Selling or buying American dreams?: Americanization and Australia's interwar advertising industry

Abstract

During the interwar period, the US industrial and financial sectors expanded at a phenomenal rate. Despite the Depression, America had become an economic, industrial, and cultural powerhouse by the beginning of the Second World War. The advertising industry had been both a beneficiary of this growth and, indeed, a key contributor – spreading the American Dream to national and international audiences, including Australia. An important member of this audience was Australia's advertising industry. Like its American counterpart, the local advertising industry was directly involved in the process of Americanization. However, the Australian advertising industry did not simply ape its American counterparts. By examining the discourse of America in interwar Australian advertising literature, this article argues that the Australian advertising industry was interested in American advertising methods and techniques because they had been devised by the most modern advertising industry in the world. For Australian advertising agents, Americanization was simply viewed as a means to an end – to maximize consumption.     

Student involvement in the UK sex industry: motivations and experiences

The Student Sex Work Project was set up in 2012 in the United Kingdom (UK) to locate students who are involved in the sex industry, to discover their motivations and needs, and in doing so provide an evidence base to consider the development of policy and practice within Higher Education. As part of this initiative, a large survey was undertaken comprising students from throughout the UK. Reporting on the findings from this survey, the article sheds some light on what occupations students take up in the sex industry, what motivates their participation and how they experience the work. The study also offers a much‐needed empirical input to the ongoing academic debates on the nature of sex work. The results suggest that there can be little doubt of a student presence within the sex industry in the UK. The motivations and experiences of student sex workers cover elements of agency and choice as well as of force and exploitation and it is suggested that student sex work is best understood from a polymorphous framework which leaves room for a wide variety of experiences and challenges.     

Business strategy and the social norm of tipping

Tipping is an important economic phenomenon, involving about $47 billion a year in the US food industry alone, and trillions of dollars across different occupations and countries over the years. Moreover, tipping is a major source of income for millions of workers. This article discusses the implications of tipping for business strategy in the relevant industries. For example, firms can choose to impose a compulsory service charge in lieu of tipping - what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so? How does tipping change the profit-maximizing level of investing in screening job applicants, training workers, monitoring them, and providing performance-based incentives by the firm? Can industries such as the music industry use tips (i.e., prices being voluntary and determined by the customers) as an alternative business model?     

Effect of content type on impact: editorial vs. advertising

This article examines the effect of content type whether news editorial surpass advertising. An anticipated finding was that news editorial would be more believable than advertising. However, this is not supported by the results of this study. For strong arguments, news editorial demonstrated an effect similar to that of advertising. However, for the weak argument, advertising had a stronger effect than did news editorial. Although message believability may be an important determinant of attitude toward the product under some circumstances, in others, argument quality may be even more important than content type.     

Truth in advertising: Rationalizing ads and knowing consumers in the early twentieth-century United States

This article examines the way advertising was rationalized in the early twentieth-century United States. Drawing on a targeted archival comparison with the United Kingdom, I show how the extensive mobilization undertaken to legitimate and rationalize advertising, rather than changes in the techniques employed in the content of ads themselves, were seen by actors in the mid-1920s to explain most of the extraordinary advances made by American advertising. Building on that comparison, I show how American advertising was transformed, particularly around World War I, into a legitimate profession situated at the center of a network of expertise about consumers and their media. Under the banner of “truth in advertising” ads came to be regarded as a legitimate, rational, and sustained business investment, leading to an enormous increase in aggregate expenditures. I argue that future research should examine how this process fuelled mass media and contributed to the conditions for modern consumerism.     

Understanding Professional Projects in Welfare Service Work: Revival of Old Professionalism?

The professional terms for occupations that provide welfare services are changing, and here the introduction of new public management in the Nordic countries since the 1990s is indicative of wider developments. The article explores professional projects in welfare service work from both conceptual and empirical perspectives. The aim is to produce a gender‐sensitive analysis of the professional projects at the lower levels of the occupational hierarchies in health care. The first part reviews the literature conceptualizing the societal and institutional embeddedness of professional projects. The institutional matrix of welfare states emerges as a key context in shaping the welfare service work performed by women‐dominated professional groups. The second part examines the case of Finland and suggests that recent reforms have created new inequalities in the system of professions, in which occupational groups in welfare service work are becoming marginalized. This signals a move away from ‘democratic professionalism’ towards a revival of ‘old professionalism’.     

Women's Occupational Trends in the Irish Economy: Moving towards High‐skilled Occupations or Evidence of Deskilling?

In recent years the increased participation of women in the Irish labour market and in tertiary education would appear to have placed them in an advantageous position to make use of the expanded opportunities in knowledge‐based occupations. Using occupational data from the 1996 and 2006 census this article examines the experience of women in high‐ and low‐skilled occupations. The data indicate that women are over‐represented in high‐skilled occupations relative to their overall participation rate in the labour force but there is also an increase in the proportion of women in low‐skilled occupations. The employment of women in high‐skilled occupations is substantially weaker in the private sector than the public sector. Public sector employment, we argue, is a crucial factor in the increased participation of women in high‐skilled occupations.     

