Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

As we advance into the 21st century, women and consumers of color will collectively have enough economic clout to influence mainstream advertising. The question is when and how? Sounds like a great idea for a brand...

I still have not recieved this product, so it is late. But I am really looking forward to this!

I just want you to know I have this book so you take it off your reccomendation lists and stop trying to sell it to me---and I don't know how/where else to do this!!