DOCSLIB.ORG

Rejecting and Embracing Brands in Political Consumerism

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Rejecting and Embracing Brands in Political Consumerism Rejecting and Embracing Brands in Political Consumerism Rejecting and Embracing Brands in Political Con­ sumerism Magnus Boström The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism Edited by Magnus Boström, Michele Micheletti, and Peter Oosterveer Print Publication Date: Feb 2019 Subject: Political Science, Political Behavior Online Publication Date: Aug 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190629038.013.50 Abstract and Keywords Brands play important roles as targets and arenas for political consumerism. Much of po­ litical consumerist action navigates towards large and highly visible brands, which politi­ cal consumers reject or embrace. This chapter views a brand—the name and logo of an actor/object and their associated/recognized meanings—as a core symbolic asset of an or­ ganization. The chapter argues that such a symbolic resource brings both opportunities and risks. A brand increases its power if it is entwined in institutions, identities, everyday practices, discourses, values, and norms. Successful eco- or ethical branding can bring profits, legitimacy, and power to companies. At the same time highly visible brands are targets of negative media reporting and movement attacks, and thus they are vulnerable to reputation risks. Through a literature review, the chapter demonstrates how brands re­ late to boycott/brand rejection, buycott, discursive, and lifestyle political consumerism. The concluding discussion suggests topics for future research. Keywords: boycott, buycott, discursive, labelling, lifestyle A columnist for the New York Times recently argued that online campaigns “against brands have become one of the most powerful forces in business, giving customers a huge megaphone with which to shape corporate ethics and practices, and imperiling some of the most towering figures of media and industry.”1 Regardless if he is correct or not in his assessment of the strong power of brand-focused online activism, without a doubt brands play imperative roles as targets and arenas for political consumerism, par­ ticularly in present times. Much of political consumerism activities navigate towards large and highly visible brands. This fact is something the owners of these brands know they need to be very well aware of because what is at stake is their reputation. What is a brand? It consists of the name and logo of an actor/object and the associated/ recognized meanings. It is the core symbolic asset of an actor. Such an actor is usually an organization and its trademarked products or services. Brands are particularly and in­ creasingly important for multinational corporations (Dauvergne & Lister, 2013). Big brand manufacturers and retailers such as Walmart, Ikea, H&M, HP, Nike, Shell, Coca- Page 1 of 23 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: Middlebury College; date: 12 August 2019 Rejecting and Embracing Brands in Political Consumerism Cola, Disney, McDonald’s, Apple, Facebook, and Google have gained tremendous power in terms of material resources (financial capital, physical infrastructure) and providing jobs, as well as in information power, technology, culture, and governance. They are also large and powerful in terms of brand visibility and recognition. According to one of the key branding experts, Douglas Holt, “branding is a core activity of capitalism, so must be in­ cluded in any serious attempt to understand contemporary society and politics” (2006, p. 299). Big business invests enormous amounts of resources on branding, working with a palette of techniques and with frequent appeals to the ethical, responsible, and environ­ mentally conscious consumer. Brands also function as a cultural resource for consumers for development of their identi­ ty, status, and search for pleasure and happiness. Moreover, brands are a key (p. 206) fo­ cus in monetary, discursive, and lifestyle types of political consumerism. While large com­ panies invest enormously in marketing resources to cultivate their brand, trying to estab­ lish “hegemonic brandscapes” (Thompson & Arsel, 2004), a peculiarity with brands is that such a kind of symbolic asset is difficult to control. Brands are also targets for nega­ tive publicity and antibrand movements, which can destroy the reputation of a brand. There is hence a space for debate and contestation for political consumerism. The strong association between brands and political consumerism warrants scholarly at­ tention.2 This is not least important because economic, symbolic, and discursive power concentrates around brands and branding activities, surrounding both the consumption and the production sides of brands. The study of brands and political consumerism re­ quires more understanding of both frontstage and backstage dynamics of brands and branding. Frontstage refers to the visual, official, and public aspects of an actor or activi­ ty (e.g., logos, reports, public boycott campaigns, culture jamming), whereas backstage refers to the nonpublic processes of preparations, negotiations, and decision-making be­ hind (and needed for) such frontstage performances.3 Through a literature review on brands and political consumerism, this chapter demon­ strates and discusses how brands relate to the various forms of political consumerism (boycott, buycott, discursive, and