The Invention of the Bicycle

In Gloria Steinem’s “Sex, Lies, and Advertising” Steinem explains how sex and lies are the basis for so many advertisements in popular magazines and other cultural stages including technology shows and car buying. Advertisements are “media-wide influences” are a continual theme throughout the writing of Steinem (201). Steinem’s magazine eventually did not take ads due to the fact Steinem could not find ads that did not degrade women (201). Steinem believed that ads were sexist and did not positively support women (202). After the stalemate companies began to partner with Ms. Magazine such as JVC and IBM (206). Although some companies such as those in the tobacco industry want only

They were born in great numbers and as a result became the most powerful group of consumers. Advertisers soon set the guidelines to what material commercial products every girl needed to obtain her status in society. Women’s roles on television gradually changed from perfect housewives to mystical genies and witches with power, but somehow they always subdued their power to please their men. In the background women were fighting for equal rights and equal pay, but the media portrayed these protests as isolated events and acts of extremists. The newscasts attempted to label feminists as women who protested against being exploited and “looked at” by exploiting themselves and secretly wanted men’s attention by these protests. Television did respond by developing a new “tougher” woman, but made her success dependent on her attractiveness and sexuality. The media’s simultaneous promotion and containment of the women’s movement left the young women of the seventies exposed to what Douglas refers to as social schizophrenia (9). Feminist were now rejecting cosmetics and other marketed ploys that contributed to the oppression of women, leaving industries that were primarily focused on women’s “needs” struggling to address this while maintaining their market. Mass media encouraged and exploited commercial androgyny with unisex fashions and Madison Avenue promoted a new “natural look” that was anything but natural. This look promoted a Lolita image that

What does an ad say about a society? When viewing a product advertisement, many people never stop to think why the ad and product appeals to them. However, when a more critical look is taken, it’s easy to see precisely how ads are carefully tailored to appeal to trending values of a targeted demographic, and how that makes it easy to examine the society of those whom the ad is targeted at. In the analytic writing Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin provides an excellent example of this, as she crafts a logical and clear analysis of a 1950’s Coca-Cola magazine ad which thoroughly explains how advertisements can reveal quite a great deal about the society in which they were created.

The new advertisements focused on creating unique slogan that consumers would remember and that cast products in an optimistic light (N.p. [Page 1]). By the 1880s, advertisement seems to take on a driving aspect of its own, and focused on the creation of “wants” and “needs” in the growing consumer population in order to create a market for certain items, clever businessmen would advertize products in careful language, designed to influence potential buyers into seeing the necessity of owing particular products. Economic effects on society, especially in Americans families, became apparent during the twentieth century. The place of women in the new economy was firmly cemented in the early decades of the twentieth century, with the rise of Progressivism and supply and demand economics (N.p. [Page #]). Progressive reformers and businessmen alike appealed to and propagated the idea of virtuous households, carrying a theme from the culture of sentimentalism in the 1850s that stressed the value of nuclear families with morally upright - if submissive - mothers. Many of the advertisements seen in this collection are clearly directed at women .The foundations of household economy were raised in the early twentieth century and during the World War I era. Home economy, in theory, allowed the housewife to make the most of finances, so that her family could purchase current

In Breazeale’s text, “In Spite of Women”, he touches on how the magazine, Esquire, focuses on incorporating content that is solely directed to the attention of the heterosexual man. In the magazine, Breazeale states that it is an attempt to make men fantasize women only sexually which leaves men with the power and control that they believed that had lost post-depression era. Throughout Kenon Breazeale’s text, he shows how that for there to even be a male consumer, there must be women involved. So, while the magazine touched on things like food, apparel, and home décor, Esquire needed to incorporate erotic images of women in order to capture the attention of heterosexual males. In Breazeale’s text, his purpose is to focus on Esquire to emphasize men’s dominating nature over women in society. In my rhetorical analysis, I will concentrate on analyzing how Breazeale argues that Esquire magazine utilized erotic text, cartoons, and illustrations about women to place the consumer role on males.

In Jean Kilbourne’s essay, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence, she paints a picture of repression, abuse, and objectification of women. Kilbourne gives an eye-opening view to the way American advertisers portray women and girls. Throughout the essay she has images that depict women in compromising poses. These images are examples of how often we see women in dehumanizing positions in advertisements and how desensitized we have become. Kilbourne implores us to take the media more seriously. She is putting a microscope on society and showing that the objectification of women is acceptable.

In “Two Ways a Woman Can get Hurt: Advertising and Violence,” the author Jean Kilbourne describes how advertising and violence is a big problem for women. Although her piece is a little scrambled, she tries to organize it with different types of advertisement. Women are seen as sex objects when it comes to advertising name brand products. Corporate representatives justify selling and marketing for a product by how a woman looks. Kilbourne explains how the media is a big influence on how men perceive women. Kilbourne tries to prove her point by bashing on advertising agencies and their motives to successfully sell a product. Kilbourne’s affirmation towards advertisements leaves you no doubt that she is against them.

