What About the Old Cultural Intermediaries? An Historical Review of Advertising Producers

Abstract

Critical work on advertising is underscored by a teleological conception of its object. This often emerges in the form of an emphasis on advertising as an evolving, hybrid institutions that increasingly mixes the 'economic' with the 'cultural'. It is in this vein that advertising practitioners have been characterized as 'new cultural intermediaries' deploying distinctive aesthetic sensibilities. Similar patterns of knowledge and behaviour, however, can be traced amongst early producers of advertising suggesting a generation of 'old' cultural intermediaries. This unexpected phenomenon, it is argued, arises for two reasons. The rst is that much critical work addressing the nature of contemporary advertising lacks historical context. The second is that culture and economy are normatively conceptualized as separate spheres. This separation underplays the multiple interconnections between the cultural and the economic in instances of material practice. Accordingly it is proposed that advertising be reformulated as a constituent practice that has historically relied upon the juxtaposition of 'cultural' and 'economic' knowledges.

Exploring the Role of Public Relations as a Cultural Intermediary Occupation

“…In Bourdieuian terms, public relations promotes a particular type of habitus -what it is to be a 'rock music fan', a 'consumer', a 'citizen', for example -by presenting specific practices and their underlying assumptions as better, more attractive, more logical, more responsible, or more appropriate than others. In the cultural industries literature, a number of scholars have argued for recognition of the cultural effects of industries, like public relations, traditionally regarded as purely commercial (Mato, 2009;McFall, 2002;Negus, 2006). Advertising has received attention in this respect (McFall, 2004;Nixon, 2003) but public relations has not, perhaps because it takes place 'behind the scenes', most notably as engagement with journalists to generate media coverage.…”

Cultural Intermediaries and the Media

“…First, the assertion that these are ‘new’ occupations is problematic (Nixon and du Gay 2002: 497), if only because – despite technological advancements and changes – many of the occupations, their industries and the broader work of promoting consumption have long histories (e.g. McFall 2002, 2004). Second, the narrow reduction of cultural intermediaries to critics and commentators has created confusion, because the work of mediating cultural forms applies to a broader range of occupations, both within and beyond the petite bourgeoisie (new or otherwise) (Hesmondhalgh 2006: 226‐7; Nixon and du Gay 2002: 498).…”

“…While the emergence of branding consultants may coincide with the mid‐20th century, other case studies bring to light longer‐term timelines. McFall (2002), for example, looks back to the start of the 19th century to trace the emergence of advertising agents and their early links to artistic and literary circles, and notes that their occupational status and skills were increasingly formalized even by the early 20th century. This variation in historical development underlines the need to treat cultural intermediation as an internally differentiated category: there is no one developmental trajectory for these occupations.…”

Leisure corporations, beer brand culture, and the crisis of masculinity: the Speight’s ‘Southern Man’ advertising campaign

“…How are these representations of a particular New Zealand hegemonic masculinity suited to and justified within the context of a contemporary crisis of masculinity, whereby certain societal anxieties espouse a likely vulnerability of those hegemonic masculinities? Using interview data obtained from a key cultural intermediary (du Gay, 1997;McFall, 2002;Moor, 2008;Negus, 2002), the campaign's creator, and critical textual analysis of the last two television commercials from the 'Southern Man' series -'Nightmare' and 'Progress' -which aired in the early 2000s, we explore contemporary anxieties about what it means to 'be a man' in a New Zealand society increasingly concerned with consumption and new technologies. From this, we investigate the use of nostalgia by advertising agencies during times of crisis, including those moments that are defined and/or represented as part of a crisis of masculinity.…”