Seeking Legitimacy: The Professionalization of Life Coaching

This article uses life coaching as a case study for understanding the attempts of one occupational group to define their work as a profession and themselves as professional people. Life coaches' efforts to legitimate their work are examined within the context of the economic downturn and exemplify an emerging employment trend in the American labor market: college‐educated workers pursuing non‐standard work as independent contractors in personalized service occupations. Using in‐depth interviews with life coaches, I focus on the collective and individual strategies workers use in their attempts to carve out new occupational jurisdictions for their services and bolster their professional status. I explore how gender shapes life coaches' experiences and professionalization tactics; further, I predict that these gendered processes will ultimately influence the trajectory of the life coaching industry more generally. My findings highlight the complexity of current employment relations and offer empirical insights into the study of work, occupations, and gender.     

Exploring cultural economies of internationalization: the role of ‘iconic individuals’ and ‘brand leaders’ in the globalization of headhunting

Understanding the internationalization of professional services like advertising, architecture, accounting, consulting and legal services continues to attract considerable attention in academic and policy circles. Research in geography and management studies has emphasized the different organizational strategies adopted by firms as they seek to develop and maintain a competitive position within an increasingly global economy. In this article we develop a new strand in this literature by adopting a cultural economy approach to argue that an important, yet comparatively neglected, aspect of the internationalization strategies of transnational professional service firms is the role of certain ‘iconic individuals’ and ‘brand leaders’ in influencing the practice of internationalization. Drawing on empirical research into the burgeoning European executive search (headhunting) industry we identify a cadre of such individuals and brand leaders that act as resources other firms leverage when internationalizing. This highlights the importance of a cultural economy perspective in theories of the internationalization of professional services and its value in moving discussions beyond purely economic analyses of competitive advantage.     

STATE INCORPORATION OF MIGRANTS AND THE REPRODUCTION OF A MIDDLEMAN MINORITY AMONG INDOCHINESE REFUGEES

This article examines how state incorporation reproduces a middleman minority group's occupational role after the migration of that group to the United States. An extension of middleman minority theory is developed to explain why ethnic Chinese refugees from former Indochina are overrepresented in intermediary social service occupations in comparison to Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees. Three propositions are developed and tested focusing on the conflict engendered by an intermediary occupation, staff recruitment patterns, and role orientations among different ethnic groups. Data from participant observation and interviews are used to focus on actual behavior in the workplace, whereas most studies of occupational concentration by ethnic groups have examined the sector level.     

Repositioning in the global apparel value chain in the post‐MFA era: Strategic issues and evidence from Sri Lanka

This article examines structural adjustment in the world apparel trade following the abolition of Multi‐Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quotas through a case study of the apparel industry in Sri Lanka. The evidence suggests that, in a quota‐free global market, individual exporting countries have room for carving out a niche in specific products. The Sri Lankan apparel industry has managed to maintain growth dynamism through specialization in intimate apparel and upmarket casualwear. The expansion of the industry and its adjustment to MFA abolition was aided by an easily trainable domestic workforce and collaborative actions of industry associations and the government, with foreign buyers playing a pivotal role in linking the Sri Lankan firms to the global value chain.     

Globalization and the advertising industry in China

The rapid recent growth in the size of the advertising market in China has been unprecedented, fulfilling the prediction that it will be second only to that of the United States by the Olympic year of 2008. Major Japanese and Western‐based global advertising agencies have been making their presence felt via joint‐venture arrangements with Chinese agencies since 1979, and now increasingly are serving not only their global clients, but working with large Chinese advertisers as well. This article traces recent developments in the advertising industry in China, with particular attention to the marketing strategies being pursued by global advertisers, and to the social, cultural and geographical barriers which they must overcome. Conversely, the analysis gives insight to the comparative advantages the Chinese advertisers and their agencies enjoy in this respect, although they also face challenges in establishing brands and otherwise transforming China into a harmonious nation of consumer‐citizens.     

Product placements as public relations: an exploratory study of the role of the public relations firm

This article reports the results of a survey of 106 public relations firms concerning their level of involvement with product placements as part of their public relations strategies. The findings of this research suggest that public relations practitioners are active players in choosing whether to use product placements to enhance a client’s product or service. Results also indicate that practitioners are more knowledgeable about product placements than previously believed and that they are more enthusiastic about the future of product placements than their advertising counterparts.Carol J. Pardun is an assistant professor of public relations and advertising at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Kathy Brittain McKee is an associate professor of journalism at Berry College in Rome, Georgia.     

UNEQUAL RISK: COMBAT OCCUPATIONS IN THE VOLUNTEER MILITARY

This study evaluates the characteristics of the men who served in the volunteer military in combat occupations. It examines whether these characteristics stem from supply-side or demand-side decisions, or reflect class bias. The findings suggest that, on the supply side, men who had greater academic abilities were more likely to go to college, thereby avoiding military service and the possibility of serving in a combat occupation. On the demand side, the armed forces were more likely to exclude men with lower academic abilities but were more likely to assign such men in the military to combat occupations. Net of the impacts of these supply-side and demand-side decisions, men who served in combat occupations still differed from those who did not in terms of their family background. The impact of family background was stronger on entering the military than on being assigned to combat occupations once in the military.     

