American Advertising: The Visual Information Commodity

America is the country with most developed advertising. The origin of America's advertising culture could trace back to 1704, when John Campbell published Boston News-Letter, the first regularly printed newspaper in America. The third issue of the Boston News-Letter carried the first known paid advertisement in America. Since then, advertising has been connected with American people's life. In 1920s advertising even became the driving force in competition, American President Coolidge, therefore, commented that advertising was one of the great enterprise that saved and regenerated humanity. It reveals the position of advertising in American life. In the long history of advertising, it gradually develops and becomes the symbol of American popular culture. And it is not difficult to find in American advertisements the trace of American culture. Along with the invention and development of the photographic technology in the 19 century, the misunderstanding caused by written language, the medium of the traditional advertisements has been cleared up by the clear visual advertisements. And the dominant manifestation of advertisement underwent the change from written language to visual photography. This has reflected the alternation of the dominant position from "language culture" to "visual culture". As a part of visual culture, American advertisements not only mirror aspects of American society but more importantly, they carry new information to the customers and influence their opinions. In this sense, advertisements form the society.The Introduction examines the all—pervasive influence advertisements make on America and advertisements' relations with the developed mass media of America. Examined from economy or Americans' social life, advertising is an important component of American culture. Its high position both at home and abroad is incomparable.Chapter One introduces the history of American advertising and the driving forces of advertising in its development. Then through analyzing the different phases advertising has underwent, this chapter concludes that the development of advertising is a process of alternating the dominant position from written language to visual photography. And the process is included in the alternation of two cultural forms, the "language culture" and the "visual culture".Chapter Two focuses on the origin of visual culture and how it thrives after the invention of photographic technology. By comparing the characteristics of written language, oil painting and photo, this chapter discloses the necessity for the visual culture to substitute language culture as the dominant cultural form. And advertising has followed this trend to make people live in a visual advertisements surrounded society, a "society of spectacles".Chapter Three analyzes how the American government and other political groups make use of advertisements to serve their political advocacies and purposes. These advertisements don't merely witness the historic events but also make an impact on public opinion, and accelerate the development of some historic events.Chapter Four reveals the connection between American advertisements and the development of American economy. American enterprisers are efficient at taking the advantage of visual advertisements to promote sales. And visual advertisements' role in setting up a brand and promoting the brand must not be neglected. Furthermore, this chapter analyzes how the advertisers combine Freud's theory of subconscious with the promotion of sales. Chapter Five deals with the problem how American advertisements change Americans' living habits and lead the new fashion of the society. Through watching, people realized their desires in "others" hence they formed their own desires. So it might generate desires when people watching models displaying a new product on advertisements.The Conclusion offers a general outlook for the advertisements in America and concludes that advertisements will keep on influencing and forming Americans' daily life. Advertisements have become a dominant system to produce the meaning of the modern life. Advertisement and the culture it carries will continue to develop and flourish, therefore, advertisement could become precious reference for people to understand certain country and its history.