Advertising and the Transformation of Screen Cultures
Advertising and the Transformation of Screen Cultures
by Bo Florin, Patrick Vonderau and Yvonne Zimmermann
Amsterdam University Press, 2021 eISBN: 978-90-485-4156-0
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Advertising has played a central role in shaping the history of modern media. While often identified with American consumerism and the rise of the 'Information Society', motion picture advertising has been part of European visual culture since the late nineteenth century. With the global spread of ad agencies, moving image advertisements became a privileged cultural form to make people experience the qualities and uses of branded commodities, to articulate visions of a 'good life', and to incite social relationships. Abandoning a conventional delineation of fields by medium, country, or period, this book suggests a lateral view. It charts the audiovisual history of advertising by focussing on objects (products and services), screens (exhibition, programming, physical media), practices (production, marketing), and intermediaries (ad agencies). In this way, the book develops new historical, methodological, and theoretical perspectives.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Bo Florin is Professor of Cinema Studies at the Department for Media Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden. His publications include Transition and Transformation: Victor Sjöström in Hollywood, 1924-1930 (2013) and A Tale from Constantinople: The History of a Film that Never Was (with Patrick Vonderau, 2019). He is one of the editors of Films That Sell, Moving Pictures and Advertising (with Nico de Klerk and Patrick Vonderau, 2016). He has contributed articles in international journals such as Film History, Montage AV, European Journal of Scandinavian Studies and Kosmorama.
Patrick Vonderau is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Halle, Germany. His recent book publications include the co-authored Spotify Teardown: Inside the Black Box of Streaming Music (2019, with Maria Eriksson, Rasmus Fleischer, Anna Johansson, and Pelle Snickars) and A Tale from Constantinople: The History of a Film that Never Was (2019, with Bo Florin). He is a member of the editorial collective of Media Industries Journal, a co-editor of Montage AV. Zeitschrift für Theorie & Geschichte audiovisueller Kommunikation, and a co-founder of NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies).
Yvonne Zimmermann is Professor of Media Studies at Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. She is the author of Bergführer Lorenz: Karriere eines missglückten Films (2005) and editor and co-author of a volume on 'useful cinema' in Switzerland (Schaufenster Schweiz: Dokumentarische Gebrauchsfilme 1896-1964, 2011). She has published widely on industrial film, 'useful cinema' and nontheatrical film culture.
REVIEWS
"With Advertising and the Transformation of Screen Cultures, Florin, Vonderau, and Zimmermann have crafted an expansive, groundbreaking study of advertising's industrial practices and cultural forms. Covering a range of national contexts, media objects, and historical moments, the book’s authors provide an exciting window into the dynamic relationship between advertising and moving images.."- Alisa Perren, University of Texas
"Remarkably ambitious in its scope, theoretically sophisticated, and always grounded in richly detailed original research that ranges from early cinema to YouTube, Advertising and the Transformation of Screen Cultures is an invaluable contribution to the history of screen advertising and media studies more generally." - Gregory A. Waller, Indiana University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction (Bo Florin, Patrick Vonderau, and Yvonne Zimmermann)
1. Early Cinema, Process Films, and Screen Advertising (Yvonne Zimmermann)
Part I. Approaches and Methods
2. Advertising and Modernity: A Critical Reassessment (Patrick Vonderau)
3. Advertising and Avantgardes: A History of Concepts, 1930-1940 (Yvonne Zimmermann)
4. Advertising as Institution: Charles Wilp and German Television, 1950-1970 (Patrick Vonderau)
5. Advertising and the Apparatus: Cinema, Television, and Out-of-Home Screens (Yvonne Zimmermann)
6. Advertising as Commercial Speech: Truth and Trademarks in Testimonial Advertising (Patrick Vonderau)
7. Advertising's Self-Reference: From Early Cinema to the Super Bowl (Yvonne Zimmermann)
Part II. Cases and Materials
8. Moving Objects: The Case of Volvo (Bo Florin)
9. Cinematic Intertexts: H&M Goes YouTube (Bo Florin)
10. Beyond Promotion: The UN Global Goals Campaign (Bo Florin)
Select Bibliography
Index