Relli Shechter | Reading Advertisements in a Colonial/Development Context: Cigarette Advertising and Identity Politics in Egypt, c1919–1939 | Journal of Social History, 39.2

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Relli Shechter | Reading Advertisements in a Colonial/Development Context: Cigarette Advertising and Identity Politics in Egypt, c1919–1939 | Journal of Social History, 39.2 | The History Cooperative

READING ADVERTISEMENTS IN A COLONIAL/DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT: CIGARETTE ADVERTISING AND IDENTITY POLITICS IN EGYPT, c1919–1939

By Relli Shechter Ben-Gurion University

	1

Introduction
How are we to make socio-cultural sense of advertising in colonial, later developing, settings? What differences exist between reading advertisements in the context of Western consumer societies and in less conspicuous consumer environments? More broadly, how do changing contexts interact with the content of ads? Looking for answers to such questions, this article explores how the messages in past advertisements may be utilized for a historical ethnography of their intended audiences.	2
At the risk of oversimplification, Western consumer societies have developed largely as a result of internal historical dynamics in which the first, and especially the second "Industrial Revolution," coupled with increase in demand, promoted acceleration in production and the creation of nation-wide markets.¹ In contrast, most novel commodities in non-Western countries initially arrived from abroad (or were inspired by commodities first produced in the West),² a process associated with the peripheralization of these countries in the European world economy.³ Their consumption in such environments was more exclusive than in core countries—only small and relatively affluent groups of consumers could purchase imported commodities. The mass market in colonial/developing settings was slower to arrive, and commodities had to go through long processes of "trickle down," adoption, and adaptation, before a sizeable demand was established in the receiving countries.⁴	3
Advertising in Western countries, especially Britain and the US, developed in response to an expansion in markets, and manufacturers'/sellers' efforts to reach ever growing numbers of consumers, spread nation-wide;⁵ technological innovation, better managerial skills, and intensification of work increased production capacity to levels that required a continuous rise in demand in order to keep the wheels of industry going. As Marx suggested, and as was later developed by Marxist/neo-Marxist writing, advertisements would play on the "exchange value" of commodities, their socio-cultural (sign) value, rather than their actual "use value," in promoting goods and services.⁶ Advertisers "educated," tempted, and scared consumers into buying, by emphasizing the significance of doing so for their social and personal status and identity. Consumers, however, were not simply blind receivers of advertised messages. They actively participated in their reading by learning the evolving syntax of advertisement language.⁷ Even more so, for ads' messages to echo successfully with buyers, the copy had to tap meaningfully into the cultural repertoire of potential consumers.	. . .

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