Aeron Davis 
Promotional Cultures [PDF ebook] 
The Rise and Spread of Advertising, Public Relations, Marketing and Branding

In the twenty-first century, promotion is everywhere and
everything has become promotable: everyday goods and organizations,
people and ideas, cultures and futures. This engaging book looks at
the rise of advertising, public relations, branding, marketing and
lobbying, and explores where our promotional times have taken
us.

Promotional Cultures documents how the professions and
practices of promotion have interacted with and reshaped so much in
our world, from commodities, celebrities and popular culture to
politics, markets and civil society. It offers a mix of historical
accounts, social theory and documented case studies, including
haute couture fashion, Apple Inc., Hollywood film, Jennifer Lopez,
the Occupy movement, Barack Obama’s election campaigns, news
production and the 2008 financial crisis. Together, these show how
promotional culture may be recorded, understood and
interpreted.

Promotional Cultures will appeal to students and scholars
of media and culture, sociology, politics, anthropology, social and
industrial history.

Inhoudsopgave

Detailed Contents vi

Preface and Acknowledgements x

1 Introduction 1

Part I: Producers, Consumers and Texts

2 Production: Industry and it’s Critics 15

3 Audiences and Consumers 34

4 Texts: Situating the Text in Promotional Culture 51

Part II: Commodities, Media and Celebrity

5 Commodities: Promotional Influences on the Creation of Stuff 73

6 News Media and Popular Culture: Promotion and Creative Autonomy 92

7 Celebrity Culture and Symbolic Power 112

Part III: Politics, Markets and Society

8 Politics and Political Representation 135

9 Conflict and Pluralism in Civil Society 154

10 Economies, Speculative Markets and Value 173

11 Conclusions 191

References 203

Index 237

Over de auteur

Aeron Davis is professor of political communication at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has investigated communication at Westminster, the London Stock Exchange, amongst the major political parties and across the trade union movement. Along the way he has interviewed close to 300 high-profile individuals employed in journalism, public relations, politics, business, finance, NGOs and the civil service. He has published on each of these topics in journals and edited collections and is the author of Public Relations Democracy (MUP, 2002), The Mediation of Politics (Routledge, 2007), and Political Communication and Social Theory (Routledge, 2010).