The Advertising Industry in Latin America

Abstract

In the great debate about ‘cultural imperialism’ in the 1970s and 1980s, the advertising industry was singled out as a key mechanism by which the economies and societies of the ‘Third World’ countries were seen to be dominated by the rich countries of North America and Europe. Yet, relative to critical research on the other international communication industries also held to exert such dominance, notably television and news, the advertising industry as such has since been rather neglected. The research presented in this article is based on material gathered by a collaborative team of researchers reporting on the recent state of play within the constellation of interests which make up the advertising industry in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile. The article thus provides a detailed empirical account of the modes in which the advertising industry now binds these leading nations of Latin America into both economic and cultural globalization.