Endless Propaganda: The Advertising of Public Goods

382 Pages·2000·19.11 MB·English

by  Paul Rutherford

ENDLESS PROPAGANDA:
THE ADVERTISING OF PUBLIC GOODS
Paul Rutherford
Is there any public discourse left, or has advertising, with its aggressive
sales techniques, usurped the role of democratic, civil debate? Begin-
ning in the 1960s, there was a proliferation of social, political, and
corporate advertising in affluent, developed nations that spoke to the
'public good' on everything from milk to family values. Surveying over
10,000 advertisements from the past 40 years, Endless Propaganda under-
scores the presence of advertising rhetoric, even in the context of appar-
ently non-partisan collective health issues such as cancer.
The public sphere, argues Paul Rutherford, has been transformed
into a huge marketplace of goods and signs. Civil advocacy has become
a special art of authority that subjects politics, social behaviour, and
public morals to the philosophy and discipline of marketing. Without
suggesting that there is one simple way to understand the transforma-
tion that democracy has undergone because of this phenomenon, the
author introduces and applies the cultural theories of several important
philosophers: Habermas, Gramsci, Foucault, Ricoeur, and Baudrillard.
The reader is thus given the necessary tools to critically examine the
examples at hand and many others that exist beyond the pages of this
study.
PAUL RUTHERFORD is Professor in the Department of History at the Uni-
versity of Toronto.
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PAUL RUTHERFORD
Endless Propaganda:
The Advertising of Public Goods
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2000
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-4739-4 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-8301-3 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rutherford, Paul, 1944-
Endless propaganda : the advertising of public goods
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-4739-4 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-8301-3 (pbk.)
1. Advocacy advertising - United States. 2. Advocacy advertising.
3. Television advertising - United States. 4. Television advertising.
5. Advertising, Public service - United States. 6. Advertising, Public
service. I. Title.
HD59.3.R871999 659.1'042 C99-932562-0
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the support to its publishing
program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities
and Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
In memory of Shan
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Contents
LIST OF FIGURES IX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS xii
PREFACE xiii
Introduction: Advertising as Propaganda 3
Part I: Beginnings
Habermas's Lament 18
1 The Imperialism of the Market: The United States, 1940-1970 23
Part II: Authority's Work
Gramsci: Hegemony 44
2 Restoring Order: Nixon's America, Etcetera 48
3 Governing Affluence: The First World in the Seventies 68
Part III: Campaigns of Truth
Foucault: Discipline 90
4 Healthy Bodies, or the New Paranoia 96
5 Charitable Souls: The Practice of Altruism 116
6 Administered Minds, or Shaming the Citizenry 138
7 Appropriations: Benetton and Others 156
A 'Risk' Technology? 174
viii Contents
Part IV: Progress and Its Ilk
Ricoeur: Utopia/Dystopia 180
8 Technopia and Other Corporate Dreams 186
9 Green Nightmares: Humanity versus Nature 208
Part V: Hyperrealities
Baudrillard and Company: Spectacle, Image, Simulacrum 230
10 When Politics Becomes Advertising: The American Scene 237
Conclusion: Postmodern Democracy 256
NOTES 277
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 345
INDEX 349
Figures
1 Some Properties of Advertising 10
2 American Posters from World War II 27
3 Smokey the Bear 29
4 Scenes from Daisy 33
5 The Trajectory of Civic Advocacy 36
6 Scenes from Animal 55
7 The Pregnant Man 72
8 Scenes from Cy Banash 78
9 Chief Iron Eyes Cody 85
10 Mocking Stereotypes 102
11 Scenes from Country People Die ... 104
12 Scenes from The Doll 110
13 'Drugs Kill' 114
14 Leila's Transformation 123
15 The Postmodern City 127
16 The Third World 130
17 The Anonymous Victim 152
18 Some Benetton Ads 160
19 Scenes from Post Crash 171
20 Scenes from The Deficit Trials, 2017A.D. 188
21 Two Magazine Ads from the AT & T Campaign 195
22 Scenes from Air Supply 219
23 Scenes from Dumb Animals 222
24 Scenes from the 'Willie Horton' Ads 245
25 'Harry and Louise': Scenes from the Office Chat Ad 248
26 Fried Egg 266