Advertising: How advertisers shape cultural trends
Watch the PBS Frontline documentaries The Merchants of Cool or The Persuaders, or watch the first half
of Adam Curtis’ The Century of the Self and respond to a major point made in any of the three about
advertising or advertisers. You might write about how:
A. in Merchants of Cool, how advertisers shape the images teens have of themselves
B. in The Persuaders, how much money and research is put into an advertising campaign
C. in Century of the Self, how Edward Bernays changed was shown to have changed a long held cultural
taboo, or how he was said to have changed America from a need based consumer economy to a want
based.