Pennsylvania State University Global Advertising and Consumer Culture Essay Week 10 Overview As mentioned last week, we will make a slight shift. While we

Pennsylvania State University Global Advertising and Consumer Culture Essay Week 10 Overview

As mentioned last week, we will make a slight shift. While we will still discuss political issues, our focus will be more on other topics such as culture and globalization. This week, we will talk about global advertising and consumer culture. The readings are interesting and will provoke a good conversation. They cover a variety of issues, including one that addresses the impact of holidays and one that gives us a sneak peek at the relationship between politics and popular culture (especially in relation to U.S. and China’s foreign policies). I have included short blog posts on racist advertising in South Africa and China. Beyond consumerism, they present the implications of racist advertising in advertising culture.

The lesson will simply add to the readings by giving you some other issues to consider. Please make sure to watch the video clips embedded. They will offer you some good points that you can ponder on in our discussions.

The film No Logo (approximately 50 min) presents us with another interesting perspective that does a good job on the issue of globalization in relation to advertising and consumer culture. While the documentary was released in the 1990s, it still remains relevant today (we could probably argue that these issues are even more pronounced today).

I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s lesson! Remember, the idea is to challenge; thus, while you complete these assignments, put your critical thinking cap on!

Learning Objectives:

To make connections between advertising, culture, globalization and politics (via the readings and lesson).
Understand how culture changes and how it is defined by consumption practices around the world.

Keywords:

Corporatist Culture
Cultural Objects
Globalization
Racist Advertising
Consumerism

This weekend, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S.President Barack Obama at Sunnylands estate in California forwhat has been called a “shirtsleeves summit.” The unusuallyinformal meeting was designed to allow the two leaders to freelydiscuss a broad range of topics, signaling that both Washington andBeijing have hopes for a closer partnership. The United States is not theonly audience that Xi hopes to win over. During the last few years,Beijing’s eforts to improve its international standing have included notjust various media and cultural campaigns but also vigorous diplomaticinitiatives and billions of dollars in no-strings-attached aid to developingeconomies.Western critics tend to focus on the media and cultural components ofthis push while ignoring the rest. At a time when anxiousprognostications about China’s rise dominate media headlines, deridingChina’s soft-power strategy — in particular, its failure to grasp the globalappeal of the free press and the free market — has become a popular actof reassurance for Western academics and media analysts. For example,a bevy of notable China hands and media experts recently convened onChinaFile, the online magazine of the Asia Society, to discuss whyChinese soft power is such a “hard sell.” Their discussions focusedprimarily on China’s inability to build brands and produce movies whosename recognition rivals that of their U.S. peers.In fact, China’s failure to churn out globally marketable sneakers andpop stars is the source of no small amount of handwringing amongChinese cultural ofcials and young nationalists. Yet the actual strategicimpact of such brand building is difcult to determine. There are plentyof young Chinese who see no contradiction between their loyalty tobrands like Nike and KFC and their condemnation of U.S.

Online MBAApply now for a UNICAFScholarship in Ghana.I M PA C T07/10/2014 11:09 am ET| Updated Jul 11, 2014Feed A Child Apologizes For AllegedlyRacist AdBy Emily Tess KatzFeed A Child may fight to leave no child hungry, but its latest commercial has left many questioningthe ethics of the South African humanitarian organization.Now suspended from YouTube, the ad’s depiction of an upper class white woman feeding a littleblack boy raised accusations of racism for portraying the child akin to a dog. While Feed A Childhas apologized for the Oglivy & Mather-commissioned commercial, they’ve also defended theiroriginal intentions.02:4900:05EDITIONFeed A Child Apologizes For Allegedly Racis…

8/2/2018Feed A Child Apologizes For Allegedly Racist Ad | HuffPosthttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/10/feed-a-c… Feed A Child’s side, we don’t look at color,” founder and CEO Alza Rautenbach told SouthAfrican news network eNCA. “To us there isn’t a black and a white and an Indian. … The reasonwas not to stir a negative reaction or offend anyone. We do apologize for that. To us it was awoman and a child.”Watch the clip above to see the commercial and hear more about the controversysurrounding it.Correction: An earlier version of this story linked to the wrong charity

