Ways of Selling

The publicity image belongs to the moment.  We see it as we turn a page, as we turn a corner, as a vehicle passes us.  Or we see it on a television screen whilst waiting for the commercial break to end.  Publicity images also belong to the moment in the sense that they must be continually renewed and made up-to-date.  Yet they never speak of the present.  Often they refer to the past and always they speak of the future. […]

Within publicity, choices are offered between this cream and that cream, that car and this car, but publicity as a system only makes a single proposal.  It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.  This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer –even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.  

Publicity persuades us of such transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable.  The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour.  And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour.

                                                                                          John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1976

1.  In your own words, explain what the author says about: 
                        -where publicity images can be found;
                        -what they propose.



2.  Think about television commercials or publicities found in the streets, on billboards, and cite a few examples of how they "manufacture glamour."  Be ready to speak about these publicities in class.