COMM 4777

Advertising and Society

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This course will examine the role of advertising and consumerism in US culture and social life. We will begin by exploring the rise of a Western consumer society and its evolution over the course of the twentieth century; various theoretical and critical perspectives will be introduced to illuminate the changing relationships between advertising, culture, and the economy. We will then examine how advertising “texts” and “producers” represent various social identities: gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and more. The final section of the course will focus on promotional culture in the early 21st century; topics will include social media advertising/user-generated content; ideologies and practices of branding the self; and the role of influencers and the creator economy.

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