Daniel Cook

Research Assistant Professor of Communications

Assistant Professor of Advertising

Assistant Professor of Leisure Studies

dtcook@uiuc.edu

Primary areas of research: Consumer culture; sociology of childhood; children's consumer culture; urban consumption; leisure and culture; interpretive methods.


Dr. Cook's research focuses on the rise of children as consumers in the US, presently and historically. In particular, he explores the various ways in which the tension between "the child" and "the market" plays itself out in various sites of children's consumer culture, such as advertising, food, sports, clothing and media. He teaches Social and Cultural Contexts of Advertising and Consumption and Qualitative Research Methods. Dr. Cook's book, The Commodification of Childhood, published by Duke University Press, is due out in early 2004. Dr. Cook also coordinates a research network associated with the American Sociology Association called "Consumers, Commodities and Consumption."