Consumer Imagination of State SocialismStudio DIP

Publication on the topic of socialist advertising in Czechoslovakia. Socialist advertising is often seen as nonsense, a contradiction, or at least a paradox. However, in post-war Czechoslovakia, as in other Eastern European countries, it was a well-established field employing tens of thousands of creative workers in various sub-fields, whose activities had been supported by research on the market, the audience and the effectiveness of promotional media since at least the 1960s. This collective monograph, Consumer Imagination of State Socialism, approaches post-war advertising as a form of communication in which the interests of state economic policy in industry and commerce, consumer culture, the art world and the changing conditions of media operation specifically intersect. This narrative book presents key institutions, personalities and channels of advertising as well as insights into the language and images of socialist consumer culture.