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Consuming Environments explores how, with its portrayals of a world of simulated abundance, television has nurtured a culture of consumerism and overconsumption. The average person in the U.S. consumes more than twice the grain and ten times the oil of a citizen in Brazil or Indonesia. And people in less industrialized countries suffer while their resources are commandeered to support comfortable lifestyles in richer nations. Using detailed examples illustrated with images from actual commercials, news broadcasts, and television shows, the authors demonstrate how ads and programs are put together in complex ways to manipulate viewers, and they offer specific ways to counteract the effects of TV and overconsumption's assault on the environment.
List of contents
Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter One. Television and the Environment: An Introduction
Chapter Two. An Overview of Television Economics
Chapter Three. Advertisers and Their Audience
Chapter Four. Signification, Discourse, and Ideology
Chapter Five. Television Realisms
Chapter Six. The Flow of Commodities
Chapter Seven. From Consumers to Activists
Notes
Index
About the author
MIKE BUDD is a professor of communication and the director of the film and video program at Florida Atlantic University. He is editor of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Steve Craig is a professor and the chair of the department of radio, television, and film at the University of North Texas. He is editor of Men, Masculinity, and the Media. Clay Steinman is a professor and the chair of communication studies at Macalester College.
Summary
A study of the consequences of television's power over our habits of material consumption and television's ultimate impact on the environment. Using examples drawn from commercials, news broadcasts and TV shows, the authors argue that television's appeal requires its methods to remain hidden.
