‘Very High Art’:
The Cultural Enhancement of Product Promotion in ‘Making-of’ Videos about Advertising Campaigns
Professor Matt McAllister
Penn State University
22 October 2010
3:00 PM
102 St. Pat's Building
Carleton University
ABSTRACT: "Behind-the-scenes" or "making-of" promotional videos about large-scale advertising campaigns are increasingly commonplace, and are aired on television and found on advertiser websites and popular sites such as YouTube and Facebook. Such promotional videos have become prominent for several reasons: the mainstream news media's willingness to cover (often uncritically) advertising campaigns, the focus on other "behind the scenes" media forms encouraged by DVD extras, and the use of the Internet to distribute and archive such materials. Applying Jonathan Gray's concept of the media "paratext," this presentation will critique the discursive assumptions about advertising found in these videos, including the claims of "ads as art" and "ads as film," which deflect attention from alternative frames including ads as persuasion, manipulation and a key influence on media content. The presentation will argue that such texts celebrate advertising as apolitical entertainment in a way that flows with similar discourses found throughout modern media.
BIO: Matthew P. McAllister (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is Professor of Communications in the Department of Film/Video & Media Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. His research interests include advertising criticism, popular culture, and the political economy of the media. He is the author of The Commercialization of American Culture (1996, Sage), and the co-editor of Comics and Ideology (2001, Peter Lang), Film and Comic Books (2007, University Press of Mississippi), The Advertising and Consumer Culture Reader (2009, Routledge), and The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture (forthcoming, Routledge). He has also published in such journals as Critical Studies in Media Communication, Journal of Communication, and Popular Communication.
Friday 22 October 2010
3:00 PM
102 St. Pats Building
Carleton University
