This course examines the organization of contemporary advertising industry. A special emphasis is placed on the role of diversity and difference, including but not restricted to the ways that race, ethnicity, and other demographic/social difference impact both the profession and the creative process. Advertising is a polyglot organizational field consisting of traditional advertising agencies, but also digital companies and social media firms that use creative marketing techniques, such as crowdsourcing and viral marketing. We will consider the ways that corporations and those in their service produce and consume information and image, in an effort to shape individual and collective identities, and to market goods and services. The course is organized around collective discussion.