The“racist”ChinesewashingpowderadandthetruthaboutAfrophobiainChinaBy Roberto Castillo•August 14, 2016REUTERS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERAfrican traders in Guangzhou.LatestPopularObsessionsEditions

8/2/2018The Chinese washing powder ad and the truth about racism to Africans in China — Quartz Africahttps://qz.com/africa/757850/the-racist-chinese-wa… my social and academic networks, the ad caused a major storm. Everyone fromtraders to academics and advertisers weighed in. With tensions running high, African tradersin Guangzhou were quick to point out that Chinese ignorance in race-related matters wasprobably behind the advert.Academics debated the need to “contextualise” racism and racial prejudice in China. Theyalso highlighted how international media tend to portray China and the Chinese in anegative light (especially in the context of Sino-African relations). At the same time,advertisers pointed out that adverts like the Qiaobi one are inźuenced by the long history ofracist advertising in the West. They also explained that the advert showed how Chineseadvertisers were unaware that their adverts could have a global reach.RacialismandarisingChinaDespite the fact that “race” as a biological category was discredited long ago, racial thinkingor “racialism” is still common in China. Racialism is the belief that humans are naturallydivided into biological categories called “races”. Sometimes, the term racialism is usedinterchangeably with “racism” to mean a race-based way of thinking through humandifferences.Contemporary racial thinking in China is informed by historical ways of imagining“otherness”. These ways centre around differences such as skin colour, class and “ethnicity”.Contact with 19th-century European colonialism and racial theories was also inźuential.More recently, the “rise of China” within the context of global consumerist societies hasstirred up ethno-nationalist sentiments that affect how Chinese people think about “race”.In China, like other places, racial thinking is often accompanied by stereotypes andprejudices. Dark skin, for instance, is often seen negatively. This is something many of usforeigners have to live with in China.Within this context, the Qiaobi advert was seen by some as proof that there’s racism inChina, and as evidence that “Afrophobia” was on the rise. Those who “see” Afrophobia arequick to point to Chinese hiring practices, which prefer white foreigners to black ones.

8/2/2018The Chinese washing powder ad and the truth about racism to Africans in China — Quartz Africahttps://qz.com/africa/757850/the-racist-chinese-wa… non-white foreigner living in China knows that these practices do not only discriminateagainst black people. They extend to other dark-skinned people. So, while deplorable, it’s notexactly Afrophobia.Despite little concrete evidence supporting claims of Afrophobia or “Anti-African”campaigns, these claims are often picked up by Western media. Some journalists seem alltoo ready to cast China and the Chinese as “racist” and Africans as the poor victims with noagency. This pattern is replicated in coverage of China as a “neo-colonial” power in Africa.To equate Chinese rac(ial)ism with racism in the West is intellectually and historicallydishonest. Rac(ial)ism and racial prejudice in China are still far from producing theexploitation, oppression, discrimination and murder that racist worldviews continue toproduce in the West.In short, while there are deep-seated forms of rac(ial)ism in China, the rise of “Afrophobia”is difŹcult to prove. The issue is much more complex than that.‘Race’andracisminglobalmediaIn most of the articles and comments following the offensive Chinese advert, people from allover the world used the terms racism, stereotypes and racial prejudice interchangeably. Itquickly became clear to me that we haven’t Źgured out how to talk about “race” and racismin globally inclusive ways.The conversation is usually dominated by the American ways of talking about “race” andracism. Needless to say, using the black/white binary paradigm of race as a measuring stickfor racial issues in global and non-Western settings is problematic. If the many “racist”comments I’ve heard from African men about their Chinese counterparts is any guide, theproblems highlighted by the Qiaobi advert are far more complex than what the Americanbinary suggests.

