----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Jim,
 
No problem with deconstructing commercials. I too teach them
for both their production techniques and their rhetorical means
of persuasion. My animus against the media literacy approach
is that it tends to see viewers as passive dupes unable
to resist the blandishmentand hard sell of sponsors.
I guess I'm also reacting to a duo of solemn Australians
who recently guest-lectured a number of local college
and University people on advertising: patriarchy and
heavy duty Frankfurt School analysis with not a mention
of any pleasurgained from the viewing experience, or
even from deconstructing the text.
 
I did put drivel within quotation marks to show that I was
a smart-ass when answering other teachers about my course
content.
 
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