lifestyle political consumerism). This body of literature is interdisciplinary, including marketing, business administration, media and communica­ tion studies, sociology, political science, human geography, ethnology, social anthropolo­ gy, environmental sciences, and several others, and a broad range of concepts and ap­ proaches are developed and used to explore the phenomenon. This chapter cannot do jus­ tice to all this heterogeneity nor does it aim to map all different streams. Rather it is an effort to understand how brands provide arenas and targets for political contestation and how political consumerism tends to navigate towards high-profile brands. For this pur­ pose, useful theoretical perspectives are introduced in the next section, which is followed by four sections, focusing respectively on boycott/brand rejection, buycott, discursive, and lifestyle political consumerism, in which the relation between brands and political consumerism is explored in more detail. The concluding section presents a summary, also in a table, and discusses topics for future research and methodological challenges. Page 2 of 23 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: Middlebury College; date: 12 August 2019 Rejecting and Embracing Brands in Political Consumerism Theoretical Perspectives for the Study of Brands and Political Consumerism This section introduces useful theoretical perspectives for studying the relation between political consumerism and brands. It will present a brand as a symbolic resource, which opens a path for seeing a brand as both opportunity and (reputation) risk in relation (p. 207) to political consumerism. It is furthermore argued that scholarship needs to look at both front- and backstage processes of brands and branding among producers (brand owners), social movements, and consumers (e.g., brand communities). As discussed, a brand is the name and logo of an actor/object and their associated/recog­ nized meanings. Nike has its “Just do it”; Volvo is safety, Nokia is connecting people, Wal­ mart is saving money. (Dauvergne & Lister, 2012, pp. 36–45). An actor could be a compa­ ny, but it could also be a civil society organization (such as WWF and the Panda logo) or even an individual celebrity like musicians Bono and Madonna or football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic. An object could be a product, service, or activity. A brand becomes an intan­ gible economic asset for a company particularly “when people come to count on the brand to contribute to social life, when it is embedded in society and culture” (Holt, 2006, p. 300). The asset increases in value to the extent the brands are entwined in institutions, everyday practices, discourses, values, and norms (Holt, 2002, 2006). A brand can be conceptualized as a kind of symbolic resource (see Boström & Tamm Hall­ ström, 2010). Symbolic resources (or symbolic capital) can be employed to accumulate other resources such as human, financial, and social capital. An advantage with a symbol­ ic resource is that it is not necessarily consumed when used; it may even increase. Visibil­ ity of a logo tends to increase its value. A problematic feature with symbolic resources, however, is that their value can quickly be changed, damaged, and lost. Therefore, sym­ bolic resources are tied with some particular risks. While transnational corporations may develop incredible economic, cultural, and symbolic power related to their brands, they tend to be short of such symbolic power in relation to environmental and social responsi­ bility. For example, the sociologist Ulrich Beck (2005) argues that global business power is caught in a “legitimation trap.” The risk of reputation damage and waning consumer trust, for example
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Olympic Games and Civil Liberties
    Analysis A “clean city”: the Olympic Games and civil liberties Chris Jones Introduction In 2005, the UK won the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Seven years later, the Games are due to begin, but they are not without controversy. Sponsors of the Games – including McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Cadbury’s, BP and, perhaps most controversially, Dow Chemical [1] – were promised “what is chillingly called a ‘clean city’, handing them ownership of everything within camera distance of the games.” [2] In combination with measures put in place to deal with what have been described as the “four key risks” of terrorism, protest, organised crime and natural disasters, [3] these measures have led to a number of detrimental impacts upon civil liberties, dealt with here under the headings of freedom of expression; freedom of movement; freedom of assembly; and the right to protest. The Games will be hosted in locations across the country, but primarily in London, which is main the focus of this analysis. Laying the groundwork Following victory for the bid to host the Games, legislation – the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 – was passed “to make provision in connection with the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games that are take place in London in the year 2012.” [4] It is from here that limitations on freedom of expression have come, as well as some of the limitations on freedom of movement that stem from the introduction of “Games Lanes” to London’s road system. Policing and security remains the responsibility of the national and local authorities.
