Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising

By Anthony J. Cortese

Book Overview

This updated second edition offers a refined theoretical framework, new pedagogical features, and expansion of advertising images and their analysis. Controversially, the second edition highlights preliminary evidence, contrary to popular opinion, that media sex and violence do not always sell. The new edition reviews these and other recent research findings. Other updates for this edition include:

-an evaluation of advertisements following the 9-11 terrorist attacks
-more on media violence and its nexus to youth violence
-new discussion of the use of advertising in law enforcement
-introduces the concept hybridizing (combinations of two types of
advertising)
-many new ads representing cultural changes since the first edition

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0742524981
• ISBN13: 9780742524989
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.9" x 0.4" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Easy to Read and Fulfills Its Purpose

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.

Good, but there have been better

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.

It tells it like it is...

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...