Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising (Postmodern Social Futures) [Hardcover]

Anthony J. Cortese (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0847691748 | ISBN-13: 978-0847691746

This well illustrated book looks behind the scenes of contemporary culture to help us understand the hidden messages and social meanings of advertising—arguably the most powerful cultural and economic institution on earth today.

Cortese’s careful exploration of the advertising media and specific ads focuses on depictions of women and minorities to unravel the opportunism inherent in ideologies of domination and control in contemporary commerce. His “deep reading” of the meaning of contemporary advertising will fascinate all media followers and serve as an excellent text for any course in media, communications, and cultural studies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The content of this book . . . will appeal to students in many disciplines. . . . The author's observations are well documented. Readers are supplied with statistical data about the attitudes of American consumers, and Cortese has chosen an interesting variety of explicit graphic images to illustrate his points. . . . Recommended for all levels. (CHOICE )

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 the images of women and minorities. (Business Horizon )

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 )

Cortese asks some very good questions, and he has a good eye for recent trends. (Ideology and Cultural Production )

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

About the Author

Anthony J. Cortese's previous writings on advertising have led to interviews on ABC's 20/20. He lives in Dallas where he is professor of sociology at Southern Methodist University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (April 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847691748
• ISBN-13: 978-0847691746
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,699,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but there have been better, July 25, 2003

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All-access Customer "veloman27" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Provocateur: Women and Minorities in Advertising (Postmodern Social Futures) (Paperback)

Provocateur is a good introduction into the world of cultural studies as they relate to media depictions of women and minorities, especially African-Americans. Cortese goes over all of the basics about visual analysis of an image and the psychology used to construct ads so that the untrained eye doesn't pick up on the discrimination, but the message still gets sent.

This is a great book for an undergrad in cultural studies who needs a reference when talking about ideas in media analysis that seem almost common sense but still need to cite someone with a Ph.D.. It's also a great book for someone who's interested in media analysis, but not enough to take a class.

I would also recommend Berger's "Ways of Seeing" which does a good job of explaining a concept known as "The Gaze" which is integral to the analysis of women in visual representations.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to Read and Fulfills Its Purpose, March 17, 2005

By 

Meghan Beattie (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising (Hardcover)

This book, Provocateur, does an amazing job at what author Cortese calls "deconstructing" advertising. He describes the dominance of men, the portrayal of women and many images promoting the continuing prevalence of prejudice in society of minorties. It evaluates the cause and effect of these portrayals and also addresses the "why". It calls to attention advertiser's drive to sell a product or idea. Sometimes, it does both. Cortese knows his stuff and lets you know it in this book. Great job at breaking it down and keeping the concepts separate. One of the previous reviews says it was confusing, ... might be the teacher, not the acclaimed book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is there an editor in the house?, February 19, 2005

By 

Jeffrey W. Salyer (Tainan, Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Provocateur: Women and Minorities in Advertising (Postmodern Social Futures) (Paperback)

I teach culture studies at a university in Taiwan and thought that this text might be appropriate to supplement the unit on images and popular culture that will be part of my seminar next semester. So, I ordered it. I must admit that I was staggered by what I found, almost from the start. I've rarely seen such a mess. The media review on this site mentions this work's potential as a textbook; I urge teachers to look elsewhere. Despite the impressive array of examples of advertising, the written support behind them is sometimes almost incomprehensible, with frequent (almost violent) changes in direction, highly questionable assertions about human nature, and just plain illogical trains of thought which frequently omit any pretense to transitions. I ran some of the passages by colleagues just to make sure that I wasn't off-base--but it wasn't long before they were scratching their heads, too. Think twice about buying it.
I am revisiting this review and think that I could add a star to the rating I gave it. I still can't give it any more than that for reasons stated above, which I basically still stick to. But, to be fair to the examples collected by the author and the basic list of things to look for (sort of a checklist of common problems to pay attention to, the book may be worth a look to some. Check it out from your library.