ABSTRACT
As explored in Chapter 2, one of the early manifestos for English, Culture and Environment (Leavis and Thompson 1933), focused on the role of advertising in creating the modern consumer environment. The authors’ position was one of resistance and critique in relation to the ideology of advertising. This reflected a view of English as a moral subject responsible for shaping the cultural values of society. Today, the analysis of adverts and packaging is established as a staple part of the English
curriculum diet. But all too often this is an exercise that has lost any moral force and has simply become an exercise in the labelling of parts or a celebration of the creativity and cleverness of advertising. The analysis of how adverts create their effects and how to mimic these effects is the main business of the lesson, whereas the critical framing of these activities by discussion of how the ideology of consumption pervades our lives is often missing. By omitting analysis of the wider role of advertising in the reproduction of a consumer society, English teachers may be unwittingly promoting an uncritical consumerism in the way that activities are designed and presented.
