Authentic

AUTHENTIC: POLITICAL POSSIBILITY in a Brand Culture argues that 1) we have entered into a new stage of free market capitalism, in which brand cultures "provide contexts for everyday living and the construction of identity." 2) There is no longer any meaningful distinction between "authentic" practices (politics, religion, self-formation, etc.) and branding practices. 3) Interactive technologies tie today's brand cultures to the discourse of consumer empowerment in historically new ways. 4) Brand cultures are distinct, contradictory and potentially rife with unexpected possibilities.

Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California! She is the author of The Most Beautiful Girt in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity and Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship, and the coeditor most recently of Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times.