September 2006
Advertising overload

In your face and up your nose, mass advertising pushes more than just a product, it pushes an entire consumerist, globalized worldview - and makes it 'fun'. This is different from the small-scale, non-glam stuff the NI itself accepts and indulges in. Backed by the financial muscle of the world's corporate giants, advertising is about creating hungers in cultures of cool which big business can feed. With most of the media dependent on it and the finest creative brains working for it, the ad biz is hammering out that expressway to your skull. We peer into its bag of tricks.


NI

No.393

Contents

　

　

　

2 Captive
Dinyar Godrej sniffs at the bait being dangled by the ad biz.

6 How to read an ad

8 Brand-hopping beauties
An alien consumer culture is blitzing Indian women. Mari Marcel Thekaekara takes its measure.

10 Jesus is a brand of jeans
Jean Kilbourne on how advertising affects the way we think and feel.

13 Public service
Chinese perceptions of the hard sell take Jacob Lotinga by surprise.

14 Sizzzzle
How big brands steal children's hearts.

16 Sultans of spin
Making an unpopular candidate win an election - in Bolivia or anywhere else - is an art, as Bob Burton discovers.

17 All that glisters...
India's feelgood boomerang.

18 Beneath the gloss
Sarah Irving opens the casebook on ad promise and corporate reality.

21 Subverts
Bubble-pricking prankery.

22 Currents
The international round-up continues on page 24 with gold digging in Chile that will 'relocate' glaciers.
PLUS: Seriously...

25 Worldbeaters
The end hoves into sight for Equatorial Guinea's bloodsoaked dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo - despite having an uncle who is a god.

26 Mixed Media
MUSIC, BOOKS, FILM review

28 Southern Exposure
The dignity of a poet resident at a senior citizen shelter in Kathmandu, Nepal, captured by Shehab Uddin.

29 View from Israel
The real aim of the bombs falling on Lebanon is regime change, argues Uri Avnery, a former member of Israel's parliament.

30 Essay: Seen, killed and unheard
Lebanese teens in the line of fire bear witness to their ripped lives and speak out about what needs to change. Testimony compiled by Rebecca Bridges and Fayyaz Muneer.

32 Big Bad World
Polyp's take on a volatile fluid.
PLUS: NI Prize Crossword.

33 Making Waves
Semantics King Jr - keeping the flame of independent media alive in a camp for Liberian refugees.

34 Letters
Credit unions as alternatives to big banks; planting trees and market solutions in the carbon offset debate; arguments in favour of animal testing.

35 Letter from Mauritius
Lindsey Collen on the fight for freedom of artistic expression.

36 Country Profile - Benin

　

　

　

　

NI Japan

No.81

Contents

　

<This month's translation>

-Captive (NI p2-5)

-How to read an ad (NI p6-7)

-Brand-hopping beauties (NI p8-9)

-Jesus is a brand of jeans (NI p10-12)

-Subverts (NI p21)

-Sizzzzle (NI p14, 15, 20)

-Country Profile - Benin (NI p36)

-Currents (NI p22-23)
---Slave to oil
---Environmental casualties


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