The construction of a consumer population in advertising in 1920s China

Abstract

Advertising in early 20th-century China played a central role in turning Chinese people into consumers. Advertisements between 1921 and 1929 in Shenbao, one of the most influential newspapers ever published in China, were studied to identify discourses of gender within the overarching discourse of Chinese people as a consumer population. Four discursive formations were identified: (1) female and male as ungendered categories of the consumer population, (2) woman and man as citizens of China, (3) one happy family as a consumption unit, and (4) women as a special group of consumers.

Embedding Theory in Corporate Identity through the Social Construction Lens

“…As stated earlier, social construction is originally a social science and humanities discipline but has been adopted in business studies (Edvardsson et al, 2011;Orlitzky, 2011;Matsui, 2009;Witt, 2010;Wu, 2009;Gupta, 2001;Palmer and Ponsonby, 2001;Morgan and Pritchard, 1998). It is an intellectual advancement on other meta-theoretical perspectives popular in marketing research and the author's approach of this research is heavily influenced by (mainly European) perspectives from critical and post structuralist (Gergen, 2010;Potter and Wetherell, 1987;Brunner, 1990;Edwards and Potter, 1992;Miller and Hoogstra, 1992;Banister et al, 1994;Harré and Gillett, 1994;Fairclough, 1995;Harre and Sterans 1995;Fox and Prilleltensky, 1997;Bayer and Shotter 1998;Potter, 1998;Wetherell, 1998).…”