Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products and Images of Well-Being

by William Leiss

Now available in a significantly updated second edition featuring two new chapters, Social Communication in Advertising remains the most comprehensive historical study of advertising and its function within contemporary society. It traces advertising's influence within three key social the new commodities industry; popular culture; and the mass media which manages the constellation of images that unifies all three.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction

340 pages, Paperback

First published June 19, 1986

Reviews

[Malcolm]

Advertising’s pervasiveness means that we often don’t see it and certainly often forget how it works, and although it is over 20 years this book remains a fine piece of work to take us inside not only contemporary advertising but advertising's complex place so deeply embedded in consumer society. This is a rich and sophisticated analysis of the development of advertising through the 20th century, through its shifting media from print to voice/audio to televisual, through its shifting codes, themes and frames. Three chapters in particular have dated – the exploration of the advertising industry, and the two policy related chapters, although the discussion of policy issues as such is dated only in its content, not its questions or its bigger theoretical and conceptual frame.

Especially unsettling is the first two chapters exploring the debates around criticisms and defences of advertising, and to see how little this area has developed, particularly in the public policy debates although the academic debates have only minimally developed. Especially strong is the mixed methods (semiotics and content analysis) exploration of the structure of advertising, and the tracing of the historical shifts in the roles of goods as both satisfiers and communicators and the shifting links between satisfaction and communication.

It is refreshing to find a text book that lasts so well.

[Nicole P]

This book captures the narrative of consumerism. The beginning is definitely the best part, focusing heavily on the history of consumption that leads to advertising.

[Anastasia Tuple]

Wow! This book was eye-opening. It opened my eyes on the many different, tried and tested strategies that advertisements are put into use as a potent communication and influence tool.

[Ciara (Lost at Midnight)]

Didn't read all of it but endured enough horrible, boring chapters to count it as a "read" book.

[Siân Thompson]

This is purely here as I refuse to discount a huge book I read page to page just because it is academic