Red Time is Me-Time: Advertising, Ambivalence, and Women's Magazines

This study explores the concept of self for women in consumer culture, as it is played out in an experiential advertising campaign for a U.K. women's magazine called Red. The study qualitatively explores the tensions and ambivalences experienced by female participants in response to a campaign using the notion of self-indulgence and "me time" as they experience it in the context of their everyday lives. It shows how women attempt to reconcile the mixed emotions that the Red campaign evokes in them.

I Can't Believe It's Not Bakhtin!: Literary Theory, Postmodern Advertising and the Gender Agenda

Taking the literary theories of Mikhail Bakhtin as a starting point, the authors offer three gendered readings of a postmodern advertisement for Moët & Chandon champagne. They commence with a discussion of the influence of gender on textual interpretation; continue with an outline of Bakhtin's key concepts, with particular reference to gender; present three contrasting readings of Moët's postmodern advertisement; and conclude with a discussion of their interpretations together with some reflexive reflections on the gender agenda. Though not claiming to offer a comprehensive introduction to Bakhtin, they do try to exemplify, in a quasi-carnivalesque mode of exposition, something of the character of that supremely gifted thinker and to demonstrate the insights his concepts provide in relation to gendered readings of advertising texts.

Interactive Learning in Library Inductions at University for the Creative Arts

Large group library inductions in a lecture theatre at the beginning of term are considered to be one of the more challenging scenarios for delivery. This article describes an activity in which students in groups of 30-90 are introduced to the library and its resources, using an activity to engage them and to connect their ideas with the content presented. The work of several educational theorists embodied in the activity is then described. The session was conceived as a collaboration between the Learning and Teaching Librarian and the Learning Development Tutor, who is responsible for supporting students with their reading, writing and critical skills. This work was done at University for the Creative Arts, where the author formerly held post as Learning and teaching Librarian.