Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture Summary

The article, "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture" discusses the effects advertising has on society's values and assumptions. We live in a culture where society's expectations are high and center around an appearance's aesthetic. Through advertising, our culture has adapted to the marketplace; we believe we can achieve happiness because this is what advertisers feed to their buyers. Advertisements tell us what we want to hear and target not how people are acting, but how they are dreaming.

The article states, "happiness and contemporary contentment appear illusory in contemporary society." This statements depicts how the image system is merely an illusion. The text, colors images, and commercial communication creates the illusion. In order for buyers to decode these complex messages, advertisements must "educate as well as sell." Advertisements have a lot of thought put into their images to capture the buyer's eye. These advertisements develop into what the article calls an,"image saturated society."

This article also discusses how goods are the center of perceived happiness. Advertising only promotes images that buyers will interpret as "the good life." These buyers must obtain certain products to feel a satisfaction in having the product. However, the images promoted by advertisers are not only about satisfaction. The article also discusses how advertisements influences and effects center around gender identity, gender strike, and sexuality.

The article also keeps the child audience in mind; the market place illuminates the continuous divide between boys and girls. Toy advertisers limit the young minds of both males and females by targeting toys for a specific gender. Because of this, imaginative play is becoming more scarce. 

Images within society are rapidly filling our culture. These visual images dominate the lives of children as well as adults. This article focuses on the importance of how we perceive these images in today's society. Our image-based society has enabled people to give up their control in the real world. We have immersed ourselves in appearances, and commercial happiness that will never come close to the happiness that comes with values in the real world.