Advertising and Assemblages

• In Event: 3151 - Theory Section Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 7. Theoretical Approaches to Global Change and Challenges – A

Abstract

In this paper, assemblage theory – as articulated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, as well as Manuel DeLanda – is applied to advertising. Insights from poststructuralism, Bakhtin's dialogism, and theories of intertextuality are also employed in considering "assemblages of language" – as brands, as cultural commodities, and as advertising discourse. The paper particularly considers how one assemblage is advertised to another, as when a corporation markets its branded products to consumers in their "home assemblages." It is suggested that advertising plays on the differences and distance between assemblages, and promises value elsewhere.

Author

• Steven W. Sherlock, Saginaw Valley State University