A wealth of material is available for exploring and teaching about the culture of advertising. I provide the resources that have been most useful for me. Be sure to also see the websites listed on the homepage.

The resorouces below can be purchased at the Center For Media Literacy.
 

Printed Resources

Deadly Persuasion: Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising, by Jean Kilbourne (Free Press 2000)

Kilbourne is one of the best critics of advertising and persuasive sexist images and ideas about women in society. In attention to her books, she has produced a new classical video on the topic, titled Still Killing Us Softly.

Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide for a Consumer Society, Micheal F. Jacobson and Laurie Ann Mazur (Westview 1995) See page 189: Twenty-seven Problems With Advertising.

Adult USA, by James B. Twitchell

This is a classic book of the world of advertising and its strategic marketing practices. It pulls the curtain on how how agencies create the thousands of ads we see each day. Filled with nearly two hundred illustrated examples. (Columbia Univ. Press, 1997)

Ms Magazine

This commercial-free publication include important articles about women and society. I particularly use it to make transparencies of the sample sexist ads reprinted the magazine.  I use this resource to help students develop their counter-ads. The list Twenty-seven Problems With Advertising can be used for class discussions, role plays, and analyzing the various negative messages of ads.

Living in the Image Culture, by Center for Media Literacy

This is an essential tool to explore how TV and radio, magazines, movies and advertising influence our ideas, values and use of time and money. Developed by the Center for Media Literacy, it includes a leader's guide with 15 teaching modules and 11 illustrated handout masters. Plus leader preparation instruction. Adaptable for groups of all ages, it will help you learn and teache others.

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Naomi Klein

No Logo uncovers a betrayal of the central promises of the information age: choice, interactivity, and increased freedom. Instead, job securit and consmer choice have been swallowed whole by companies who enlist us as their human billboards and spokespeople. This is a powerful work written as part political manifesto, mall-rat memoir, and journalistic expose. It helps situate advertising in the global economy. (Picador, 1999)

Audiovisual Resources

Understanding Media (CD-Rom), New Mexico Media Literacy Project

This is an invaluable interactive CD-ROM that contains 200 ads and media examples (including 74 video clips) and over 400 pages of questions and answers about core concepts of media literacy. Included in this CD-ROM are subunits on cigarette and beer advertisements, substance abuse, and tools for analyzing ads.

Advertising and the End of the World, Sut Jhally

In this powerful video richly illustrated with ads and commercials, cultural critic Sut Jhally presents a compelling and accessible argument about advertising-driven consumerism and its impact on the earth's future. He invites us to rethink the basic message of advertising: not what products are being sold but what dreamsare being sold. I typically show the first segment of this video to further help students understand the pervasiveness of advertising and the economics that surrounds it.
(1998/Media Education Foundation /46 minutes)

Production Notes, by Jason Simon

This video contains Six TV ads shown in slow motion while a narrator reads the "production notes"--memos sent from the ad agency to the production company prior to filming. Also useful for analyzinig the portrayal of Hispanics, women and girls, African Americans and teens.
(1989/Video Date Bank/28 minutes)