The Sage Handbook of Promotional Culture and Society critically examines the social, political, and cultural impact of promotional industries, including advertising, branding, public relations, strategic communication, and marketing communication.
By adopting a global and inclusive approach to its subject, the Handbook champions marginalised voices and cross-cultural scholarship. It brings together contributions from and about a broad range of countries and contexts beyond the Global North, providing a well-rounded picture of promotion as the international phenomenon it is today
Chapters explore both established and emerging topics, with an entire section dedicated to the interplay between promotion and identities, as well as providing coverage of interdisciplinary issues such as promotional media and children, the climate crisis, and social media influencers. There is also a clear focus on bridging theory and practice, with discussions of promotional occupations and workers woven through the chapters.
By reflecting on the questions of what promotional culture is today, how it has evolved, and where it is practiced and by whom, this Handbook is essential reading for scholars and students seeking to shape future research and debate in this dynamic field.
Part 1: Promotional Culture and Industry Logics
Part 2: Promotional Practices
Part 3: Promotion and Identities
Part 4: Promotion and Popular Culture
Part 5: Promotion and Institutional Power
A critical and global overview of promotional media and culture, exploring the social, political and cultural impact of todays promotional industries.
Editors Introduction: What is promotional culture today? - Lee Edwards,
Clea Bourne, Jason Vincent A. Cabańes, Gisela Castro
Part 1: Promotional Culture and Industry Logics
Chapter 1: Emotion and humanisation in the UK branding industry - Nicolįs
Arenas
Chapter 2: Creating cultural weavers: Reimagining the pedagogies and
curricula of the promotional occupations in service of producing sustained
social change - Nicola A. Corbin
Chapter 3: Promotional industries, capitalism and market society: the
changing relationship of value to values - Anne M. Cronin
Chapter 4: Explaining promotional culture: An institutional logics approach -
Lee Edwards
Chapter 5: AI ethics are not enough. public relations, social justice and
artificial intelligence - Clea Bourne and Michaela Jackson
Chapter 6: High-tech storytelling: a typology for technology marketers - Yoko
Maki
Chapter 7: Brand journalism: perspectives from Ghana - Kobby Mensah and
Joscelyne Ahiable
Chapter 8: Creative inclusivity: the narrative of diversity in the tourism
media promotion - Desideria Cempaka Wijaya Murti
Part 2: Promotional Practices
Chapter 9: Changing landscape of advertising and promotional industries in
Bangladesh - Khorshed Alam
Chapter 10: Disinformation promotion on social media - Fatima Gaw
Chapter 11: Understanding social media marketing managers intermediary role:
A Middle Eastern case study - Zoe Hurley
Chapter 12: Propaganda and Promotional Culture: Catalysts of disinformation
in Malaysian politics - Pauline Pooi Yin Leong and Benjamin Yew Hoong Loh
Chapter 13: Public relations within the promotional work of human rights
activists in Portugal - Naide Müller
Chapter 14: Between socialites and promotional logics: How international
volunteers in Bali craft their voluntourist selfies - Kadek Tomi Kencana
Putra
Chapter 15: Regimes of visibility in Disneys CSR: Corporate wokeness,
neoliberalism, and promotional Industries - Kailin Regutti, Zane Willard,
Mahuya Pal
Part 3: Promotion and Identities
Chapter 16: Plus size fashion promotional culture in Brazil as a biopolitical
strategy of consumption - Aliana Aires and Tānia Hoff
Chapter 17: Promotional culture(s): Rediscovering and revisiting ideology:
the case of Jamaica - Nova Gordon-Bell
Chapter 18: First Nations public relations, activism, and feminism in
Australia - Treena Clark, Yvonne Clark, Shannon Foster, Tiffanie Ireland and
Aiesha Saunders
Chapter 19: Breaking invisibilities: Race, racism, and Brazilian advertising
in a changing world - Laura Guimarćes Corrźa, Pablo Moreno Fernandes,
Francisco Leite, Fernanda Carrera
Chapter 20: Enter the sci-fluencer? Personal branding, race and gender in
online science communication - Mehita Iqani
Chapter 21: Racialising my voice: Narrative and commercial challenges for
black influencers - Nessa Keddo
Part 4: Promotion and Popular Culture
Chapter 22: Silent or silenced pain? Women with endometriosis caught between
neglect and acknowledgement - Joćo Freire Filho and Jślia dos Anjos
Chapter 23: Cruise ships as sales machines: A new promotional practice? -
Maria Manuel Baptista and Telma Medeiros Brito
Chapter 24: Public relations as tour of duty: Disembodying PR work in
Criminal Minds - Clea Bourne
Chapter 25: K-Dramas as a space for cross-cultural exchange? Counter-flow and
its entanglements with soft power and promotional culture - Jason Vincent A.
