At 12:01 PM 9/5/01 -0400, air-l-request@aoir.org wrote:
From: Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca> Subject: [Air-l] Sponsored papers Folks, You've read the story about novelist Fay Weldon getting sponsorship from Bulgari jewelers for her latest book.
I too want product placement gelt! If it's good for hockey rinks, it's good enough for the American Sociological Review!
So here's part of my next paper.
Here's one to go with yours, Barry. I teach an intro to mass communication course where we start that semester by talking about political economy, and today we talked about media that are funded by advertising vs. media that aren't. One student (most likely a 1st year student) asked, in all seriousness, why textbooks didn't include advertisements so that they would be cheaper (I just got done comparing my 600-page _Technics and Civilization_ by Mumford with the latest issue of _Vogue_ which clocks in at 700 pages and sells for $12 less -- there's also economy of scale issues as well). My answer was that most professors would balk at assigning textbooks with ads in them. Again, she followed up with a "why" to that. So my answer was that a lot of us professors believe -- "and this may sound corny," I added -- in the sanctity and independence of scholarly knowledge. To place ads in textbooks would be to compromise that independence. And to think, the advertising industry used to need PR people. Best, --J