ABSTRACT
The comparison between Nike’s advertising and the conditions of its work force may seem unfair, “unbalanced,” or simply irrelevant. In the summer of 1993, the New York Times announced on its front page that “Strong Companies Are Joining Trend to Eliminate Jobs.” The issue of jobs became a main campaign theme during the 1992 presidential election. While on the campaign trail, then-candidate Bill Clinton accused the Bush administration of funding government programs that were responsible for taking jobs away from American workers and exporting them to cheaper labor pools. Another advertising strategy in the age of job loss has been to present mythic images of work settings that celebrate such attributes as physical strength, camaraderie, and power and control. As advertising discourse becomes increasingly embedded within television programming, and as programming strategies strive to accommodate the needs of advertising by creating an appropriate vehicle for the display of products, the images and narratives of consumption proliferate.