Cabańes and Cecilia S. Uy-Tioco
Chapter 26: Negotiating the media(ted) reality and marginalization: Exploring
the lived experiences of LGBTQ consumers from the Global South - Dibyangana
Biswas, Himadri Roy Chaudhuri and Anindita Chaudhuri
Chapter 27: Riding on the wave of popular culture: Croatias soft power and
Game of Thrones fandom - Bruno Lovric
Chapter 28: Promoting sustainability: Resisting capitalist frames of
promotional cultures through climate fiction - Debashish Munshi and Priya
Kurian
Part 5: Promotion and Institutional Power
Chapter 29: The animal-industrial complex and the promotion of animal
exploitation - Nśria Almiron
Chapter 30: The promotional pillar of enduring authoritarian-populist
regimes: The case of Islamic charities in Erdogans Turkey - Burēe Celik
Chapter 31: The political economy of environmental communication: The Chinese
context - Sibo Chen
Chapter 32: A quest for unity: Promoting Caribbean "oneness" by creating a
regional public sphere - Zoė M.K. Hagley
Chapter 33: The Spanish promotional culture: reflections of a mature sector
and an evolving society - Charo Sįdaba and Jorge del Rķo
Chapter 34: Promotional culture, children, and social media: considerations
from the Brazilian context - Renata Tomaz and Brenda Guedes
Chapter 35: High tech pauperism: Fintech, promotionalism, and the creation of
financial subjects - Alison Hearn
Lee Edwards is Professor of Strategic Communications and Public Engagement in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is particularly interested in the relationship between strategic communications and inequalities, social justice, democracy, and media literacy. She has published a wide range of articles, books, chapters and reports on topics including deliberative engagement in media policymaking, media literacy, public relations as a cultural intermediary, diversity in public relations, and public relations and democracy.
Clea Bourne is a Reader in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. She founded and directs the MA Promotional Media: Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing at Goldsmiths. She also designed and teaches the undergraduate module Future of Media Work. Cleas research explores how digital economies and markets are mediatised, exploring public legitimisation of discourses surrounding digital technologies, including the impact of AI and automation in media and promotional industries. Her latest book, Public Relations and the Digital: Professional Discourse and Change, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022.
Jason Vincent A. Cabańes is Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Media and Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London. He holds a PhD in Communications Studies from the University of Leeds. His research focuses on the entangled mediations of cross-cultural intimacies and solidarities across the world. As part of this work, he was recently Principal Investigator for the project Imaginaries of Intimacy and Cultural Diplomacy, funded by The Korea Foundation. He is also co-editor of the book "Mobile Media and Social Intimacies in Asia" (Springer) and co-author of the short monograph "Consuming digital disinformation: How Filipinos engage with racist and historically distorted online political content" (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute). His other publications have appeared in top-tier journals such as Communication, Culture, and Critique, the International Journal of Cultural Studies, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Gisela G. S. Castro holds a PhD in Communication and Culture (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), and a BSc in Psychology from the same University in her hometown Rio. She is a full professor at the Graduate Studies Program in Communication and Consumption Practices she helped found at the Advanced School of Advertising and Marketing (ESPM, Sćo Paulo). Gisela was a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work was funded by FAPESP and supervised by Mike Featherstone. She investigates the production of subjectivities and modes of sociability in a media-saturated world. Her current research examines the commodification of ageing and longevity in the logics of promotional culture. She publishes regularly, mostly in Brazil. She is an author in Virpi Ylannes edited collection Ageing and the Media: international perspectives (Polity Press, 2022).
