Archive - September 7, 2015

Ad Nauseam: How Advertising And Public Relations Changed Everything by Jeff  Koob (Jamaica 1991–93) iUniverse March 2015 196 pages $16.95 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965–67) • “If you read no other book this year, read Jeff Koob’s Ad Nauseam. It will change your life.” There you have it: the hyperbole and the promise to make you a better you, a claim I can’t possibly substantiate. It’s advertising. It’s propaganda. “Propagandists use emotion and unfounded assertions rather than logic and fact, selecting emotionally loaded words and images to create a desired feeling, or combining facts and half-truths or outright lies — with emotional triggers,” Koob writes. “Many ads are unburdened by anything resembling truth.” Most Americans, if asked, would say propaganda is something that happens elsewhere, Koob writes. “We’re so steeped in propaganda techniques that most of us don’t notice them in advertising and public relations campaigns.” . . .