Advertising as Capitalist Realism
Advertising, as the early agency Lord and Thomas put it, is "salesmanship in print." It is just that simple, just that complex. Understanding advertising entails understanding the difference between personal and printed or broadcast communication; the differences entailed in the "decontextualization" of thought and feeling that systems of mass communication make possible. With the invention of writing in human history, anthropologist Jack Goody observes, "Speech is no longer tied to an occasion: it becomes timeless. Nor is it attached to a person; on paper, it becomes more abstract, more depersonalized." For Goody, this opens the way to science, to the growth of criticism, and to a more tolerant attitude toward one's own frame of reference. But the same forces that enable people to see themselves as individuals independent of social and traditional contexts make people susceptible to the appeals of mass media, including advertising. This is an openness or susceptibility qualitatively different from the householder's vulnerability to the direct sales pitch. Among other things, it connects the consumer not only to an item for sale and a person selling it but to an invisible, yet present, audience of others attuned to the same item for sale and the same symbols used to promote it. The advertisement, like the sales talk, links a seller to a buyer. Unlike the sales talk, it connects the buyer to an assemblage of buyers through words and pictures available to all of them and tailored to no one of them. Advertising is part of the establishment and reflection of a common symbolic culture.
On the Sleeve of the Visual
ed and yet still spectrally present in each and every commodity. Keenan argues that the exchangeability of the commodity is fundamentally a catachrestic process because it ultimately entails that the sphere of the human exchanges for nothing in return. Keenan, “Reading Capital, Rhetorically,” 181. 19. It is this pivotal function of form that enables Marx to begin Capital from the analysis of the commodity form; that is, with the confidence that the entire structure
Research requirements to reduce maintenance costs of civil helicopters
The maintenance problems faced by the operators of civil helicopters that result in high costs are documented. Existing technology that can be applied to reduce maintenance costs and research that should be carried out were identified. Good design practice and application of existing technology were described as having a significant impact on reducing maintenance costs immediately. The research and development that have potential for long range reduction of maintenance costs are presented.