    [Show full text]
  • “What I'm Not Gonna Buy”: Algorithmic Culture Jamming And
    ‘What I’m not gonna buy’: Algorithmic culture jamming and anti-consumer politics on YouTube Item Type Article Authors Wood, Rachel Citation Wood, R. (2020). ‘What I’m not gonna buy’: Algorithmic culture jamming and anti-consumer politics on YouTube. New Media & Society. Publisher Sage Journals Journal New Media and Society Download date 30/09/2021 04:58:05 Item License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10034/623570 “What I’m not gonna buy”: algorithmic culture jamming and anti-consumer politics on YouTube ‘I feel like a lot of YouTubers hyperbolise all the time, they talk about how you need things, how important these products are for your life and all that stuff. So, I’m basically going to be talking about how much you don’t need things, and it’s the exact same thing that everyone else is doing, except I’m being extreme in the other way’. So states Kimberly Clark in her first ‘anti-haul’ video (2015), a YouTube vlog in which she lists beauty products that she is ‘not gonna buy’.i Since widely imitated by other beauty YouTube vloggers, the anti-haul vlog is a deliberate attempt to resist the celebration of beauty consumption in beauty ‘influencer’ social media culture. Anti- haul vloggers have much in common with other ethical or anti-consumer lifestyle experts (Meissner, 2019) and the growing ranks of online ‘environmental influencers’ (Heathman, 2019). These influencers play an important intermediary function, where complex ethical questions are broken down into manageable and rewarding tasks, projects or challenges (Haider, 2016: p.484; Joosse and Brydges, 2018: p.697).
    [Show full text]
  • COMMUNICATION and the CITY: VOICES, SPACES, MEDIA Leeds, June 14-15 2013
    COMMUNICATION AND THE CITY: VOICES, SPACES, MEDIA Leeds, June 14-15 2013 PARALLEL SESSIONS 1 Friday June 14, 15:15-16:45 METHODS AND THEORIES FOR URBAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH Lecture Theatre G.12 Chair: Simone Tosoni 1. Repositioning the visual essay and panoramic photography as instruments for urban research and communication Luc Pauwels, University of Antwerp 2. The challenge of the city to audience studies: Some methodological considerations on the exploration of audiencing amidst the complexity of mediated urban practices Seija Ridell, University of Tampere Simone Tosoni, Catholic University of Milan 3. Spatial materialities: Co-producing actual/virtual spaces Greg Dickinson, Colorado State University Brian L. Ott, University of Colorado Denver 4. Spatialising narratives of place Marsha Berry, RMIT University James Harland, RMIT University William Cartwright, RMIT University THE LEEDS MEDIA ECOLOGY PROJECT: MAPPING THE NEWS IN/OF THE CITY Cinema 2.31 Chair: Kate Oakley 1. Introduction to the Leeds media ecology Stephen Coleman, University of Leeds 2. Interviewing local news providers Judith Stamper, University of Leeds Jay G. Blumler, University of Leeds 3. A week in news – media content and survey analysis Chris Birchall, University of Leeds Katy Parry, University of Leeds 4. News, audiences and publics Nancy Thumim, University of Leeds 1 PARALLEL SESSIONS 2 Friday June 14, 17:00-18:30 MEMORY, HERITAGE, HISTORY AND URBAN IDENTITIES Conference Room 1.18 Chair: Peter Haratonik 1. Spaces of remembrance: Identity, memory and power on the streets of Belfast John Poulter, Leeds Trinity University College 2. The museums of Greenville, South Carolina: Contested racial histories of the city Jeremiah Donovan, Indiana University 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Contentious Politics, Culture Jamming, and Radical
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2009 Boxing with shadows: contentious politics, culture jamming, and radical creativity in tactical innovation David Matthew Iles, III Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Iles, III, David Matthew, "Boxing with shadows: contentious politics, culture jamming, and radical creativity in tactical innovation" (2009). LSU Master's Theses. 878. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/878 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BOXING WITH SHADOWS: CONTENTIOUS POLITICS, CULTURE JAMMING, AND RADICAL CREATIVITY IN TACTICAL INNOVATION A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Political Science by David Matthew Iles, III B.A., Southeastern Louisiana University, 2006 May, 2009 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was completed with the approval and encouragement of my committee members: Dr. Xi Chen, Dr. William Clark, and Dr. Cecil Eubanks. Along with Dr. Wonik Kim, they provided me with valuable critical reflection whenever the benign clouds of exhaustion and confidence threatened. I would also like to thank my friends Nathan Price, Caroline Payne, Omar Khalid, Tao Dumas, Jeremiah Russell, Natasha Bingham, Shaun King, and Ellen Burke for both their professional and personal support, criticism, and impatience throughout this process.
