Call for Papers
Selling Modernity:
Advertising and Public Relations in Modern German History
November 6-8, 2003
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON
Canada
Younger and established scholars are invited to submit proposals for original papers to be presented at a workshop on advertising and public relations in German history. During the last decade, scholars have shown increasing interest in the social and cultural history of consumption in Germany. Yet the history of advertising and public relations remains largely unwritten. This lacuna is striking, given the influence of both media in shaping economic and social behaviors and cultural perceptions from Wilhelmine Germany through the end of the twentieth century. The rapid growth of capitalism in nineteenth century Germany, with its integration of previously remote areas into supra-regional markets, required effective means of linking manufacturers and merchants with their customer base. Companies’ new attentiveness to marketing, and the advent of firms engaged solely in the activity of advertising and publicity, heralded the rise of a new economic sphere: the service sector.
The influence of advertising and public relations was not limited to the economic sphere, however. On the one hand, advertising and PR provided new opportunities for artistic expression while creating thousands of jobs for graphic artists, copywriters, and publicists. Business and labor leaders recognized the importance of these new media in selling products and promoting economic growth; advertisers and publicity experts themselves promoted their work as progressive, democratic, and politically emancipatory. On the other hand, the new commercialism in Germany provoked intense debates about the deleterious social effects of advertising and corporate self-promotion. On the right as well as the left, social critics linked advertising to the rise of (and manipulation of) the masses. They condemned the considerable influence of advertising on art, attacked the colonization of the public sphere by meaningless exhortations to buy, and assailed advertisements and company publications as inherently deceptive and self-serving. Advertising and PR became a convenient locus for mobilizing resentments to capitalism and mass society, with critics sometimes proposing xenophobic solutions to their excesses. The visual image of a company and its products thus became a focal point for debates about rapid social, political, and cultural changes in Germany. Ultimately, this workshop hopes to inspire new approaches to the reception of modernity in Germany, by exploring the under-researched, yet central themes of advertising and public relations.
While the organizers welcome proposals that offer a content-analysis approach to advertising and company publications, papers that focus on the social, economic, and intellectual history of advertising and PR (from Wilhelmine Germany to the present) are especially encouraged. Some of the themes presenters may wish to address include:
• Social and cultural critiques of advertising
• The role of advertising and public relations as mediators between companies and consumers
• The effects of advertising and marketing on public perceptions of companies and products
• Debates over the “Americanization” of Germany
• State responses to advertising in Nazi Germany and the GDR
• The relationship between advertising and anti-Semitism
• The creation or reinforcement of gender roles through advertising and public relations
• The role of advertising and public relations in the development of the mass media
• The similarities and differences between advertising and propaganda
• The economic significance of advertising and PR, including studies of specific ad agencies, companies, or public relations firms
• The self-image and self-presentation of advertising and public relations professionals
The organizers expect to publish a selection of papers in a volume designed to break new ground by bringing together cultural, social, and economic history. Professor Victoria de Grazia (Columbia University) will be the keynote speaker and will be a contributor to the volume. The language of the workshop and the published volume will be English. Underwriting of the costs of traveling to Canada and accommodations in Hamilton will be available for some (or possibly all) conference participants. Please send a 250-word abstract and a one-page CV to each of the following addresses by October 15, 2002. The ideal means of submission is an as email attachment in the Word for Windows format. Regular postal mailings are acceptable as well:
Pamela Swett
Department of History
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON L8S 4L9
Canada
swettp@mcmaster.ca
S. Jonathan Wiesen
Dept. of History
Mailcode 4519
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901
jwiesen@siu.edu
Jonathan R. Zatlin
Department of History
Boston University
226 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
jzatlin@bu.edu