Too often the distinction is elided between a simplistic notion of direct effects [...] and a more nuanced understanding of the relationship
an implicit dismissal of the significance of advertising content in favour of polysemic texts
[...] The work that audiences do, according to Smythe, "is to learn to buy particular 'brands' of consumer demands, and to spend their income accordingly. In short, they work to create demand for advertised goods" (1977, 6). The fact that not all viewers see the ads or respond in anticipated fashio…
Recent work updating the notion of the audience commodity and of audience labor for the digital era has focused on the changing character of what is sold to advertisers: no longer time or space, but user activity or key words or searches [...] These analyses are useful insofar as they highlight the…