    [Show full text]
  • Limiting Law: Art in the Street and Street in the Art
    Linda Mulcahy and Tatiana Flessas Limiting law: art in the street and street in the art Article (Accepted version) (Refereed) Original citation: Mulcahy, Linda and Flessas, Tatiana (2015) Limiting law: art in the street and street in the art. Law Culture and Humanities . ISSN 1743-8721 (In Press) © 2015 The Authors This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/64564/ Available in LSE Research Online: December 2015 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Limiting Law: Art in the Street and Street in the Art To be published in Law Culture and Humanities. Linda Mulcahy London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK Tatiana Flessas London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK Abstract Conventional legal responses to street art have tended to characterize it as a problem that is best dealt with through criminal law sanctions.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Activism, Artivism and Beyond; Inspiring Initiatives of Civic Power'
    Activism, Artivism and Beyond Inspiring initiatives of civic power Activism, Artivism and Beyond Inspiring initiatives of civic power Author Yannicke Goris (The Broker) Co-author Saskia Hollander (The Broker) Project-team Frans Bieckmann (The Broker) Patricia Deniz (CIVICUS-AGNA) Yannicke Goris (The Broker) Anne-Marie Heemskerk (Partos/The Spindle) Saskia Hollander (The Broker) Bart Romijn (Partos) Remmelt de Weerd (The Broker) Language editor Susan Sellars Cover design & layout Soonhwa Kang Printing Superdrukker Photo credit on cover Front No podemos ni opinar, by Martin Melaugh, copyright Conflict Textiles Flamenco anticapitalista 6, by Antonia Ioannidou The Standing March, by Kodiak Greenwood Back Barsik wins momentum, by Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda #NotATarget, by UN Women, via Flickr Relax, it says McDonalds, courtesy of IMGUR Copyright © Partos, 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Partos. One of the key activities of The Spindle, the innovation programme of Partos, is to monitor and highlight trends and new developments on key themes such as on inclusion, civic power, new ways of cooperation and data. Activism, Artivism and Beyond is the first publication in The Spindle Monitor series about civic power. Inspiring people All cultures around the world have civil society, including restrictive leg- leged to have The Broker, an innova- 8 The Standing March their own stories about the epic strug- islation, financial constraints, smear tive think net on globalization and 10 Introducing civic space gles of individuals and civil society campaigns, and even assassinations.
