NPR Topics: Politics & Society

Letter About Palin Goes Viral
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:05:00 -0400
This week in Wasilla, Alaska, a woman named Anne Kilkenny sent a letter to some college friends about her former mayor, Sarah Palin. By week's end, the letter was pinging around the country and Kilkenny's phone was ringing off the hook.
Teen Sex, Sex Education And Sarah Palin
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:39:00 -0400
Gov. Sarah Palin has been a strong supporter of programs that advocate abstinence until marriage, and she also opposes explicit sex education. Alaska's law is silent on these issues, however, and it provides no specific funding for sex education in the schools.
Examining Palin's Pentecostal Background
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:14:00 -0400
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has electrified religious conservatives who see her as one of their own. The Republican vice presidential candidate brings evangelical credentials to the ticket and has a Pentecostal background.

The Talk of the Town

Dorothy Wickenden: An old-style, Los Angeles feminist on Obama.
Dorothy Wickenden Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Rosalind Wyman--seventy-seven years old; doughty feminist; political fund-raiser and philanthropist; hostess to J.F.K., Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, and Hollywood types too numerous to count; youngest elected member of the Los Angeles City Council (at the age of twenty-two); first woman to run a national political . . .
Lauren Collins: The Brooklyn painter Kehinde Wiley.
Lauren Collins Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
The painter Kehinde Wiley first travelled to Nigeria in 1997. He was trying to find his father, whom he had never met, or, more crucially for a portraitist, seen. (His mother didn’t have any photographs.) After several weeks in Lagos, he found his dad, who welcomed him. But--like any . . .
James Surowiecki: What drives market volatility?
James Surowiecki Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
American investors are frazzled. True, oil prices have fallen from their most vertiginous highs, the dollar is a bit stronger, and the stock market has actually risen over the past month. But none of those things have happened in a smooth and steady fashion. The stock market’s “ascent,” in particular . . .

 

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And now, a turd from our sponsors - The First Annual Counter-Clio Awards honor the worst that advertising has to offer. From Salon magazine.

Eradicating the Stain - What's the difference between advertising and graffitti?
Meta Description: [ When we are in an urban environment, our spaces are largely defined by walls, whether they are the inside walls of our private dwellings or the outside walls that delimit and divide our public space. Before they are painted on by grafitti artists or claimed by commercial advertising, these wa... ]

500 How does wealth influence the mass media? - The main business of the media is to sell audiences to advertisers. Presentation of Chomsky's Propaganda model of mass media.

How powerful is advertising? - A review of Breaking Up America, by Joseph Turow. From the Atlantic Monthly.

Return of the hidden persuaders - part one - Salon Media series looking at the latest gurus on Madison Avenue - semioticians, anthropologists and ego psychologists.
Meta Description: [ Driven by a booming economy, a corporate obsession with brand-building and a feelgood philosophy, a motley crew of ex-grad students, starry-eyed admen and hypnosis gurus are probing the consumer unconscious to sell soap. ]

Return of the hidden persuaders - part three - Salon Media series looking at the latest gurus on Madison Avenue - semioticians, anthropologists and ego psychologists.
Meta Description: [ After pondering the ]

Return of the hidden persuaders - part two - Salon Media series looking at the latest gurus on Madison Avenue - semioticians, anthropologists and ego psychologists.
Meta Description: [ Through hypnosis, deconstructive theory and other advanced techniques, marketing experts have definitively established that champagne is associated with romance. ]

404 Salon.com: The Name Game - Columnist Ruth Shalit questions the brand name creation industry and whether the perfect name is the key to corporate success.

Stay Free! - Non-profit magazine examining commercialism and American culture.
Meta Description: [ from Stay Free!, a magazine focussed on American media and consumer culture ]

Subliminal Advertising - Numerous examples and commentary on a range of subliminal adverts. Analysis is based on the work of Wilson Key.

The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception - A chapter from Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment on the mass-production of culture.
Meta Description: [ A chapter from Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment on mass-production of culture ]

The Hidden Persuader - Looking back at Vance Packard's contribution in educating people about social impact of advertising. Article from Salon.

The Media and Communication Studies Site - Advertising section forms part of the definitive site for British media studies.

500 Toward a critical theory of advertising - An analysis of advertising within a critical theory of society which combines historical, sociological, cultural, and political analysis.
Meta Description: [ The University of Texas at Arlington is an educational leader in the heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Founded in 1895 as a private liberal arts institution, UT Arlington achieved senior college status in 1959 and became part of The University of Texas System in 1965. The University's ne... ]

Up in smoke - The billboard-liberation movement gathers to celebrate 20 years of ad improvement. From Salon.
Meta Description: [ Up in smoke: The billboard-liberation movement gathers to celebrate 20 years of ad ]