{"title":"“欢迎来到纯食品之城”:追溯Postum谷物公司宣传出版物中的健康话语,1920-1925","authors":"L. O’Hagan","doi":"10.1108/jhrm-09-2022-0024","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nPurpose\nThis paper aims to investigate three promotional publications produced by the Postum Cereal Company – A Trip Through Postumville (1920), How I Make Postum (1924) and The Wonderful Lunch Boxes (1925) – with the aim of understanding how language and other semiotic resources are used to promote its products as good and healthy choices.\n\n\nDesign/methodology/approach\nThe three publications were collected from the HathiTrust Digital Library and University of South Florida Tampa Special Collections. They were subjected to multimodal critical discourse analysis to tease out their subtle characteristics and how a combination of language, image, colour, typography and composition are used to represent certain ideas and values related to health and well-being.\n\n\nFindings\nThe publications subscribe to three distinct genres – “inside the factory”, “friendly spokesperson” and “fictional world” – each of which are aimed at different target audiences. The first seeks to promote Postum as an open and transparent company; the second to promote Postum as a company that cares about its consumers; and the third to promote the health benefits of Postum in a fun and accessible manner. Nonetheless, they are united in their overall objective to link the regular consumption of Postum as essential for good health.\n\n\nOriginality/value\nTo date, few studies have been conducted on the Postum Cereal Company, while the limited research conducted on promotional publications has tended to overlook discourses of health and well-being. The three genres outlined in this study, thus, have the potential to foster a reappraisal of promotional publications and showcase their ability to offer new understandings on historical approaches to marketing, particularly the link with health and science.\n","PeriodicalId":44447,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Research in Marketing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"“Welcome to pure food city”: tracing discourses of health in the promotional publications of the Postum Cereal Company, 1920-1925\",\"authors\":\"L. O’Hagan\",\"doi\":\"10.1108/jhrm-09-2022-0024\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"\\nPurpose\\nThis paper aims to investigate three promotional publications produced by the Postum Cereal Company – A Trip Through Postumville (1920), How I Make Postum (1924) and The Wonderful Lunch Boxes (1925) – with the aim of understanding how language and other semiotic resources are used to promote its products as good and healthy choices.\\n\\n\\nDesign/methodology/approach\\nThe three publications were collected from the HathiTrust Digital Library and University of South Florida Tampa Special Collections. They were subjected to multimodal critical discourse analysis to tease out their subtle characteristics and how a combination of language, image, colour, typography and composition are used to represent certain ideas and values related to health and well-being.\\n\\n\\nFindings\\nThe publications subscribe to three distinct genres – “inside the factory”, “friendly spokesperson” and “fictional world” – each of which are aimed at different target audiences. The first seeks to promote Postum as an open and transparent company; the second to promote Postum as a company that cares about its consumers; and the third to promote the health benefits of Postum in a fun and accessible manner. Nonetheless, they are united in their overall objective to link the regular consumption of Postum as essential for good health.\\n\\n\\nOriginality/value\\nTo date, few studies have been conducted on the Postum Cereal Company, while the limited research conducted on promotional publications has tended to overlook discourses of health and well-being. The three genres outlined in this study, thus, have the potential to foster a reappraisal of promotional publications and showcase their ability to offer new understandings on historical approaches to marketing, particularly the link with health and science.\\n\",\"PeriodicalId\":44447,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Historical Research in Marketing\",\"volume\":\" \",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.5000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-05-16\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Historical Research in Marketing\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1108/jhrm-09-2022-0024\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q4\",\"JCRName\":\"BUSINESS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Historical Research in Marketing","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/jhrm-09-2022-0024","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
“Welcome to pure food city”: tracing discourses of health in the promotional publications of the Postum Cereal Company, 1920-1925
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate three promotional publications produced by the Postum Cereal Company – A Trip Through Postumville (1920), How I Make Postum (1924) and The Wonderful Lunch Boxes (1925) – with the aim of understanding how language and other semiotic resources are used to promote its products as good and healthy choices.
Design/methodology/approach
The three publications were collected from the HathiTrust Digital Library and University of South Florida Tampa Special Collections. They were subjected to multimodal critical discourse analysis to tease out their subtle characteristics and how a combination of language, image, colour, typography and composition are used to represent certain ideas and values related to health and well-being.
Findings
The publications subscribe to three distinct genres – “inside the factory”, “friendly spokesperson” and “fictional world” – each of which are aimed at different target audiences. The first seeks to promote Postum as an open and transparent company; the second to promote Postum as a company that cares about its consumers; and the third to promote the health benefits of Postum in a fun and accessible manner. Nonetheless, they are united in their overall objective to link the regular consumption of Postum as essential for good health.
Originality/value
To date, few studies have been conducted on the Postum Cereal Company, while the limited research conducted on promotional publications has tended to overlook discourses of health and well-being. The three genres outlined in this study, thus, have the potential to foster a reappraisal of promotional publications and showcase their ability to offer new understandings on historical approaches to marketing, particularly the link with health and science.
期刊介绍:
Launched in 2009, Journal of Historical Research in Marketing is the only quarterly, peer-reviewed journal publishing high quality, original, academic research that focuses entirely on marketing history and the history of marketing thought. Pedagogical and historiographical / methodological essays are also welcome as long as they are grounded in a marketing and historical context. The essence of an historical perspective is a thorough, systematic, critical awareness of the changes (or continuity) in events over time and of the context in which change or continuity occurs. In addition to regular full length research articles, the Journal occasionally features material under the following sections. Explorations & Insights includes invited commentaries about marketing history and the history of marketing thought. These tend to be shorter (three to six thousand words) than the full articles that run in each issue. Sources of Historical Research in Marketing includes short essays introducing unexplored and novel archives and other primary historical resources, their contents and relevance to marketing history. Archivists or library professionals who believe their collections might be of interest to marketing historians are invited to submit essays to contribute to this section. JHRM also invites historical review essays that focus on historically important marketing books under the section Forgotten Classics. Examples of these historical reviews can be found in past issues of the Journal and those suggest an approach for potential submissions. Authors are advised to check with the editor about the suitability of a book title before submitting a Forgotten Classics review for consideration.