| This dissertation is a historical and cultural account of the evolution of advertising and its role in the cultural transformation in China since 1978 when the economic reforms were launched. It argues that advertising exceeds its economic functions and plays an important role in shaping cultural values and cultural identity. Similarly, advertising as an institution is also shaped by culture and its participants. By examining various groups of of people involved in advertising and their activities, the study attempts to uncover certain cultural processes of change in contemporary China and the role of advertising.; The formulation of advertising in China has been shaped by the official ideology and policy whose purpose of adopting advertising is to facilitate modernization and reform. But advertising has also generated cultural effects beyond the official control. Similarly, transnational advertising in China has been an active force which is driven by the dream of turning the 1.2 billion people into consumers for their products. But instead of homogenizing the national and local culture with a global consumer culture, a central thesis of the imperialist theory in the study of transnational media and advertising in the Third World, the case of China shows that transnationals have encountered countervailing forces from the locals. At the same time, their marketing activities have also generated cultural forms that are used by local people to express their cultural identity. Further, the institutionalization of advertising in China has also produced a new breed of business professionals who, in their business practice, have also helped to shape the new cultural configuration in China today.; In examining these different players in Chinese advertising, this study, by combining historical/contextual and textual analysis, provides an understanding of cultural transformation and advertising. |
