Endless Progaganda

             "Endless Propaganda, by Paul Rutherford, underscores the presence of advertising rhetoric, even it the context of apparently non-partisan collective health issues such as cancer. Throughout this book, Rutherford argues that the public sphere has been transformed into a huge marketplace of goods and signs. Civil advocacy has become a special art of authority that subjects politics, social behavior, and public morals to the philosophy and discipline of marketing. Without suggesting that there is one simple way to understand the transformation that democracy has undergone because of this phenomenon, Rutherford introduces and applies the cultural theories of several important philosophers: Hanermas, Gramsci, Foucault, Ricoeur, and Baudrillard. The reader is thus given the necessary tools to critically examine the pages of this study" (Rutherford, intro). This book entails many examples of the idea that what once was private, has now become public. This was argued by many of the philosophers, specifically, Foucault in chapter four, where he discusses the initial models for power in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The conclusion of this book revisits Habermas idea of the public sphere being the great manufacturer of public opinion.
             The book by Paul Rutherford, entitled, Endless Propaganda, debates a number of issues pertaining to propaganda. He discusses "whether there is any public discourse left, or has advertising, with its aggressive sales techniques, usurped the role of democratic, civil debate. Beginning in the 1960's there was a proliferation of social, political, and corporate advertising in affluent developed nations that spoke to the "public good" on everything from milk to family values. Surveying over 10,000 advertisements from the past 40 years" (Rutherford, preview). This book was an attention-grabbing piece of literature to read, being that it broade...

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Endless Progaganda. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 12:32, April 26, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/95418.html