This book, now considered a classic, sets out not simply to criticize advertisements on the grounds of dishonesty and exploitation, but to examine in detail, through over a hundred illustrations, their undoubted attractiveness and appeal. The overt economic function of this appeal is to make us buy things. Its ideological function, however, is to involve us as 'individuals' in perpetuating the ideas which endorse the economic basis of our society. If it is economic conditions which make ideology necessary, it is ideology which makes those conditions seem necessary.
The author pulled no punches when she published this in 1978 and her arguments are even more compelling in the 21st-century. If society is to be changed, the environment protected and social justice extended, this vicious circle of "necessity" and ideas must be broken. Decoding Advertisements is an attempt to undo one link in the chain which we ourselves help to forge, in our acceptance not only of the images and values of advertising, but of the 'transparent' forms and structures in which they are embodied. Because it provides not an "answer," but a "set of tools" which we can use to alter our own perceptions of one of society's subtlest and most complex forms of propaganda this book will continue to sell and be used on courses for years to come.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents
PREFACE
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION: : ‘MEANING AND IDEOLOGY’
PART I: : ‘ADVERTISING-WORK’
CHAPTER ONE : A CURRENCY OF SIGNS
CHAPTER TWO : SIGNS ADDRESS SOMEBODY
CHAPTER THREE : SIGNS FOR DECIPHERING: HERMENEUTICS
PART II: : ‘IDEOLOGICAL CASTLES’: REFERENT SYSTEMS
CHAPTER FOUR : ‘COOKING’ NATURE
CHAPTER FIVE : BACK TO NATURE
CHAPTER SIX : MAGIC
CHAPTER SEVEN : TIME: NARRATIVE AND HISTORY
CHAPTER EIGHT : CONCLUSIONS
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
About the Author :
Judith Williamson is a professor and journalist, formerly a teacher of cultural studies at the Maidstone College of Art. She is the author of Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, Deadline at Dawn, and Consuming Passions: The Dynamics of Popular Culture.
