aggression and Violence in Mass Media
6. Symbolic Racism in Advertising
7. Ethnic Marketing
8. Speed and Visual Fragments: Toward Postmodern Consciousness
Appendix: Advertising Evaluation
Glossary
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Cortese continues to offer timely and important insights into how women, members of ethnic and racial minorities, and members of LGBT communities are framed and imaged in advertising.

Jim Snow

Praise for Previous Editions

This volume is an excellent historical and up-to-date analysis of how advertising targets ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, as well as white heterosexuals. Academic readers will find eclectic scholarship representing feminist theory, sociology of advertising, ethnic studies, dramaturgy, postmodernism, and media literacy. In addition, Cortese provides practical advice on how readers can combat their own cultural conditioning, which may be racist. An outline for evaluating advertising is also included as an appendix. These guides, along with the excellent analysis throughout, make this an outstandingly useful volume. Excellent bibliography and index. Essential.

Choice Reviews

The author takes a close look behind the scenes of contemporary culture, examining the hidden messages and social meaning of advertising and its use of images of women and minorities.

Business Horizons

A well-researched, thoughtful examination of an aspect of advertising that is seldom discussed and would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for advertising, media in society, and women and minorities in media courses.

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

A fascinating examination of an underexplored aspect of advertising and its impact on all of our lives.

Jean Kilbourne

Cortese asks some very good questions, and he has a good eye for recent trends.

Ideology and Cultural Production

Cortese’s analysis should motivate readers to pay more careful attention to the multitude of images that daily bombard us through advertising. Cortese teaches readers how to deconstruct and critically respond to the sexism, racism, and heterosexism embedded in many advertisements, making Provocateur as much a call to action as it is a textbook.

Claire M. Renzetti

Praise for Previous Editions

This volume is an excellent historical and up-to-date analysis of how advertising targets ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, as well as white heterosexuals. Academic readers will find eclectic scholarship representing feminist theory, sociology of advertising, ethnic studies, dramaturgy, postmodernism, and media literacy. In addition, Cortese provides practical advice on how readers can combat their own cultural conditioning, which may be racist. An outline for evaluating advertising is also included as an appendix. These guides, along with the excellent analysis throughout, make this an outstandingly useful volume. Excellent bibliography and index. Essential.

CHOICE

Praise for Previous Editions

This volume is an excellent historical and up-to-date analysis of how advertising targets ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, as well as white heterosexuals. Academic readers will find eclectic scholarship representing feminist theory, sociology of advertising, ethnic studies, dramaturgy, postmodernism, and media literacy. In addition, Cortese provides practical advice on how readers can combat their own cultural conditioning, which may be racist. An outline for evaluating advertising is also included as an appendix. These guides, along with the excellent analysis throughout, make this an outstandingly useful volume. Excellent bibliography and index. Essential.

Choice

Contending that the racial and ethnic hatred Americans so deplore in other countries is in fact latent in modern western society itself, Cortese (sociology, Southern Methodist U.) critiques postmodern social arrangement based on gender, race, and ethnicity as manifested in advertising. He picks as examples the hardest hitting and most timely print ads to demonstrate the various types of subtle messages. He also presents a large and a small plan of attack that includes policy implications for advertising and a practical guide to combating symbolic racism on the individual level. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A well-researched, thoughtful examination of an aspect of advertising that is seldom discussed and would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for advertising, media in society, and women and minorities in media courses.

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly