In the United States we like to think that globalization and the integration of national economies will gradually lead to the creation of a global public in which people everywhere come to think of themselves as sharing common goals, public goods, values, risks and benefits. But will this actually happen?
Consider the intimate connection between globalization and advertising, the flashy and glitzy herald of economic integration, in China’s cities and public spaces. Twelve years ago, in 1998, scholars of the Transnational China Project at the Baker Institute began to collect images of advertisements from China’s new subway systems. They found that even 20 years after the opening up of China to the outside world many commercial ads were still for the products of a planned economy: machine tools, economic development zones and state enterprise banking.
In 2010, however, our surveys of ads from China’s greatest cities – Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai – reveal an enormous change since 1998. Gucci. Prada. Citizen. Rolex. Lancome. Mercedes. Buick. Toyota. General Electric. Allianz. Sony. Continental Airlines. All of these multinational corporations – and rising Chinese and Asian companies with brand names most Americans do not yet recognize – fill the subway billboards in China’s cities with their memorable slogans and ingenious branding. They beckon to the hundreds of millions of middle class people in China to think of themselves, and to shop, and to spend, and to travel, as what can best be described as global “consumer citizens.” The inference: if the Chinese middle class buys what the middle class everywhere is buying, then it must also be part of a global middle class.
So is this a good thing? It is certainly good for the global economy, and directly beneficial for the shareholders of these multinational corporations. But does it help make a world where people may come to share common values and goals, and in doing so work together to solve problems facing all of us? Or does it present the image of a world where people see each other as nothing more than passerby in an enormous shopping mall?
Perhaps public service advertising (PSA) will help persuade people to make the world a better place. Many countries, including China and the U.S., have regulations requiring outdoor advertisers to reserve a certain number of postings for public service ads. For every 10 Toyota ads there should be one asking people to save energy. For every 10 Prada advertisements there should be one asking people to prevent the spread of H1N1. Unfortunately, Baker Institute studies of advertisements in Chinese cities, and also in Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore and Washington, D.C, reveal that PSAs may not be helping as much as we think.
Public spaces in many cities have public service ads, but our studies show that they ask people to chip in and participate in public affairs as either civic-conscious local citizens or as patriotic members of nations. Not global citizens. Beijingers are asked to “Make China Green.” Taipei asks its commuters to “Create a Safe City.” Washington, D.C. subway riders are told to “Keep American Beautiful.” And yet rare are the ads asking people to help out “For Humanity.”
Given this, we have to wonder if these more local public service ads, which are already more outnumbered by their commercial cousins, are drowned out by the siren song of global consumer citizenship. In such a heavily commercialized context, can the hundreds of millions of people traveling throughout the world’s great cities ever come to think of themselves as global citizens?
The Baker Institute has assembled a unique collection of expert scholars to share their research on various aspects of this issue, at a conference this coming Monday, Oct. 18. The all-day event, “Subway Culture and Advertising Culture,” is free and open to the public. Please RSVP on the Baker Institute website, which also has directions and information about parking.
Steven W. Lewis is the Baker Institute’s C.V. Starr Transnational China Fellow and faculty adviser for the Jesse Jones Leadership Center Summer in D.C. Policy Research Internship Program. He is also a professor in the practice and an associate director of the Chao Center for Asian Studies, as well as an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Sociology at Rice University.