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Dissertation Information for Howard Besser

NAME:
- Howard Besser
- (Alias) Howard A. Besser

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Berkeley (USA) (1988)

ADVISORS:
- Patrick Wilson

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Michael D. Cooper
- John Gerwig Hurst

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Advertisements for computer products examined through two social theories of knowledge

Abstract: This dissertation examines the appeals made by advertisements for computer products during the Microcomputer Revolution of the early 1980s, and tries to explain the links between the appeals of these ads and two theories of how we look at the world. First it proposes a theory based upon John Berger'sWays of Seeing, claiming that advertising is concerned with envy and glamour rather than utility. It then offers a second theory, based upon The Homeless Mind by sociologists Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner, which attempts to explain how people look at the world in terms of five "elements of the mind": componentiality, multi-relationality, maximalization, functional rationality, and speed.

Selecting a key year in the growth of computer magazine sales, the dissertation tests each of these theories against empirical data derived from the ads for computer products in these magazines. It uses the results of these tests both to explain more fully the link between the appeals of these ads and the way we look at the world, and to cast some doubt on the validity of portions of each of the two theories. By exposing the link between the appeals of computer ads and the way in which we look at the world, it attempts to offer insights into the peculiar phenomenon of the rapid acceptance of computers.

MPACT Scores for Howard Besser

A = 0
C = 2
A+C = 2
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-05-29 14:07:57

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