Politicized Advertising: Eulogy of Transparency, Ellipsis of Responsibility
Type de matériel :
10
Since the 1990s in France, advertising messages have turned to topics of political debate, setting up sociopolitical use value for consumer products–– for example, pretending that consumer products can eradicate pollution, unemployment, or hunger in the world. Consumption is thus presented as an autonomous sphere that can be the goal of political participation. However, because politicized advertising breaks advertising conventions that deal with the domestic or relational life of the people, advertising’s use of political speech puts the legitimacy of its message into question: how is the field of brand expression widened; and to what extent does politicized advertising reveal implicit values and collective preferences? Beyond strategy, advertising is a means of mediation. This paper suggests that politicized advertising carries latent imagination, because it takes part in structuring public space as it mobilizes a technoscientific representation of society (and the link to living), and it has an impact on associative practices aimed at politicizing consumption. At the same time, this technoscientific representation of society is “naturalized” through patterns of transparency.
Réseaux sociaux