    [Show full text]
  • Neo-Avant-Garde””
    RE·BUS CULTURAL PRODUCTION IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES: ART COLLECTIVES, INSTITUTIONS, CULTURE INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE V O L U M E 1 Table of Contents Editorial Statement for Volume 1 .......................................................................... ii Louise R. Mayhew, "On Top of the Art World: Clark Beaumont and the Rise of Artist Girl Gangs” ................................................................................................... 1 Martin Lang, "Counter Cultural Production: A Militant Reconfiguration of Peter Bürger’s “Neo-Avant-Garde”” ............................................................................. 24 Diego Mantoan, "Diverging Collectives: Artist-Run Spaces versus Warehouse Shows” ................................................................................................................. 50 Adrienne Fast, "Printmaking and Professionalism in Early 20th Century Calcutta” ............................................................................................................................. 82 Re·bus Issue 8 Spring 2017 i EDITORIAL STATEMENT FOR VOLUME 1 For the first volume of the re-bus Special Issue “Cultural Production in the 20th and 21st Centuries: Art Collectives, Institutions, Culture Industry” the editorial team has put together four articles that launch a fundamental inquiry into the definition of the art collective and its strained relationship with institutions at large. Implicated in this relationship are distinct matters that run from economic strategies to concrete political
    [Show full text]
  • Car Advertising and Climate Breakdown ARTIST CALL OUT
    Car advertising and climate breakdown ARTIST CALL OUT ARTWORK DEADLINE: 20th February 2020 OVERVIEW ARTWORK DEADLINE: 20th February 2020 Across the UK, the car remains king. In our streets, our neighbourhoods, government transport budgets and urban architectures – the primacy of individualised car ownership has become culturally dominant. In our cities, we are left with soaring air pollution, inadequate public transport, congested streets and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Motor advertising plays a central role in re-enforcing the AIMS status symbol of the car. Through press and social media, create a Brandalism would like to collaborate with artists, public conversation about the connections clean air campaigners and newly emerging between car advertising, outdoor advertising Adblock groups to create poster artworks that billboards, air pollution and car culture. parody car brands and car advertising; or that 1 discuss themes of car culture, air pollution, urban space, class, climate justice, public health and Empower new Adblock groups (if they chose sustainable transport alternatives. to be involved), subvertising and other climate networks with the skills to creatively respond The posters will be printed, distributed and installed in to car advertising. a coordinated public space intervention in British cities in Spring 2020. We are seeking submissions of poster 2 artworks in both portrait ‘6 sheet’ bus stop size and landscape ‘48 sheet’ billboard size. Create political space for positive alternatives The installations will be followed by photography, such as public transport, walking and cycling, videography and press and social media work at a car sharing and liveable streets. local and national level. 3 ABOUT BRANDALISM Brandalism is an UN climate talks.
    [Show full text]
  • Banksy. Urban Art in a Material World
    Ulrich Blanché BANKSY Ulrich Blanché Banksy Urban Art in a Material World Translated from German by Rebekah Jonas and Ulrich Blanché Tectum Ulrich Blanché Banksy. Urban Art in a Material World Translated by Rebekah Jonas and Ulrich Blanché Proofread by Rebekah Jonas Tectum Verlag Marburg, 2016 ISBN 978-3-8288-6357-6 (Dieser Titel ist zugleich als gedrucktes Buch unter der ISBN 978-3-8288-3541-2 im Tectum Verlag erschienen.) Umschlagabbildung: Food Art made in 2008 by Prudence Emma Staite. Reprinted by kind permission of Nestlé and Prudence Emma Staite. Besuchen Sie uns im Internet www.tectum-verlag.de www.facebook.com/tectum.verlag Bibliografische Informationen der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Angaben sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. Table of Content 1) Introduction 11 a) How Does Banksy Depict Consumerism? 11 b) How is the Term Consumer Culture Used in this Study? 15 c) Sources 17 2) Terms and Definitions 19 a) Consumerism and Consumption 19 i) The Term Consumption 19 ii) The Concept of Consumerism 20 b) Cultural Critique, Critique of Authority and Environmental Criticism 23 c) Consumer Society 23 i) Narrowing Down »Consumer Society« 24 ii) Emergence of Consumer Societies 25 d) Consumption and Religion 28 e) Consumption in Art History 31 i) Marcel Duchamp 32 ii) Andy Warhol 35 iii) Jeff Koons 39 f) Graffiti, Street Art, and Urban Art 43 i) Graffiti 43 ii) The Term Street Art 44 iii) Definition
    [Show full text]
  • Symbiotic Postures of Commercial Advertising and Street Art
