Designated Sidekick

Advertising and its Connection to Violence and Abuse, Special issue of Journal of Advertising,
Edited by Nora J. Rifon, Marla Royne and Les Carlson; Deadline 31 Mar 2009

A spate of recent highly visible advertising campaigns using violent themes, imagery, and acts elicited heightened scrutiny after the 2007 Superbowl. There are a growing number of highly successful video games with violence at their core such as Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft, and Halo to name a few, that receive advertising support. There are also a growing number of advertising-based Internet games offered and freely accessible to even young children. Indeed, the success of entertainment vehicles is highly dependent on advertising support systems. The recent intermingling of advertising and entertainment content points to the pivotal role of advertising for defining cultural norms and influencing behaviors of violence, abuse to others and self, and neglect.

Journal of Advertising is one of the A level marketing journals, and they’re traditionally USA-centric in appproach. So, I’d like this call for paper to get a little more attention from outside the marketing academics mailing lists.   There’s a need for voices that aren’t from the usual suspects list (and I say that because on any gioven topic in marketing, we can name the ten most likely authors to respond to a special issue call for papers) and views that aren’t just white male middle class academics* on topics such as the Dehumanization in advertising, Stereotyping and degradation, Symbolic consumption of violence and New media, gaming and violence consumption as a contributor to active and passive child abuse.
Submission deadline: March 31, 2009.
*If anyone needs a WMMC marketing academic to provide the academy firepower as second or third author on a paper, I’m open to collaborations. It is what I do for a day job.