Sut Jhally

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Photograph of Sut Jhally on front page of his web page
Photograph of Sut Jhally on front page of his web page

Sut Jhally (born 29 May 1955) is a professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the producer of several documentaries on media literacy topics[1]. He is regarded as one of the world’s leading cultural studies scholar in the area of advertising, media, and consumption [2].

He is also the founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation, a non-profit established in 1992 which "produces and distributes video documentaries to encourage critical thinking and debate about the relationship between media ownership, commercial media content, and the democratic demand for free flows of information, diverse representations of ideas and people, and informed citizen participation[3].

Jhally is often highly critical of popular culture and advertising. In his video "Dreamworlds" he describes the image of women in music videos as male adolescent fantasies: young and pretty women, willing and eager to please men, saying no when meaning yes, often reduced to outward appearances and body parts. He concludes that an unhealthy attitude towards sexual violence can be fostered by these videos, and calls for balancing them with other cultural representations of sexuality. In his essay "Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse" and his video "Advertising and the End of the World" he argues that the major cultural force today, pervasive advertising, by constantly reinforcing a bogus association between consumerism and happiness and by focusing on individual immediate needs, stands in the way of a discussion of societal and long-term needs and leads to a squandering of resources. In his 2006 video "Reel Bad Arabs" he attempts to show the vilification of Arabs in American cinema.

Sut Jhally was born in Kenya, and raised in England. He moved to Canada in 1978 after accepting a scholarship to the University of Victoria. He continued his studies at Simon Fraser University, where he received his Ph.D.[4].

Contents

[edit] Works

[edit] Video documentaries

(preview trailers available on the Media Education Foundation website)

[edit] Books

[edit] Articles

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1126293/
  2. ^ http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/Advertising_EndOfWorld
  3. ^ http://www.mediaed.org/about
  4. ^ http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0223-01.htm

[edit] External links

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