8/2/2018The Chinese washing powder ad and the truth about racism to Africans in China — Quartz Africahttps://qz.com/africa/757850/the-racist-chinese-wa… out who’s the racist, or if this or that is racist, or if the Chinese are racist, is a wasteof time. Rather than being black or white, it’s a complex matrix of practices that reproduceglobal systems of exploitation and oppression. Despite our skin colour, gender, sexualorientation, “race”, nationality or faith, we are all, to different degrees, participants in thesesystems.WhitesupremacytheChineseway?As pointed out early on during the Qiaobi controversy, the advert is a revamped iteration ofold Western racist tropes. To understand why such iterations emerge in China – andelsewhere in Asia – it’s important to look at how contemporary global media imaginationsare inźuenced by long-standing racial theories and ideas. Enter white supremacy.As I write this piece, a tram covered in advertising stops in front of me on Shipyard Lane inQuarry Bay, Hong Kong. In the advert, a young, handsome, white guy in a suit is levitating infront of a building. The Chinese words next to him are about leadership and success.

8/2/2018The Chinese washing powder ad and the truth about racism to Africans in China — Quartz Africahttps://qz.com/africa/757850/the-racist-chinese-wa… the next tram a blonde woman wearing a Swarovski ring is being admired by a youngwhite man. Any survey of street advertising in this, or any other big Asian city, will show thatwhite bodies are pervasively used as the markers of success, power, beauty and romance.It is hardly news that global media are deeply shaped by a racial hierarchy that frameswhiteness as a superior state of being. What I Źnd fascinating is how these racially informedimaginations are negotiated by people in China when they imagine themselves and theworld they live in.These negotiations have to be factored in against the backdrop of the “rise of China” – a risethat has led many to believe that the country will take up the reins of the global capitalistsystem.I believe that there are few indications that China would be willing (or able) to transform the(old imperial, capitalist, white supremacist and patriarchal) structures and practices thatinform contemporary capitalism and that are, ultimately, behind the Qiaobi detergentadvert.For me, these reźections were the main takeaways amid the uproar that followed the advertcontroversy.Roberto Castillo, Lecturer in China Africa Relations, University of Hong KongThis article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Film: No Logo

In the age of the brand, logos are everywhere. But why do some of the world’s best-known brands find themselves on the wrong end of the spray paint can — the targets of anti-corporate campaigns by activists and protesters?

No Logo, based on the best-selling book by Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein, reveals the reasons behind the backlash against the increasing economic and cultural reach of multinational companies. Analyzing how brands like Nike, The Gap, and Tommy Hilfiger became revered symbols worldwide, Klein argues that globalization is a process whereby corporations discovered that profits lay not in making products (outsourced to low-wage workers in developing countries), but in creating branded identities people adopt in their lifestyles.

Using hundreds of media examples, No Logo shows how the complexities of capitalism, the commercial takeover of public space, destruction of consumer choice, and replacement of real jobs with temporary work — the dynamics of corporate globalization — impact everyone, everywhere. It also draws attention to the democratic resistance arising globally to challenge the hegemony of brands.

Global Advertising and Consumer Culture

This lesson will simply add to the readings by asking you to consider additional aspects of commercialization, politics and consumer culture; therefore, the goal of this week is to understand the overall arguments that the various authors present and how these different issues intersect.

The Privatization of Everything

According to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri:

There is “No Outside” (lives/bodies are commodified/bought/sold)
A less significant role of nation-state (consequences of globalization) – multinational corporations in control, replacing the nation-state

According to David Harvey:

Nation-state remains important but has taken a different role – to preserve the interests of the elite

These different arguments point to a growing corporatist culture. Quote by Douglas Rushkoff in Life INC.:

“The corporation, as an entity that has created no alternatives, has historically infiltrated all aspects of daily life, from the late Middle Ages to today. Its original agenda is one that lasts today: to suppress lateral interactions between people or small companies and instead redirect any and all value they created to a select group of investors.

Corporatism, furthermore, evolved as people invented new and better ways of life, even as these ideas have been supported by myths, including the promotion of multiculturalism or the extension of the free market to all of the world’s population. The ‘landscape of corporatism’, however, is not merely controlled by corporations, but inhabited by people who have internalized corporate values as [their] own.

Corporatism, however, is not solely representative of a new phenomenon. Academics have argued that its history illustrates several continuities and changes.”

This conversation can also be seen as an extension of neoliberalism (addressed earlier this semester).

Effects of Global Advertising?

Do ads affect us? Watch this short clip on how ads may affect our everyday life (3:29).

Now, listen to what Sut Jhally argues regarding advertising, culture and the end of the world (5:35).

According to Twitchell, the commercialization of holidays affects how we perceive the meaning of these holidays.

