Images of Utopia in the Advertising Page
By (Author) Luigi Manca
By (author) Alessandra Manca
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
15th February 2025
United States
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Media studies
Popular culture
659.1
Hardback
114
Width 152mm, Height 229mm, Spine 15mm
354g
In this book, Luigi Manca and Alessandra Manca examine the use of utopian imagery in magazine advertisements from the 1970s through the early 2020s. Positing that these advertisements reflect the publics unbridled desires, rather than reality itself, the authors argue that these idealistic reflections can lead the public to be unable or unwilling to recognize real threats to democracy, social justice, and the environment. They extend this analysis to argue that political moderates have long underestimated the ability of mass media and charismatic, radical politicians to tap into the utopian dreams of millions of disillusionedand predominantly whiteAmericans to leverage these dreams in order to further their own political agendas. Ultimately, this cumulative study spanning decades of advertisement history portrays a consumer utopia shaped almost exclusively by unrestrained consumer desire.
Luigi Manca is professor of communication arts at Benedictine University.
Alessandra Manca is an independent scholar. Her area of research focuses on sociology and gender studies.