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Popular Culture Review
to duplicate the results from his New Jersey movie theater experiment and later
admitted that his findings had embellished data. Moreover, popular resentment
over the use of subliminal messages as manipulative marketing contributed to
banishing it as an accepted form of communication.
Regardless, subliminal messaging has recurrently appeared in both
scholarly and popular discussions. A notable example: the 2000 election, which
was at least temporarily diverted by allegations that ads on behalf of Republican
candidate George W. Bush had subliminally referenced the word “rats” as a
subtext for “Democrats.” The other samples Acland offers of subliminal
messaging during its heyday in the late 1950s, as well as its continued (but
marginalized) uses since then, are a mix of fun and weird. His style combines a
rich historiography with popular and obscure symbols to create an informative
and entertaining read. Acland, a communication studies professor at Concordia
University in Montreal, is the author of Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and
Global Culture (2003) and co-editor of Useful Cinema (2011), both of which are
also published by Duke University Press.
Gregory A. Borchard, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
The Bride Factory: Mass Media Portrayals
o f Women and Weddings
Erika Engstrom
Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2012
There is some sort of lure in reality programming that can suck in even
those who firmly believe that sort of media presentation is the worst dreck ever
presented to a mass audience. And what could be more alluring than programs
about weddings? It’s an event that many of us will participate in at least once in
our lifetimes: whether as bride/groom, as an attendant, or an observer. There’s
something very appealing about being able to take a look behind the scenes,
watching drama unfold on the way to the big event. As an event grounded in a
reality that most of us can relate to, in one way or another, there is almost
nothing to equal a wedding as a spectacle, except perhaps for reality drug
rehabilitation programs (but that’s another story entirely). It’s a cultural event,
one that brings all of us together, in one form or another.
While The Bride Factory: Mass Media Portrayals o f Women and
Weddings (Erika Engstrom) doesn’t contain itself to television media only, the
fact is that today the majority of media consumed is on television, with the
internet running in second place. Overall, the book is a fascinating look at