The rise in advertisement played a key role in the rise of consumption. Thanks to well-developed advertisement campaigns, America redefined what a necessity is. Advertisers encouraged Americans to actively work towards maintaining a high social standing. “Advertisers made no secret of their intention to promote novelty for its own sake, in the hope that consumers would exchange perfectly serviceable goods for goods that conformed to the latest fashions” (Lasch, 2000). Consumers devoured this advertisement scheme and began to rapidly increase their spending. Many advertisements for common, household products made claim that they could make the normal appear comparable to the high end. For example, Lux, a soap company, ran an ad in 1920 that depicted two women talking - one of the women complemented on the other on the quantity of sweaters she owned, only to find out that it is not a new sweater, but rather her old sweater that Lux soap made it look brand new (Lux)! Men and women alike began to believe

Each author in his or her own way masterfully employs images in order to better support their overall claims. Within her text, Workers Go Shopping, Milanesio expertly employs multiple photos of Argentinians moving about their daily lives to illustrate how the importation of western culture so greatly affected the emerging middle, and working-class consumers. This gives great backing to her thesis of how the emerging working-class so greatly affected the transformation of Argentina into a modern 20th century nation. Photos of the Argentinian people enjoying modern luxuries like dance halls and vacations to the beach, are accompanied by advertisements from magazines and street billboards which further illuminate the consumer culture which had engulfed the nation by mid-century. Milanesio also employs images to illustrate how the importation of western culture also propagated gender roles for not only women, but men as well. Documents taken directly from Argentinian media of the day can be seen encouraging women to aspire for beauty, but also submissiveness. The propagation of the housewife myth, visible here in the Argentinian media, was a very prevalent force in the society of the United States at this time and can be assumed to have been heavily influenced by their neighbors to the north. Ads directed to women for sewing machines and kitchen appliances were mirrored by ones pointed to men which embedded ideals of masculinity and hard work. These advertisements not only encouraged an overall image of what Argentinian people should aspire to, but also expanded the consumer market, thereby promoting consumerism. These photographs of Argentinians enjoying the newfound luxuries of modernity and consumer society gives great backing to Milanesio’s thesis of how the

Sexualizaton and objectification in the advertisements we see and the media we watch has become a very strong issue in our society. With the idea that “sex sells”, consumers don’t even realize that they’re not viewing the advertisements for what they are, but for the women (or men) that are being portrayed in a very erotic way, posed with whatever product they were hired to sell. Many articles have been written so far to challenge and assess this problem, but one written by Jean Kilbourne (1999), “”Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence” holds an extensive amount of authority. Using her personal experience with the subject, as well as studies she has conducted herself on the topic of sexualization, she talks about how the amount of sexualization in advertising affects how society views the culture and products consumers buy. She also notes that because of the quantity and prevalence of these ads, the rate of all forms of sexual assault, specifically rape (mostly towards women of all age), increase, as well as other forms of assault. It is important to examine Kilbourne’s use of rhetorical devices, such as ethos, pathos, and logos, and how effective these devices make her article. This way, it can be examined for its validity and her understanding of her own research. Kilbourne’s article is very effective through her uses of pathos and ethos, but at the same time, it loses its effectiveness through her absence of a counter-argument, as well as a lack

The key, as I will argue, is the strategic manipulation of men by women utilising the influences of consumption (the purchase of goods or services), commodified femininity (the female body and gender transformed into a saleable asset), and sex appeal. I will explore the ways in which this is accomplished in relation to two mass media texts produced by women, for women, and featuring women who represent the It girl archetype: the film adaptation of It and Anita Loos’s 1925 novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. This will entail an examination of the concept of “It”, as presented in these texts and other mass cultural products, and the role of mass culture itself in promoting an ideology of gendered consumption in America in the 1920s. However, in order to understand this role, as well as the interrelationship of gender, consumption, commodification, and “It” with which it is associated, it is necessary to first understand the socio-economic context from which these issues and concepts

This essay will be addressing ideologies of consumer fetishism and pseudo-individuality through examining the commodity signs found in the mass marketing and advertising of designer cosmetics, particularly Chanel.

When one looks at an image from Calvin Klein, Victoria's Secret, or Versace, the first appeal comes from beautiful models. These individuals are normally jumping, laughing and representing every idealistic way of life by manifesting the idea of a blind promise. Unfortunately, these images are not only created with the intent of being manipulative, but also to resemble the present history involving societal roles. At the moment, Ads are able to capture the political ideologies or the social influences in order to represent the position of modern times. On the other hand, the Versace brand recently released a new campaign on Fall clothes bringing to light a different topic. At a quick glance, the Versace Advertisement depicts the everyday family of four. However, through John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, the picture represents the hegemonic portrayal of male dominance, the suppressive forces of society on women, and the influence publicity has on the surveyed. Through this lens, one can understand the social relations and expectations publicity creates for individuals.

Innovators have constantly changed the world that people now know today, who have may not realized the impact their small inventions would have. Not all innovators create something brand new, as most of the time their work was transformed from something that had already been created and given a market. Two innovators, Albert Augustus Pope, and Sam Walton, changed the American market through their innovative marketing techniques to get the consumer a wanted product faster and creating a market in itself within the American economy.

This paper is a personal review of an internship in the marketing and sales department of B.Z. Berlin (a tabloid newspaper based in Berlin). The paper reviews how my capacities in those department help satisfy the 4Ps (promotion, price, placement, and product) of marketing. Different components of the marketing mix exhibited in my duties included creating a balance of salacious with genuinely positive and heart-warming news; creating cash giveaways to generate regular readership; diffusing criticism of the tabloid industry through balanced reporting of positive news; and encouraging advertisers to buy space in both the online and the print version of the tabloid. The paper also uses the 'The Paradigm of Survival,' to analyze the tabloid's marketing mix. This theory stresses the need for all products to be marketed based upon their ability to satisfy basic human needs, such as sexual desire, fear, or security. As well as personal reflections the paper contains analysis of the current state of the news industry and the challenges of coping with a world in which papers must compete for readers and advertising revenue both online and in print.