Manufacturing Desire

Media, Popular Culture, and Everyday Life

Arthur Asa Berger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351507097
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The average person in America watches four hours of television per day and spends the equivalent of nine years of his or her life in front of the television set. If the attention most people devote to popular culture - listening to the news, watching soap operas, reading the comics-were added up, it would reveal that most people spend an enormous amount of time with popular culture which becomes in large measure, their culture. "Manufacturing Desire" is a study of how the mass media broadcast or spread various popular arts; further how the media and popular arts play a major role in shaping our everyday lives.The television shows we watch, the movies we see, the radio programs we listen to, and all the comic strips we read influence social behavior. They give us ideas about what is good and evil, about how to solve problems, and about how we should relate to others. If we understand this, says Berger, then the way we think about our media-influenced culture will be far different than if we see popular culture as mindless entertainment. Berger provides an analysis of the way popular culture and the mass media simultaneously reflect and affect various aspects of American culture and society. He examines commercials, television shows, comics, film, humor, and everyday life in terms of what beliefs and values are found in them, what attitudes toward ourselves, and our societies are contained in them, how they achieve their effects, and what they reflect about present-day American culture and society.This book is analysis of the impact mass media have across America, cross-culturally, and internationally. "Manufacturing Desire" will provide the general reader as well as specialists in communication and information, sociology, and psychology with a better understanding of the effects of mass media and popular culture on contemporary society.

Subject Index

Advertising

cultural phenomenon, 60–61

psycho-cultural approach to, 59–61

social-psychological approach to, 58–59

terror and, 161, 162

viewer exposure to commercials, 61

Aesthetic theory, 7

AIDS in Thailand 233

Alcohol

commercials for, 57–68

usage by adolescents, 62–64

Alien, 44

America

national character, 217

regions and character, 217

American Sociological Review, 9

American studies, 217

Anal eroticism, 114

and Walt Disney, 115

money and feces connection, 119

An Anatomy of Humor, 69, 73

Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, 124

Anthropological theory, 7

Arts

creativity and, 21–22

study of in universities, 21–22

Asterix,, 109

Audioanimatronic figures, 116

Batman, 91, 103, 104, 107

Battleship Potemkin, 46

Beetle Bailey, 94, 122, 127

Best of Rip-Off Press, 128

Beyond Laughter: Humor and the Subconscious, 147

Birkenstocks, 184, 208

Blade Runner, 44

Blind Men and Elephants: Perspectives on Humor, 7

Blondie, 98, 99, 122, 128

Breakfast, 185–195

classic American, 188–191

transformations in classic American, 190–192

Buck Rogers, 97

Calvin & Hobbes, 121, 125, 130

Captain America, 104

Cathy, 130

CD ROM encyclopedias, 184, 207–210

Celebrity, 143

Cinderella, 12

Coca-colonization see Cultural Imperialism

Comic Relief, 128

Comics, 91–119

health benefits from, 121–130

stereotypes in, 95

Comics as Culture, 122

Comic-Stripped American, 121

Commercials,

techniques used to persuade audiences, 61, 62

alcohol, 41, 57–68

Macintosh ‘1984’, 41, 4...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copy Right Page
• Content Page
• I Theoretical Concerns: Introduction
• II Advertising: Introduction
• III Humor: Introduction
• IV Comics: Introduction
• V Television: Introduction
• VI Film: Introduction
• VII Everyday Life: Introduction
• VIII Comparative Perspectives
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index