Blowing Up the Brand: Critical Perspectives on Promotional Culture

by Melissa Aronczyk (Editor), Devon Powers (Editor)

This edited volume seeks to redress the lack of scholarly work that takes promotion seriously as a form of social, cultural, political, and economic exchange. It unpacks the vernacular, the institutional structures, and the practices and performances that make up promotional culture in everyday life, offering diverse critical perspectives on how, as citizens, consumers, and users, we absorb, navigate, confront, and resist its influence. Contributions from both renowned scholars and emerging intellectuals make this book a timely and valuable contribution to the fields of media and communication studies, political science, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology.

338 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 2010

About the author

I am an Associate Professor of Media Studies in the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University. I’m interested in how ideas, things and practices become valuable; and the technologies of legitimacy that render them that way. My current research focuses on the intersection of promotional culture with environmental problems: How do promotional campaigns featuring the natural environment influence our ability to value climate futures?

Maria I. Espinoza and I are writing about this in our new book, A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of Environmentalism, for Oxford University Press. It’s a critical look at the intertwined history of environmental (in)action in the United States and the rise of the PR industry in the twentieth century.

I have two other books out: Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity, available from Amazon or via Oxford University Press; and Blowing Up the Brand: Critical Perspectives on Promotional Culture, an edited book with Devon Powers, available from Amazon. You can hear me talk about the ideas in my book, Branding the Nation, on the New Books Network podcast or on the National Public Radio show Marketplace.

Here at Rutgers I’m a Faculty Associate with the Eagleton Institute of Politics and Affiliated Graduate Faculty with the Department of Sociology. I’m also a Faculty Fellow with the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University and a Research Affiliate with the Center on Digital Culture & Society at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

I’m currently an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Communication, an independently published, top-quality peer-reviewed media and communications journal that has been trafficking in ideas and commentary about Canada and the world since 1974. See our excellent archival collection and find us on Twitter @canjcomm.

I’m also an editorial board member for the International Journal of Cultural Studies; the International Journal of Communication; and Advertising & Society Quarterly.

From 2020 through 2022 I am serving as the Chair of the Popular Communication Division for the International Communication Association.