Mind the gap: financial London and the regional class pay gap

The hidden barriers, or ‘gender pay gap’, preventing women from earning equivalent incomes to men is well documented. Yet recent research has uncovered that, in Britain, there is also a comparable class‐origin pay gap in higher professional and managerial occupations. So far this analysis has only been conducted at the national level and it is not known whether there are regional differences within the UK. This paper uses pooled data from the 2014 and 2015 Labour Force Survey (N = 7,534) to stage a more spatially sensitive analysis that examines regional variation in the class pay gap. We find that this ‘class ceiling’ is not evenly spatially distributed. Instead it is particularly marked in Central London, where those in high‐status occupations who are from working‐class backgrounds earn, on average, £10,660 less per year than those whose parents were in higher professional and managerial employment. Finally, we inspect the Capital further to reveal that the class pay gap is largest within Central London's banking and finance sector. Challenging policy conceptions of London as the ‘engine room’ of social mobility, these findings suggest that class disadvantage within high‐status occupations is particularly acute in the Capital. The findings also underline the value of investigating regional differences in social mobility, and demonstrate how such analysis can unravel important and previously unrecognized spatial dimensions of class inequality.     

Burnout,coping and suicidal ideation: An application and extension of the job demand-control-support model

Suicidal tendencies are typically considered related to individual traits or predispositions, but some occupations have significantly higher rates than other occupations and the general population. This article proposes that stressful work conditions may be important in understanding occupational variations in suicidal tendencies. It explores the links between work-related factors and burnout, and suicidal thoughts among veterinarians. Burnout appears to be an important mediator in understanding veterinarians’ suicidal tendencies; work conditions that are emotionally exhausting for veterinarians may foster suicidal thoughts. Individual coping strategies are also explored. Emotion-focused strategies of avoidance and alcohol consumption not only exacerbate burnout and suicidal thoughts but also amplify the harmful effects of some job demands. Active problem solving is not as beneficial as expected, but a supportive work environment is a valuable coping resource. Organizational interventions and coping resources effective in reducing burnout may also reduce the risk of suicide for those in service occupations.     

MEDIA CONCENTRATION AND CONSUMER PRODUCT PRICES

This article examines the interaction of commercial media and retail producers of well-known consumer products when advertising is used to differentiate brands. In particular, I address how competition in the media market affects choices of advertising and program quality. The results suggest counterintuitively that advertisers may actually prefer media markets with less competition for audiences. Product differentiation through advertising is more effective when media markets are less competitive, leading to higher prices for advertised products. As a result, media concentration may lead to higher profits for advertising firms if the additional revenue exceeds the higher advertising costs associated with media concentration. (JEL L11 , L82 , M37 )     

Gender Differences in the Evaluation of Prestige

This study examines the prestige accorded to male and female incumbents in occupations. Respondents were asked to rate the prestige of occupations and the prestige of male and female incumbents in those occupations. Two main findings are discussed in this paper. First, the prestige of male and female incumbents often differs substantially. The size of these differences is strongly related to the sex com-position of the occupations. Second, the sex composition of occupations has a significant effect on the prestige of sex-atypical jobholders, even after the effects of perceived income and education are accounted for. The implications of these findings for theories and research on occupational prestige are discussed.     

Opting Out,Scaling Back,or Business‐as‐Usual? An Occupational Assessment of Women's Employment

After decades of growth, women's labor force participation stagnated in the 2000s, prompting widespread interest in work–family balance and opting out. However, much of the research and media attention is limited to small samples of women in managerial and professional occupations. Using data from the 2009 American Community Survey, this article examines mothers' labor force participation and work hours across 92 occupations to assess whether mothers in nonmanagerial and nonprofessional occupations exhibit similar work patterns. I find that mothers in managerial and professional occupations are the least likely to remain out of the labor force but most likely to work reduced hours. The results indicate that there is significant occupational variation in women's work–family strategies, and these comparisons provide insight into the differential structures of disadvantage that encourage different work–family outcomes.     

Extreme Rhetoric in the 2004 Presidential Campaign: Images Of Geopolitical and Regional Division

This article examines the most extreme discursive elements of political advertising in the 2004 presidential campaign in Ukraine. It deals with images of hostility, expression of ethnic phobias, and stereotypical schemes that were designed as remakes of Cold War motifs. The stereotypes in the discourse of the campaign served as populist references to different geopolitical orientations of the candidates, and as a vehicle for creating the conflicting identities of "two Ukraines." The discourse of extremes is analyzed within the context of an ideological transformation in the country that was determined by clashes between democratic and neo-totalitarian ways of thinking. The special focus of this article is to portray electoral rhetoric as one of those domains in public communication in which the image of identity takes shape.