Mediapolis - Journal of Communication, Journalism and Public Space

The Rise of Advertising as a Cultural Industry (1860-1960)

Eduardo Cintra Torres, Pedro Almeida Leitão — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Academic research into the history of advertising has focused particularly on aspects such as the study of representations in advertising and the presence of economic or cultural activities in advertisements, giving rise to numerous monographic articles. However, it can be said that the main themes of academic research into the history of advertising in various countries have focused on posters and the press, particularly their origins.

The mechanical Eve: The commercial image of women in bicycle advertising during the belle époque

Raúl Eguizábal Maza, Luis Eguizábal Jiménez, Isidro Jiménez Gómez — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Why are there so many iconographic representations of women riding bicycles?

Why are these representations concentrated around 1900?

To answer these two questions, and others that may arise, we will make a small analysis of the advertisements, covers and photographs of the so-called Belle Époque.

For this purpose, we have taken a group of images of women made with different techniques. A total of 473 images were taken for this purpose. From this first selection, made with the sole criterion that the woman is the protagonist of the message, and although we do not intend to make a quantitative analysis, we have already obtained a first knowledge: “women cyclists” make up the second group numerically after “women readers”.

Following Barthes, we can already affirm that what is repeated has a meaning, and that our mission must be to discover what lies behind the numerous representations of this woman cyclist.

Production marks, trade marks. The Portuguese wine sector after the First World War

Carla Sequeira — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

In this article we will analyse the trademarks of different companies, traders and producers representing the various Portuguese wine regions in the aftermath of the First World War. The study will be based on trademark applications published in the Boletim de Propriedade Industrial between 1918 and 1924.

The aim is to quantify and understand the relationship between trademarks and appellations of origin, seeking to identify, through semiotic analysis, representative and identifying elements of the indication of provenance used in numerous trademarks.

The article is structured as follows: after a brief historical background and presentation of the scope and research question, we will review the literature on the subject; then we will present the methodology used and the results obtained; finally, the conclusions that the research allows us to draw at this stage of the study.

Empreza do Bolhão: Graphic arts and advertising in the 1920s and 1930s

Pedro Almeida Leitão, Rui Teles de Menezes — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Successor to the first modern advertising agency in Portugal, founded by Raul de Caldevilla, from 1923 the Empreza do Bolhão would become one of the country's leading producers of graphic and advertising material. Its workshops produced iconic posters signed by well-known national artists. However, less studied are its labeling and packaging works, which actually represented the main format ordered from the company.
Ceasing its functions as an advertising agency with Caldevilla's departure, the development of the graphic material was substantially handled by the employees of the company. Following the instructions provided by the client, commercial agents and designers contributed to the conception and effectiveness of these items as means of commercial promotion. Unlike the full-service agency model represented by ETP, the advertising direction of these works was thus assumed in varying parts by the client and the printing company that executed them.

Representations of characters in Portuguese television print advertisements in the 20th century

Andreia Galhardo — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Press announcements tell stories through two sign systems, verbal and visual. Focusing attention on the characters, we ask the following question: what meanings do the characters convey, given their relationship with the page space and other visual elements of the ad?
The first part of the question takes us to the geography of the press announcement, showing the results that the use of space is strategic; the second part of the question places the character in relation to other characters, to the advertised object or to the receiver, in order to activate transferences of meanings.
The corpus of analysis consisted of 441 advertisements, from the years 1957 to 2000, from two Portuguese daily newspapers. The characters were read in categories and subcategories, and the content was examined, through an exploratory analysis to identify relevant information. The analysis grid was defined using content analysis procedures.

Interview with publicist Jacques Séguéla

Eduardo Cintra Torres — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Jacques Séguéla, a French advertising creative and executive, was still working at the Havas Group when he gave me this interview, in the form of a statement, in the final year of the lockdown, on March 12, 2021. At his request, we continued the conversation on the 15th of the same month. He was born in Paris on February 23, 1934. He entered advertising by chance, as he explained in the conversation. He became one of the most successful, prestigious and influential advertising professionals in France and the world, both as a creative and as an executive, having co-founded the RSCG agency in 1970, which was integrated into Havas in 1996, part of the Vivendi group, where he was when I interviewed him. He is the author of 35 books, two dozen of which are about advertising. His experience and reflection from six decades in French and global advertising were evident in this interview.
For more than an hour, the conversation took place via audiovisual means Paris-Lisbon. The interview was provided by Pedro Graça, president of Havas Worldwide Portugal, as part of a series of interviews I conducted to complement and clarify the research for the History of Advertising in Portugal - With a Case Study of the CUF Group (Parede: Principia, 2023). Due to the topics covered, which did not deal with advertising in Portugal, the interview ended up being used only occasionally in my book, thus justifying its publication, which was actually requested from Séguéla at the beginning of the conversation. I edited the interview for reasons of space and clarity and to add the character of a testimony, while maintaining the fluency of the speech.

Online advertising in digital generalists daily newspapers in Cape Verde and Angola

Carlos Cabral, Stover Ezequias, Jorge Verissimo — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This article is a comparative study of online advertising on the homepages of Cape Verde and Angolan generalist newspapers. Specifically, it aimed to understand the dynamics, the types of formats present on the homepages of the newspapers analyzed, how they are organized, the types of interactivity they provide to users, and the frequency levels of each format appearing in the studied newspapers. Empirical evidence suggests that the potential of the Internet as an interactive platform for advertising is scarcely explored by Cape Verde and Angolan advertisers. The ads are static, reactive, and non-interactive, and the level of interactivity that the formats provide to the online community is low. There is a predominance of traditional online advertising formats. Additionally, although more online advertising formats were identified in Angolan newspapers in terms of quantity, in Cape Verde, there is more diversity and specificity in terms of format production. It is imperative and urgent to invest in available market technologies and well-prepared professionals endowed with creativity, to produce large-scale online advertising formats, taking advantage of all the potentialities of the Internet, providing a greater degree of interactivity, dynamism, and engagement with the targeted audience and online ads.

The Intimacy Factor

Catarina Saruga, Alexandre Duarte — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

In an era where traditional advertising loses credibility, individuals seek to know what their favorite media personas are experiencing. Parasocial relationships thrive in this digital landscape, fostering connections without physical proximity. This phenomenon is notably evident in podcasting, where audiences forge intimate connections with hosts. Having realized this, everyday more marketeers are now choosing this medium to advertise their brands throughout. The influence that parasocial relationships have on podcast ads is a complex interplay where fostering connections and potential consumer manipulation meet. Understanding how and why individuals trust podcast hosts when it comes to their consumer behavior is an advantage point to any brand.