Branding the New Deal: Oct 26

Branding the New Deal
Monday, October 26, 7:30pm (free /by donation)
The Change You Want To See Gallery
84 Havemeyer Street, at Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn
and live-streamed at http://livestream.com/notanalternative

The Change You Want To See Gallery continues its series on Symbols, Branding and Persuasion with an exploration of branding in the context of electoral and legislative politics. The evening will start with a presentation by media theorist Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Reimagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy and the forthcoming Branding the New Deal. Afterward Jessica Teal, design manager for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign will join Duncombe for a conversation via video skype.

Like it or not, propaganda and mass persuasion are part of modern democratic politics. Many progressives today have an adverse reaction to propaganda: ours is a politics based in reason and rationality, not symbols and fantasy. Given our last administration’s fondness for selling fantasies as reality, this aversion to branding, marketing and propaganda is understandable. But it is also naïve. Mass persuasion is a necessary part of democratic politics, the real issue is what ethics it embodies and which values it expresses.

Looking critically at how the Roosevelt Administration tried to “brand” the New Deal and how the Obama campaign leveraged principles of marketing and advertising gives us an opportunity to think about different models of political persuasion.

Upcoming in this series:
Monday, Nov 2, 7:30pm–9:30pm: author Carrie McLaren and artist Steve Lambert
Thursday, Nov 5, 7:30-9:30pm: consultant Loid Der workshop on branding

http://thechangeyouwanttosee.com/blog/symbols-branding-and-persuasion-an-art-politics-presentation-series