What about international commercials? How might this be a global issue and not necessarily a U.S. phenomenon? Watch this funny Argentinian commercial about its film industry (and how it’s related to sports) (0:45).

Global Consumption

What is Culture?

Like the terms “international communications” and “globalization,” culture has an enormous range of definitions. For our class, though, these brief, functional definitions help us consider culture in the framework of international communications.

We learn culture from many sources; it is not static, but changing; it is ongoing, generational. Images/symbols in ads not only reflecte a value system/culture that already exists, but would continue to shape values and culture.

Culture is transactional in that it is shared: individual to individual, group to group, nation to nation. And culture is integrative – it pulls together from component parts and forms a collective whole. While subcultures exist in every nation (indeed region, state), our cultural symbols come to stand for a unified whole.

Definition: A framework that provides an organization of information (Goffman, 1974) and meaning (Samovar, 1998)

It is learned
Obtained from many sources
Dynamic – evolving, changing
Based on symbols (semiotics)
Adaptive – meaning of symbols can be modified over time
Continuous, ongoing
Transactional
Integrative

Culture and Transmission of Values

Values are a very important issue in regard to the cultural influence that the mass media have across international borders. Often, there is much concern that images depicted in films, TV, music, or other media exported from one country will change the existing values of another that imports the media.

The gradual growing similarities between cultures are called homogenization. Many cultural studies scholars, religious and governmental leaders, and citizens are concerned about the perceived phenomenon of cultural homogenization. In a couple of weeks, we will examine more carefully the issues of cultural homogenization and hybridity. We will address these issues in relation to music, television and film.

Cultural Objects

Schudson (1989) believed that culture reveals itself through and is transmitted by the cultural objects that are produced in the society. He put forth two common views on the impacts of cultural objects.

First, he noted that they can be viewed as “enormously powerful in shaping human action–even if the cultural objects themselves are shown to be rather simply derived from the interests of powerful social groups.”
Second, he pointed to cultural objects as resources that bear meanings that people may adopt, adapt, discard, or disregard as they make their way through the social landscape.

Graham (2002) said it is the meanings people assign to such artifacts that define them, and it is those meanings that “give value, either cultural or financial to the artifacts and explain why they have been selected from the infinity of the past.”

How do Disney princesses communicate cultural values? Remember that these messages are communicated globally…

And… it’s not just the princesses that communicate cultural messages…

How might politics and foreign policy serve as cultural objects? The reading from Foreign Affairs allows us to see how foreign policy via “soft power” might also serve as a tool that distributes popular culture to other groups. Again, however, some have pointed out that this is just another form of cultural imperialism.

In a couple of weeks, we will re-visit the relationships between foreign policy, soft power and popular culture when we address the ways in which music can be political.

Now that you complete this week’s assignments, you should have a good idea of how culture, politics, globalization and consumption practices intersect. Next week, we will focus on development communication.

This week, therefore, you should understand the ways in which advertising and commercialization may influence our ideas and definitions about culture and consumption practices (i.e. what we consume, how and why). How does globalization fit into this relationship?

It has been argued that global advertising (e.g. Disney) affects cultures around the world, as some would argue that the distribution of certain types of cultural objects can result in cultural homogenization. Of course, the discussion is more complicated than this. We will see later in the semester how cultures around the world are different. However, China (as the reading suggests) seems to be another growing international influence in the world, as the country seeks to circulate its cultural values/objects globally.

Global Advertising and Consumer Culture

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1. How do the readings, lesson and film enhance your understanding of globalization and advertising? Use direct references to course material.

2. What is the relationship between advertising, culture and politics?

3. How are advertising and consumer culture used to project a country’s soft power?

Bring in a contemporary media example that is related to this week’s topic. Be specific about how the example is related to the topic.

Reflections should be 300-500 words long. Your initial reflections are due by Thursday, 11:59 PM.

Incorporate references to course materials presented in this week and a link to a current news event or topic that relates to the week’s materials into your reflections.

Comment on at least TWO of your classmates’ discussion posts by Monday, 12 PM.

Your comments should reflect one or more of the following:
Agreement with extension
An alternative perspective with your rationale
A respectful challenge with counter argument