Yippppie!!!

James B. Twitchell, Adcult USA, Columbia U. Press, 1996. A cogent reading of the cultural messages of ads. I didn't learn much from Twitchell because his way of interpreting ads is so similar to mine.

Mark Crispin Miller, Boxed In: The Culture of TV, Northwestern U. Press, 1988. Miller is smart, and he knows it. His exposition of TV images, borrowing its conceptual equipment from New Criticism and Deconstruction, is so clever that Miller sometimes descends into being smart for smartness' sake.

Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra & Simulation, U of Michigan Press, 1994. Baudrillard claims that culture has reduced to advertising itself, and that there is no possibility of undermining or resisting the persuasive, seductive force it wields. Baudrillard would have to say that any response to advertising, even "this is just stupid," can only serve its totalizing purpose.

Leslie Savan, The Sponsored Life, Temple U. Press, 1994. A collection of Savan's ad reviews from The Village Voice. Without benefit of an intellectual faction, Savan simply calls them as she sees them. To me this was refreshing.