Bøker av Arthur Asa Berger

This book is about the never-ending need we have to make choices. If you think about it, we have to decide what time to wake up every morning, what to wear (unless we need to wear a uniform), what to have for breakfast (if we eat breakfast), lunch and dinner (and if we eat in restaurants, what to order), and our need to make all kinds of other choices all day long. Some of our choices are mundane, like what to have for breakfast (if we eat breakfast): to have coffee or tea (and if so, plain or with milk), cereal, toast or a bagel (and if so, what kind: plain, with poppy seeds, with everything) or a sweet roll, eggs (if so, fried, soft boiled, scrambled), and so on. Most of the choices we make are not important, and we often develop habits to relieve us of having to think about our choices.For example, I have the same thing for breakfast every day: a bowl of oatmeal with chia seeds and flax seeds, hot milk, a cup of espresso coffee with hot milk, and half a bagel with butter. Occasionally, I have a soft-boiled egg, as well.But other choices we have to make are life-changing, such as how to live (single, living with a partner, or getting married), what kind of education to get, what kind of job or profession to choose, where to live and what kind of house to buy (if you can afford a house), whom to vote for, and so on. After reading this book, you will better understand the role that the choices we make play in society and culture and in our everyday lives.

The average person in America watches four hours of television per day and spends the equivalent of nine years of his or her life in front of the television set. This is a study of how the mass media broadcast or spread various popular arts; further how the media and popular arts play a major role in shaping our everyday lives.

This book builds on Le Bon's classic, The Crowd, to evaluate the role of crowds in American culture, society and politics.

How do people turn out the way they do? How do they "arrive" at themselves and attain an identity? How are our identities affected by our birth order, our hair color, how tall or short we are, our intelligence, our occupation, our race, our religion, our nationality, the socio-economic level of our parents (or our being raised in a single-parent family), where we are born and where we grow up, the language we learn, the way we use language, our fashion tastes, our gender, our education, our psychological makeup, chance experiences we have, the people we marry (if we marry), and countless other factors? There are numerous matters to consider when dealing with identity, which, as Nigel Denis, the author of 'Cards of Identity', reminds us, "is the answer to everything." 'Searching for a Self' takes a deep dive into the question of identity formation from various perspectives; it is written in a reader-friendly accessible style and makes use of insightful quotations from seminal thinkers who have dealt with the topic. Split into two parts, the first "Theories of Identity," offers evaluations of identity from semioticians, psychologists, sociologists and Marxists while the second, "Applications," offers case studies on topics such as Russian identity, Donald Trump's identity, fashion and identity, LGBTQIA+ identity, Orthodox Jewish identity, elite university education and identity, tattoos and identity, travel and identity, and politics and identity. Covering a wide array of subject areas, this book will be a valuable resource for undergraduate students taking courses in identity, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and other related fields.

Arthur Asa Berger''s Shakespeare''s Comedy of Errorsuses semiotics along with a psychoanalytic approach to offer a granular analysis of one of Shakespeare''s funniest and most interesting comedies. It is distinctive in that it offers a discussion of the basic techniques found in comic literature of all kinds and applies these techniques to events in the play. It also offers a discussion of the basic theories of humor and a syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis of the play. It provides an overview of the theories of humor, what the author calls why theories, to provide a general understanding of how humor works. This is contrasted with his 45 techniques which deal with what makes people laugh.

Arthur Asa Berger is back with the second edition of his popular, user-friendly guide for students who want to understand the social meanings of objects.

Beginning with an introduction that touches upon which part of the population is described as Millennial, the book also explores the Millennial psyche, marketing to Millennials, Millennials' purchasing preferences, gender and sexuality among Millennials, and Millennials and their relation to postmodernism, among other things.

This book uses semiotic theory, psychoanalytic theory and sociological theory to analyze Trump's followers and to understand what motivates them and explain why they behave the way they do when at his rallies.

This book offers a cultural studies approach to marketing and advertising and shows readers how scholars from different academic disciplines make sense of marketing's role in American culture and society. It is written in an accessible style and has numerous drawings by the author to give it more visual interest.

This book, written in an accessible style and illustrated with drawings by the author and with many other images, discusses the basic principles of discourse theory and applies them to various aspects of popular culture, media and everyday life.

In his latest book, Arthur Asa Berger offers a concise series of analyses on the transformative impact of digital devices on American society.

In concise entries, this dictionary analyses ideas and concepts about advertising and its social, economic, psychological and cultural significance.

A useful introduction to the study of tourism that applies semiotics and cultural theory to deal with some of our most iconic tourist destinations from the Taj Mahal to Las Vegas, and from the Eiffel Tower to Antarctica.

What makes the 'self'? How is it created, defined, and transformed? Arthur Asa Berger's fascinating, educational whodunit novel unravels the mysteries of cultural studies theory, and more specifically, the complexities of postmodernism and identity.

Are Americans obsessed with shopping? Shop til You Drop is a lively look at our consumer culture and its role in our everyday lives and society. Arthur Asa Berger considers the sacred roots of consumer culture, the demographics of consumption, theories about competing cultures, and the semiotics of shopping.

Media and Society: A Critical Perspective is a lively, illustrated introduction to the role that the mass media play in our lives, our society, and American culture. Featuring updated examples and expanded material on media theories, ideology, and new technology, the third edition helps students understand their relationship with the media they encounter daily.

Presents an ethnographic analysis of Vietnamese culture and an essential overview of what Vietnam offers tourists, looking at the exciting possibilities and the potential pitfalls of visiting this extraordinary country.

A multidisciplinary cultural studies approach, examining ocean cruising from economic, semiotic, sociological, psychoanalytic and marketing perspectives, and offering insights not provided by the more traditional sociological approaches to the subject.

This brief, student-friendly introduction to the study of semiotics uses lively examples from 28 iconic locations in the United States, such as Coney Island, Las Vegas, the World Trade Center, and the Grand Canyon.

Presents concepts written by leading communication and cultural theorists, such as Saussure, LZvi-Strauss, de Certeau, McLuhan, Postman, and many others. This guide covers a range of important ideas from psychoanalysis and semiology to humor, otherness, and nonverbal communication, for anyone interested in how we communicate.

This book deals with tourism, popular culture and daily life in Japan. It is written in an accessible style and will be of interest to tourists considering visiting Japan, Japanophiles, social scientists and humanities scholars with interests in Japan, and students taking courses in tourism, Japanese culture, cultural studies and consumer culture.

The island of Bali has long been characterized in the West as the last 'paradise' on earth, but there is far more to this small Indonesian province. This book offers a study of Balinese tourism, society, and character.

Looks into why people travel, examining travel and tourism as a cultural phenomenon through social, cultural, psychological, and economic forces. This book explores the role of travel in contemporary lives, from university travel-abroad programs to package tours and family vacations.