Description
- Abstract:
- Advertising Love: Personal Ads, Product Advertisements, and the Consumption of Romance considers how love has been used in attempts to sell consumer goods; how cultural ideals of romance, love, and marriage are related to the values of consumption; and to what degree individuals’ beliefs about love and marriage adhered to the value system of consumer culture. A comparison of personal ads to commercial advertisements that relied on representations of love suggests some of the ways that people rejected, accepted, or refashioned the values of consumption as they looked for love within consumer culture. The content surrounding ads in advertising-supported media (here, magazines, television, and the internet) is also a valuable source at which to look for the expression of the values of consumer culture and is considered here just as it originally appeared: alongside the advertisements, adding to the chorus of messages that, in one way or another, virtually all existed in support of consumer capitalism. The five chapters in this dissertation cover the 1890s, 1920s, 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s, and chart an uneven but visible progression from individual models of romantic love and marriage that were strictly utilitarian, and not apparently shaped by the values of consumer culture, toward an increasing acceptance of those values by the 1980s and, in the present day, a new framework within which to search for love – internet dating – that prioritizes the needs of consumer capitalism.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2014)
Access Conditions
- Rights
- In Copyright
- Restrictions on Use
- Collection is open for research.
Citation
Burbank-Gilb, Elizabeth,
"Advertising Love: Personal Ads, Product Advertisements, and the Consumption of Romance"
(2014).
American Studies Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0PZ575Z
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American Studies Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the American Studies department....