Dive into surf and skateboarder advertising
by Michael Pasqualoni, Librarian for the Newhouse School of Public Communications, and Marissa Smith, Graduate Student Assistant, SU Libraries
Check out the Gordon & Smith Surf Advertisement Archive! Whether you’re searching for examples of magazine ads for a project or are interested in surfing culture personally, this collection from San Diego State University’s digital collections has you covered. Over 300 images of surfing magazine ads, stretching all the way from 1960 to 2005, have been digitized by the California Surf Museum in Oceanside, California and are in this free, open access repository. Tim Tully, Head of Collections Strategies at the University Library at San Diego State, made SU’s Newhouse School Librarian aware of the resource, which also represents a compelling example how research library digital projects can bring to light image content from trade magazines and from hobbyist or other industry publications. When social media platforms and smartphones remained off in the future, Davies, Bathurst and Bathurst (1990) in their book, The Telling Image, posit a primacy of image and sound-based communication for societies as transcending a words-only focus as sometimes predominate across academic cultures.
SURFACE: Syracuse University researchers across disciplines are reminded of further options for uncovering open access (OA) content intersecting with the study of images, advertising, or surfing or skateboarding. Probes of SU’s OA database SURFACE contains over twenty thousand papers created at Syracuse University. On the list of top 10 most downloaded publications from SURFACE are examples arising out of advertising and media studies. For instance, Lindsay Morel’s honors capstone paper in SURFACE looks into the Dove brand’s campaign for real beauty, or Laura Osur’s doctoral dissertation explores Netflix and the development of the internet television network.
SURFACE presently hosts over 600 papers originating at the Newhouse School alone and within those, thirty-nine papers (including numerous undergraduate honors theses) within the scholarly analysis of advertising. General search queries within SURFACE for a term like “advertising” identify papers created in the SU community emerging from Sociology, Psychology and Languages, Literatures and Linguistics. Within SURFACE is an ability to see top examples of SU undergraduate honors capstone and doctoral level authorship, addressing topics and analysis of imagery in advertising as art and practice.
With “surf” literally nested in its name, the SURFACE database for search queries for terms such as “surf” or “skateboard” leads to scholarly works like Simon Vangel’s English doctoral dissertation, Subcultural Textuality: Skateboarding and the Politics of Subcultural Media or Alex Pine’s Broadcast and Digital Journalism undergraduate honors capstone project, Our Coast: The Effects of Urbanization and Coastal Development on California Surf Culture.
An ocean of options: To catch the wave of a wider ocean of options, Syracuse University students and faculty within advertising related research may wish to visit SU Libraries research guides for advertising or business information. Consider as a starting point the A to Z list of SU Libraries image databases or A to Z list of SU Libraries video databases. A collection of educational and documentary films, as within Kanopy, presents many videos that explore both surfing and skateboarding, if either of those words are searched on that platform.
SU Libraries Search, using the advanced search screen, yields over fourteen thousand search results when “surfing” is entered using a “subject” field search. These results then are readily refined by desired resource types/formats, publication date ranges or other criteria. Or add to the advanced “subject” search for the term “surfing,” an additional subject word like, “advertising,” which yields over one-hundred results from the SU Libraries search engine. Entering “surfers” brings over nineteen hundred publications, some with a wellness theme such as Thad Ziolkowski’s book (2021) The drop : how the most addictive sport can help us understand addiction and recovery, or life success tips for business and mindfulness in Christo Hall’s book (2024) Beyond the break: The surf-inspired success code for business and life.
References:
Davies, D., Bathurst, D., & Bathurst, R. (1990). The telling image: the changing balance between pictures and words in a technological age. Clarendon Press. Access via SU Libraries at: https://search.syr.edu/permalink/01SYU_INST/1jt847n/alma996989083408496
Gordon & Smith Surf Advertisement Archive. University Library Digital Collections, San Diego State University
Hall, C. (2024). Beyond the break: The surf-inspired success code for business and life (1st ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Access via SU Libraries at: https://search.syr.edu/permalink/01SYU_INST/eehu1u/cdi_proquest_ebookcentral_EBC31622244
Morel, Lindsey, "The Effectiveness of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty in Terms of Society and the Brand" (2009). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 480.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/480
Osur, Laura, "Netflix and the Development of the Internet Television Network" (2016). Dissertations - ALL. 448. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/448
Pines, Alex, "Our Coast: The Effects of Urbanization and Coastal Development on California Surf Culture" (2011). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 228. https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/228
Vangel, Simon, "Subcultural Textuality: Skateboarding and the Politics of Subcultural Media" (2024). Dissertations - ALL. 2001. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/2001
Ziolkowski, T. (2021). The drop: how the most addictive sport can help us understand addiction and recovery (First edition.). HarperWave, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. Access via SU Libraries at: https://search.syr.edu/permalink/01SYU_INST/1jt847n/alma9964035013408496
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