Hi folks,
Please excuse me tooting my own horn for a moment: I've just launched an online critical resource on product placement in the movies called Brand Hype (<http://www.brandhype.org>). It's been a couple of years in the making, so please take a look around and let me know what you think, and by all means spread the word. The main feature is a publicly accessible product placement database called Movie Mapper that can be searched by brandname, movie title, actor, studio, etc. This database has been designed so that *anyone* can sign up and help us log movies; in fact, we're going to be depending on community involvement to keep it growing. So far we've logged about one hundred movies. The site also includes an extensive bibliography, discussion forum, movie stills, and excerpts from recent books by Janet Wasko and Kembrew McLeod. (Visitors can also view Behind the Screens: Hollywood goes Hypercommercial, the video I produced in 2000 for the Media Education Foundation. Behind the Screens includes lots of examples of product placement, as well as interviews with Susan Douglas, Mark Crispin Miller, Janet Wasko, and Robert W. McChesney.) Your feedback and criticism would be most welcome as we continue to develop this resource over the coming months.
Best wishes to all,
Matt Soar
Communication Studies Concordia University Montréal msoar at alcor.concordia.ca