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- Title
Nature vs Culture in Advertisements.
- Authors
Jean, Jerry
- Abstract
Most advertisements try to portray their products as refined and 'new.' The recurrent mantra is on the latest, the most fashionable and sophisticated. However, recent ads have shown a disdain towards excessive modernity and a predilection for a return to nature and a lack of artifice. Nature has begun to figure as an important trope with positive or favourable connotations in advertisements. It can signify a pure, untarnished and unblemished state. It can refer to a freedom from mundane social rules, a wild state. In both ways, nature is positioned opposite culture. The nature vs culture dichotomy has been greatly discussed and debated in sociological circles. It is implied by the title of Claude Levi- Strauss' work -- The Raw and the Cooked. If nature is the primary referent for all human endeavours, culture seeks to tame and domesticate unruly nature. Culture refines nature. This transformation is termed as 'cooking' nature. Judith Williamson terms this as a primary referent system, as an ideology and a source for many signs in advertisements. This paper looks at some ways in which nature appears in ads and of its positioning opposite the more sophisticated culture.
- Subjects
ADVERTISING; NATURE in advertising; ADVERTISING &; culture; CULTURE; NATURE; PRODUCT positioning
- Publication
Labyrinth: An International Refereed Journal of Postmodern Studies, 2014, Vol 5, Issue 3, p39
- ISSN
0976-0814
- Publication type
Article