Brand Antarctica: How Global Consumer Culture Shapes Our Perceptions of the Ice Continent (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781496221216)

Antarctica is, and has always been, very much "for sale." Whales, seals, and ice have all been marketed as valuable commodities, but so have the stories of explorers. The modern media industry developed in parallel with land-based Antarctic exploration, and early expedition leaders needed publicity to generate support for their endeavors. Their lectures, narratives, photographs, and films were essentially advertisements for their adventures. At the same time, popular media began to use the newly encountered continent to draw attention to commercial products. These advertisements both trace the commercialization of Antarctica and reveal how commercial settings have shaped the dominant imaginaries of the place.

By contextualizing and analyzing Antarctic advertisements from the late nineteenth century to the present, Brand Antarctica identifies five key framings of the South Polar continent: a place for heroes, a place of extremity, a place of purity, a place to protect, and a place that transforms. Demonstrating how these conceptual framings of Antarctica in turn circulate through our culture, Hanne Elliot F nss Nielsen challenges common assumptions about Antarctica's past and present, encouraging readers to rethink their own relationship with the Far South.

Author: Hanne Elliot Fss Nielsen
ISBN-10: 1496221214
ISBN-13: 9781496221216
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 12/01/2023
Pages: 268
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.24lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d