{"title":"被科学蒙蔽了双眼?二十世纪初维罗尔广告的真实性与权威性建构","authors":"L. O’Hagan","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2021.1983343","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper conducts a case study of the marketing of Virol – a malt extract preparation that was popular in early twentieth-century Britain – using advertisements from British newspapers. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it explores how marketers drew upon linguistic/semiotic resources to embed Virol in discourses of scientific knowledge and how these discourses were made to appear true. Through targeted marketing campaigns, Virol established consumer bases framed around three health concerns: malnutrition, constipation and anxiety. Using testimonies, buzzwords, photographs and infographics, Virol created an illusion of scientific rationality, yet the studies or authority figures behind their findings were never explicitly specified, leaving consumers to make assumptions about the product’s benefits using their own limited understandings. As women were the primary household shoppers, ‘scientific motherhood’ (and ‘wifehood’) was also drawn upon, producing a dichotomy that framed women as responsible for their families’ health, yet incapable of this responsibility without expert intervention.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"9","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Blinded by science? Constructing truth and authority in early twentieth-century Virol advertisements\",\"authors\":\"L. O’Hagan\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/2373518X.2021.1983343\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"ABSTRACT This paper conducts a case study of the marketing of Virol – a malt extract preparation that was popular in early twentieth-century Britain – using advertisements from British newspapers. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it explores how marketers drew upon linguistic/semiotic resources to embed Virol in discourses of scientific knowledge and how these discourses were made to appear true. Through targeted marketing campaigns, Virol established consumer bases framed around three health concerns: malnutrition, constipation and anxiety. Using testimonies, buzzwords, photographs and infographics, Virol created an illusion of scientific rationality, yet the studies or authority figures behind their findings were never explicitly specified, leaving consumers to make assumptions about the product’s benefits using their own limited understandings. As women were the primary household shoppers, ‘scientific motherhood’ (and ‘wifehood’) was also drawn upon, producing a dichotomy that framed women as responsible for their families’ health, yet incapable of this responsibility without expert intervention.\",\"PeriodicalId\":36537,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"History of Retailing and Consumption\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2021-05-04\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"9\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"History of Retailing and Consumption\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1983343\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"Arts and Humanities\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"History of Retailing and Consumption","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1983343","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
Blinded by science? Constructing truth and authority in early twentieth-century Virol advertisements
ABSTRACT This paper conducts a case study of the marketing of Virol – a malt extract preparation that was popular in early twentieth-century Britain – using advertisements from British newspapers. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it explores how marketers drew upon linguistic/semiotic resources to embed Virol in discourses of scientific knowledge and how these discourses were made to appear true. Through targeted marketing campaigns, Virol established consumer bases framed around three health concerns: malnutrition, constipation and anxiety. Using testimonies, buzzwords, photographs and infographics, Virol created an illusion of scientific rationality, yet the studies or authority figures behind their findings were never explicitly specified, leaving consumers to make assumptions about the product’s benefits using their own limited understandings. As women were the primary household shoppers, ‘scientific motherhood’ (and ‘wifehood’) was also drawn upon, producing a dichotomy that framed women as responsible for their families’ health, yet incapable of this responsibility without expert intervention.