Three historical narratives on advertising self-control in Brazil

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how, in three different contexts, the National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation narratively uses its past to build an official history concerning its origins that legitimates advertising self-control as a hegemonic narrative. Design/methodology/approach By using the historical research and the “uses of the past” approach, this study identifies, analyzes and confronts three organizational histories of Conar’s origins (both its official and unofficial versions) in the context of the creation of the Brazilian system of advertising self-regulation. Findings After a thematic analysis of the documentary sources, the narratives on the National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation’s origins and the self-control process were grouped into three versions: the narrative under the military regime: 1976/1980; the narrative during the process of re-democratization of the country: 1981/1991 and the contemporary narrative: from 2005 onwards. These narratives were confronted and, in consequence, provided, each of them, a different interpretation of the context surrounding the creation and justification for advertising self-control. Originality/value The study shows how a consumer defense organization re-historicized its past strategically to gain legitimacy in three different ways through time. It also reveals that organizations strategically use their past to build an intended vision of the future, thus having more agency than the hegemonic literature in management studies usually guarantees. Finally, it exposes the malleability of past narratives through which organizations play a critical role in the ongoing struggle for competing uses of the past. Therefore, the study identifies different organizational stories through time that allow researchers to reflect on several strategic uses of the past by organizations.

The 40 years of discourse on racism in the Brazilian advertising self-regulation system

“…Conceived in 1976, but officially created in 1980, it is a private consumerist organization, responsible for controlling all kinds of advertising in Brazil, based on the Brazilian Code of Advertising Self-Regulation ( Código Brasileiro de Autorregulamentação Publicitária - CBAP), which is also of private nature and created by the Brazilian advertising sector (Conar, 2021). This system of advertising self-regulation is based on a code created by the ICC (Rodrigues et al , 2021). If, on the one hand, ICC defended state deregulation, the organization also feared, on the other hand, that the total lack of regulation would lead to abuse against competitors (Boddewyn, 1985).…”

Decolonizando-Recolonizando Currículo em Gestão e Contabilidade

“…A colonialidade do saber estabelece os mitos de que conhecimento do Oeste Europeu é neutro e uma verdade superior (Quijano, 2000), de que a história da América Latina é a história europeia (Rodrigues, Costa et al, 2021), e de que o 'outro' sem história é bárbaro e primitivo. A matriz colonial que internalizamos (re)cria hierarquias visando a beneficiar espaços e culturas eurocêntricas por meio de inferiorização que racializa, coisifica, animaliza, subalterniza e extermina-apropria bases materiais da cultura e a memória dos povos colonizados (Shohat & Stam, 2006).…”