Università Roma Tre

The course deals with the in-depth study of the main theoretical models used for the sociological analysis of the advertising. The first part of the course aims to provide students the analytical tools necessary for analyzing the advertisements and the relationship with their target (with a special focus on the possible kinds of miscommunication that can occur at different levels). The second part of the course aims to point out the social values that an advertisement can help to convey and/or to establish in the public discourse of a certain nation or geographic area - with a specific focus on those values that from an ethical point of view may be considered more problematic for a society, as they are potentially discriminatory and detrimental of human dignity (such as racism, sexism, pollution and the systematic destruction of natural resources and the environment, the violation of human rights, speciesism, etc.). The third part of the course will analyse the deep and various transformations taking place in this field due to the influence of social media. In addition, a further specific focus will be on culture jamming and other forms of cultural resistance (such as anti-brand movements, boycotts, etc.).

One to be chosen among the following programmes:

PROGRAMME 1)
a) Barthes, Roland (1957, ediz. it. 2016), Miti d’oggi, Torino, Einaudi.
b) Moreover, the following readings:
1. Barthes, Roland (1964). Rhetoric of the Image. Image‐Music‐Text (Translation 1977). S. Heath ed., London: Fontana, pp. 32‐51.
2. Merskin, Debra (2004). Reviving Lolita? A Media Literacy Examination of Sexual Portrayals of Girls in Fashion Advertising, in “American Behavioral Scientist”. Vol. 48, pp. 119‐128.
3. Kress, Gunther and van Leeuwen, Theo (1996). Modality: Designing Models of Reality. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge, pp. 154‐174.
4. Danesi, Marcel (2013). Semiotizing a product into a brand, in “Social Semiotics”, 23:4, pp. 464-476.
5. Lekakis, J. Eleftheria (2017). Culture jamming and Brandalism for the environment: The logic of appropriation, in “Popular Communication”, 15:4, pp. 311-327.

PROGRAMME 2)
a) Barthes, Roland (1957, ediz. it. 2016), Miti d’oggi, Torino, Einaudi.
b) Moreover, the following readings:
1. Capecchi, Saveria (2011). Il corpo erotizzato delle donne negli spot pubblicitari, in POLIS, XXV, 3, pp. 393-417.
2. Danesi, Marcel (2009), Brands. Il mondo delle marche (only chapter 3 “L’immagine di marca”), Roma, Carocci.
3. Kopytoff, Igor (2005). La biografia culturale degli oggetti: la mercificazione come processo, in E. Mora (a cura di), Gli attrezzi per vivere. Forme della produzione culturale tra industria e vita quotidiana, Vita e Pensiero, Milano, pp. 77-111.
4. Packard, Vance (1957, ediz. it. 2015), I persuasori occulti (only chapters 2, 3, 4, 5), Torino, Einaudi, pp. 12-53.