Students investigate the West Terrace Virtual Mall Stores (by Consumer FTC) to learn about misleading advertising and how to spot it.

The 1920s was a decade of increasing conveniences for the middle class. New products made household chores easier and led to more leisure time. Products previously too expensive became affordable. New forms of financing allowed every family to spend beyond their current means. Advertising capitalized on people's hopes and fears to sell more and more goods.

This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the ‰ŰĎgood life‰Ű through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.

This course provides a solid understanding of consumer decision-making and how new products and services are developed, especially given the rapid pace of innovation and regulatory change, to help students succeed in consumer finance today. Specific examples will be drawn from retirement saving products, credit cards, peer to peer lending, cryptocurrencies, and financial advising.

 Advertisements can present a biased cultural representation that can affect our perceptions of others.  For example, a television show may show commercials with some groups of people more than others. A magazine may have advertisements and articles representing a certain type of people in a way that reinforces stereotypes.  Students need to be taught to recognize the culture that is being represented in the media they consume as well as the cultures that are absent from the same media.This is Part 5 of a 5 Part Unit: Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying?

A practicum-style course in anthropological methods of ethnographic fieldwork and writing, intended especially for STS, CMS, HTC, and Sloan graduate students, but open to others with permission of instructor. Depending on student experience in ethnographic reading and practice, the subject is a mix of reading anthropological and science studies ethnographies; and formulating and pursuing ethnographic work in local labs, companies, or other sites.

Students will develop criteria for determining statements of opinion and fact. Students will practice discerning statements of opinion in advertisements.  This is Part 2 of a 5 Part Unit Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying? 

Urban governance comprises the various forces, institutions, and movements that guide economic and physical development, the distribution of resources, social interactions, and other aspects of daily life in urban areas. This course examines governance from legal, political, social, and economic perspectives. In addition, we will discuss how these structures constrain collective decision making about particular urban issues (immigration, education‰Ű_). Assignments will be nightly readings and a short paper relating an urban issue to the frameworks outlined in the class.

Using their new skills in deconstructing advertisements, students will look at advertisements through the lens of gender.  Students will be encouraged to critically analyze the cultural stereotypes for men and women. Students will deconstruct advertisements based on gender representation.Rationale: Students will begin to see how believing in stereotypes can lead towards a negative self image for men and women.  This is Part 4 of a 5 part Unit: Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying?

The objective of this lesson is to teach kids about food advertising. To compare and contrast the portrayal of real food versus processed food in the media.

This course is designed prepare students for entry-level positions in marketing, advertising and/or public relations. The course will focus on the basic concepts of economics and the fundamentals of marketing. Students will learn to make realistic management decisions as they apply what they have learned in the classroom to realistic business simulations and other activities.Integrated throughout the course are career preparation standards, which include basic academic skills, communication, interpersonal skills, problem solving, and workplace safety, technology and employment literacy connection to core academic standards.

Learning to Write an Opinion (5 days)
Day 1. For this end of year project, you are going to do one last book review, but this time it is going to be in the form of an advertisement. You will share your ads with the 2nd graders as a preview for what they will be reading next year and your goal is to get them excited about 3rd grade reading.
Students will choose their favorite book from the year and begin planning the draft of their advertisement with the checklist as their guide. Offer support to students and coach them about the features of an advertisement.
Book Review Opinion Checklist Sample
Day 2. Yesterday you started the draft of your advertisement and planned out the elements from the beginning of the checklist. Today you will finish your draft using the elements of the checklist as a guide. We will look back at the book review checklist.
Day 3. Today you will need to revise and edit your advertisement and then have a partner revise and edit. Then you will create your final ad with any artwork you want to include. Be sure to think about making a lasting memory for your reader:
-Revise and edit advertisement
-Peer revise and edit
-Create final draft with added artwork
Day 4. Today you will practice presenting your advertisements to a partner.
Review the presentation skills for the presenter and the listener.
Day 5. You will share your advertisements with a lot of 2nd graders today.
Students will present advertisements (and listen and offer feedback or ask questions if their partner is also sharing a review or ad).

This site provides a standards-based lesson on how the use of posters during WWII helped win over the hearts and minds of the American people.

This collection assembles a wide array of Library of Congress source materials from the 1920s that document the widespread prosperity of the Coolidge years, the nation's transition to a mass consumer economy, and the role of government in this transition. It includes nearly 200 selections from twelve collections of personal papers and two collections of institutional papers from the Manuscript Division; 74 books, pamphlets, and legislative documents from the General Collections, along with selections from 34 consumer and trade journals; 181 photographs from the pictorial materials of the National Photo Company Collection held by the Prints and Photographs Division; and 5 short films and 7 audio selections of Coolidge speeches from the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. The collection is particularly strong in advertising and mass-marketing materials and will be of special interest to those seeking to understand economic and political forces at work in the 1920s.

Throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, Americans were inundated with myriad medicinal treatments collectively known as patent medicine. At a time when doctors and medical clinics were less common, especially in rural areas, patent medicines promised relief from pain and chronic conditions when few other options existed. The term “patent medicine” referred to ingredients that had been granted a government patent; but ironically many purveyors of patent medicine did not register their concoctions with the government. As a result, many competitors offered similar formulas and freely imitated each other’s products. The story of patent medicine is multi-layered. It is about the phenomenon of Americans self-medicating with opiates, alcohol, and herbal supplements, as well as women’s health and healthcare options. It follows the evolution of advertising in America and the rise of chromolithography printing techniques and newspaper advertisements. Finally, patent medicine reveals dubious scientific knowledge during a time when germ theory was in its infancy. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from Minnesota Digital Library. Exhibition organized by Greta Bahnemann.

This media literacy unit was designed and piloted with junior English classes at the start of the school year. Activities can easily be adapted to suit secondary students at various levels. Within the unit, students analyze corporate logos, corporate advertising, movie trailers and stereotypes found in media related to Native American culture. Within the unit, students also learn how to consider the ways in which media appeals to ethos, pathos and logos and how to identify the tone of a piece of media.

Innovation in expression -- as realized in media, tangible objects, and performance, and more -- generates new questions and new potentials for human engagement. When and how does expression engage us deeply? While "deep engagement" seems fundamental to the human psyche, it is hard to define, difficult to reliably design for, and hard to critically measure or assess. Are there principles we can articulate? Are there evaluation metrics we can use to insure quality of experience? Many personal stories confirm the hypothesis that once we experience deep engagement, it is a state we long for, remember, and want to repeat. We need to better understand these principles and innovate methods that can insure higher-quality products (artifacts, experiences, environments, performances, etc.) that appeal to a broad audience and that have lasting value over the long term.

The purpose of this course is to: Introduce you to key marketing ideas and phenomena. Develop your skills in marketing analysis and planning. Provide you with a forum (both written and oral) for presenting and defending your own recommendations and critically examining and discussing those of others.Emphasis is on theory and practice that draws on market research, competitive analysis, and marketing science.

In this lesson, students examine the role of women in the media; critique and discuss different portrayals of women in popular culture and focus on how these reflect larger societal and cultural values.