124262 KO Critical Media Analysis (2018S)

After the successful completion of this course, students will be able to critically examine the role of 'the body' in advertising. Using examples like Protein World's controversial "Are You Beach Body Ready?" London tube advert or Bodyform's 'provocative' advert for sanitary towels, we will approach the multidisciplinary field of 'body studies' through the body politics of advertising.

Using the methodological and theoretical input provided, students will be able to classify different genres of advertisements (e.g. subway ads, movie trailers & posters, online advertising on websites & social media, all kinds of print advertising, TV ads, etc.), discuss their content and form with technical vocabulary and reflect on the advertisements' frames of consumption in terms of time and space (e.g. sitting in a private living room watching TV, waiting for the subway looking at a public screen, or even on the move scrolling through your Instagram feed on your smartphone, etc.), thereby always focussing on the role 'the body' plays in them. In addition to familiarising themselves with selected tools of visual analysis, students will be able to notice and scrutinise cultural markers of difference like race, gender, class, ability/health, and age in advertising, as the course will provide a way into the complex, multidisciplinary field of 'body studies.'