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Advertising: the Central Institution of Mass Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Mason Griff
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Extract

At the termination of the First World War a new social order arose which has been labelled mass society. Mass society gained impetus during and as a result of the Civil War and increased momentum during the First World War.

It was especially in the United States, but also in Great Britain, France, Northern Italy, the Low Countries, Northern European countries and Japan that mass society and its culture made its first appearance. Some of its features have begun to appear in Eastern and Central Europe, and, in an incipient way, in the Asian and African countries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 17 , Issue 68 , December 1969 , pp. 120 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1 Edward Shils, "Mass Society and Its Culture," Daedalus, Spring 1960, p. 288.

2 Joseph Bensman and Israel Gerver, "Kitsch: Genuine and Spurious," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society, 1957, note 1, p. 2.

3 See for example Martin Mayer, Madison Avenue, U.S.A. (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1958), or Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders.

4 See for example Otis Pease, The Responsibilities of American Advertising (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1958), or Neil H. Broden, The Economic Effects of Advertising (Chicago, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1944).

5 Harry Johnson quotes impressive statistics concerning advertising in Canada and Great Britain. See his The Canadian Quandary (Toronto, McGraw-Hill, 1963), pp. 281-293, passim.

6 "Advertising Investments around the World," International Advertising Association Inc., New York, Dec. 1967, 8th Biennal Report, p. 22.

7 The latest available figures for the free world (52 countries) were in 1964 and showed that 23 billion dollars, out of a total income of 1.134 billion, were spent on all forms of advertising. International Advertising Association, Advertising Investments around the World. October, 1965, "Research Report," New York City.

8 John K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston, Houghton Miffiin Com pany, 1958), p. 124.

9 Ibid., p. 124.

10 Ibid., p. 125-26. Galbraith is quoting from James S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving, and the Theory of Consumer Behavior (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1949), p. 28.

11 Ibid., p. 126.

12 Ibid., p. 126.

13 David Potter, People of Plenty (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 173.

14 Ibid., p. 175.

15 Ibid., pp. 176-177.

16 Ibid., p. 177.

17 Ibid., p. 177.

18 Stanley M. Elkins in his book Slavery (New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1959), refers to the institution of slavery as an example of an institution which also had no institutions which would counterbalance the unrestricted growth of slavery.

19 Ibid., p. 43.

20 For a detailed account of this process see Otis Pease, op. cit.

21 Neil Compton, "The Mass Media," in Michael Oliver, ed., Social Purposes for Canada (Toronto, The University of Toronto Press, 1961), p. 86. For novelistic treatment of this reaction see James Joyce's Ulysses, especially his characterization of Bloom; George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and his characterization of Gordon Comstock; A. C. Spectorsky's The Exurbanite is also pertinent in this respect.

22 Henry James, Hawthorne (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1956) pp. 49-51.

23 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1959), p. 229.

24 See H. Johnson's, The Canadian Quandary cit., p. 291.

25 The testimonial has elements of charismatic authority rather than reasoned argument.

26 Joseph Wood Krutch, The Modern Temper (New York, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1929), p. 90.

27 Irving Howe, Stanford Today, Summer 1962, Series 1, No. 1. Howe's treatment of the hero is derived from Simmel's discussion of the "Adventurer of Genius." Also see B. H. Lettmann, Carlyle's Theory of the Hero (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1928), p. 140 & passim.

28 Ibid., no page references. Howe in this articles is discussing T. H. Lawrence and uses him as the prototype of the modern anti-hero.

29 Otis Pease, op. cit., p. 54. Pease is quoting from Alva Johnson, who evidently interviewed the crew of rescuers.

30 Howe, op. cit. Also see Daniel J. Boorstin's The Image (New York, Atheneum, 1962), especially Chapter 2, "From Hero to Celebrity: The Human Pseudo-Event," pp. 45-76.

31 P. Martineau, Motivation in Advertising (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1957), p. 132.

32 Barret, Irrational Man (Garden City, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1958). Barret points out how the trend toward rationality can be overdeveloped).

33 Gabriel Marcel, Man against Mass Society (Chicago, Henry Regnery Com pagny, 1962), p. 17.

34 Edward Shils, "Social Inquiry and Autonomy of the Individual," in Daniel Lerner, ed., The Human Meaning of the Social Sciences (New York, Meridian Books, 1959), pp. 118-19.

35 Ibid., p. 122.

36 L. Stern, "Lukács: An Intellectual Portrait," Dissent, Spring 1958, p. 169.

37 I am paraphrasing Lewis Mumford in Art and Techniques (New York, Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 57, where he speaks of the machine.