Marketing

commerce, culture, and the profession itself (firstpart)

Abstract

The most overtly commercial dimension of society is often focused in the academia from an arrogant, pessimistic and shallow viewpoint. On the opposite side, it is seen through some optimistic yet naive perspective, typical from a celebratory approach. The sociological study of advertising and marketing is strategic to face such fruitless manichaeism, for it favo rs the examination of hidden links betwccn capitalist industrialization and market bchavior, between urbanization and modernization, among media, family life, and consumption, be it material or symbolic. The articlc revicws some importam bibliographical titlcs recently issued in the USA from a perspective based on the sociology of culture