    SYMBIOTIC POSTURES OF COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING AND STREET ART Rhetoric for Creativity Stefania Borghini, Luca Massimiliano Visconti, Laurel Anderson, and John F. Sherry, Jr. ABSTRACT: An ongoing tension between new ways of achieving novel, meaningful, and connected forms ofexpression is permeating the practice ofadvertising and igniting a lively academic debate. Novelty and social connection have long been preoccupations of art worlds. In this paper, we explore the creative tensions and synergies between countercultural and commercial communication forms ofstreet art and advertising. Viewing each form as a species of rhetoric, we analyze a set of rhetorical practices employed by street artists that not only reflect, but might also be used to shape, commercial advertising in the near future. Advertising has been acknowledged as art (Twitchell 1996) diverts, and inverts advertising proper to promote noncom­ and christened capitalist realism (Schudson 1984). Even though mercial consumption. In this paper, we analyze street art as rhetoric in advertising has different purposes compared to a species of advertising, explore the use of advertising by art (e.g., EI-Murad and West 2004), the rhetorical process street artists, and examine the implications of street art for in the two contexts is similar (White 1972; Zinkhan 1993). advertising creativity. We focus in particular on the poten­ In the same way art influences and gives meaning to our life, tial contributions of the creative rhetoric employed by the advertising shapes contemporary consumer culture (e.g., stakeholders of street art to advertising practice. Elliott 1997; Willis 1990). As art mirrors the shared truths, As with its commercial counterpart, street art is a product ideals, and metaphors of a given society, advertising reflects that embodies its own advertising.
    [Show full text]
  • ANNEX 1 Resources.Pdf
    ANNEX 1: Resources 2015 With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein Project number – 530866–LLP-1-2012-1-DE-KA2-KA2MP Agreement n 2012-5367/001 - 001 Film Trailer A2 Summary Students will watch a film trailer Skills Listening comprehension of to learn about cultural developed: Speaking contents: stereotypes and expand their Writing UK vocabulary. Analysing different cultural features Activity: Students become aware of Materials: Computer or DVD trailers as a means of An A2 suitable trailer persuasion, and learn how it is Language Lab made. Internet Connection Features: Billy Elliott film trailer Learning Watch and understand a film outcomes: trailer Learn how to write a letter Warm-up In today’s lesson we’re going to watch a film trailer for a British movie called Billy Elliot. Billy Elliot is a British drama film set in the north-east of England during the 1984-5 coal miners' strike. Eleven year old Billy is an aspiring dancer dealing with the negative stereotype of the male ballet dancer. 1. Do you want to do something special in the future? We call this your dream. For example, do you want to be a doctor or a lawyer? We say you dream of being a doctor or lawyer. What is your dream? Who makes you want to do this? For example, do you want to learn English because your husband can speak English very well? Do you dream of going to University because your friend went to University? Exercises and tasks 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Activism, Advertising, and Far-Right Media: the Case of Sleeping Giants
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Journalism Faculty Publication Series Journalism 2019 Activism, Advertising, and Far-Right Media: The Case of Sleeping Giants Joshua A. Braun John D. Coakley Emily West Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/journalism_faculty_pubs Media and Communication (ISSN: 2183–2439) 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 68–79 DOI: 10.17645/mac.v7i4.2280 Article Activism, Advertising, and Far-Right Media: The Case of Sleeping Giants Joshua A. Braun 1,*, John D. Coakley 1 and Emily West 2 1 Journalism Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA; E-Mails: [email protected] (J.A.B.), [email protected] (J.D.C.) 2 Communication Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA; E-Mail: [email protected] * Corresponding author Submitted: 18 June 2019 | Accepted: 10 October 2019 | Published: 17 December 2019 Abstract This study examines the international activist movement known as Sleeping Giants, a social-media “campaign to make bigotry and sexism less profitable” (Sleeping Giants, n.d.). The campaign originated in the US with an anonymous Twitter account that enlisted followers in encouraging brands to pull their online advertising from Breitbart News. The campaign achieved dramatic success and rapidly spread to regions outside the US, with other anonymously run and loosely allied chapters emerging in 15 different nations (as well as a regional chapter for the EU). Many of these were initially created to take on Breitbart advertisers in their home countries, but in a number of cases they subsequently turned their attention to disrupting financial support for other far-right news media in—or impacting—their home countries.
    [Show full text]