SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
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i$o I Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes<br />
The next important step in this regimentation of the referential function of<br />
language was the Supreme Court's ruling in 1976 in Virginia Stàie~~Éoard of<br />
Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. (425 U.S. 748) that<br />
purely commercial advertisements enjoy some degree of constitutional protection.<br />
This case involved the advertising of prescription drug prices. At issue are<br />
no cultural, political, or philosophical ideas, nor any "generalized observations<br />
about commercial matters." Rather, the only "idea" these ads communicate is<br />
the purely commercial "I will sell you the X prescription drug at the Y price."<br />
In justifying overturning the previous state decision, the Court stated clearly the<br />
principle that "society also may have a strong interest in the free flow of commercial<br />
information." The decision then continues to make explicit the grounds<br />
for this reification of information:<br />
Moreover, there is another consideration that suggests that no line between<br />
publicly "interesting" or "important" commercial advertising and the opposite<br />
kind could ever be drawn. Advertising, however tasteless and excessive it sometimes<br />
may seem, is nonetheless dissemination of information as to who is producing<br />
and selling what product, for what reason, and at what price. So long<br />
as we preserve a predominantly free enterprise economy, the allocation of our<br />
resources in large measure will be made through numerous private economic<br />
decisions. It is a matter of public interest that those decisions, in the aggregate,<br />
be intelligent and well informed. To this end, the free flow of commercial information<br />
is indispensable. And if it is indispensable to the proper allocation<br />
of resources in a free enterprise, it is also indispensable to the formation of<br />
intelligent opinions as to how that system ought to be regulated or altered.<br />
Therefore, even if the First Amendment were thought to be primarily an instrument<br />
to enlighten public decision making in a democracy, we could not say<br />
that the free flow of information does not serve that goal. (Virginia, 425 U.S.<br />
748 [1976] 765)<br />
So First Amendment protection and FTC regulations work together to ensure<br />
the free flow of information that can be useful to citizens in that<br />
quintessentially rational forum, the marketplace, for the purpose of making available<br />
to them a dominant embodiment of social value, namely, commodities. The<br />
Court in 1976 was actually legitimizing a widespread view of advertising's role<br />
in a consumer-oriented society, a view which signals the end of the caveat emptor<br />
tradition's recognition of the rhetorical nature of advertising. As the FTC's<br />
Commissioner stated as early as 1973:<br />
My view of advertising is of course strongly influenced by my view of business<br />
in general. Just as I think well of the man who has the skill, energy, and imagination<br />
to produce something needed and desired by his fellow human beings,<br />
so I also think well of the one who has the skill, energy, and imagination to<br />
sell it for him. If production is useful and honorable, then distribution—including<br />
advertising—is entitled to the same honorable place in our esteem. The<br />
purpose of advertising, as I understand it, is to provide information to potential<br />
The Semiotic Regimentation of Social Life I 151<br />
buyers—to tell consumers that a certain product exists, that it has certain properties,<br />
that it sells for a certain price, that it can be bought at certain times<br />
and places, and so forth. This information, in turn, has profound effects on<br />
the workings of our economic system. (Thompson 82 FTC 76 [1973])<br />
This understanding of advertising was condensed into a metapragmatic formula<br />
in 1980 when the Supreme Court wrote: "First Amendment's concern for commercial<br />
speech is based on the informational function of advertising" (Central<br />
Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 557). In<br />
fact, in drawing a contrast between protected speech and speech proposing a<br />
commercial transaction the Court reasoned that commercial speech was "more<br />
easily verifiable" than political commentary (Schmidt and Burns 1988:1288). In<br />
other words, constitutional protection extends to commercial speech to the degree<br />
that it is verifiably truthful. That corporations can now find First Amendment<br />
protection in their efforts at commercial persuasion is surely one sign of the<br />
dominance of corporate interests. But this has been interpreted, additionally, as<br />
marking the culmination of a lengthy trend toward the homologization of speech<br />
and commodities, whereby speech is conceived of as not merely about the flow<br />
of commercial goods but as itself an objectified value (Tushnet 1982).<br />
I have sketched the development of an institutionalized ideology of commercial<br />
speech which_CQntribjU£s_jojt^<br />
standardT of consumers and<br />
which channds me.praduction of ads themselves. IronicallyTmt predictably, these<br />
two effects operate in opposite directions: at the same time that consumers are<br />
taught to rely on the informational function of advertising, the ads produced in<br />
this regulatory atmosphere increasingly avoid factual claims of properties, price,<br />
and availability. Taking advantage of the general referential ideology and faced<br />
with new stringent requirements such as prior substantiation and affirmative disclosure,<br />
ad agencies turn tp persuasion based on visuaJjmager^ emotional ap ";<br />
r<br />
peal, testimonials of the ricrTand famous, life-style S3s, and other sophisticated/<br />
(and protected) forms of puffery (Schmidt and Burns 1988:1293). And the con- ,<br />
sumer, believing both that it is illegal to make false representations and that ads<br />
in general communicate useful information, is caught with weakened metaprag-^<br />
matic defenses based on "healthy skepticism" (Preston 1989:66) against these<br />
new forms of advertising. Nothing, then, could guarantee a better climate for<br />
advertising than the failure of regulation to touch puffery and almost all aspects<br />
of visual communication coupled with the social acceptance of the interpretive<br />
rule that advertising is informational.<br />
Several contemporary researchers have provided experimental documentation<br />
of the fact that consumers do interpret puff claims as if they were informational<br />
claims relevant to making consumption decisions. In a sense, of course,<br />
such empirical research is a redundant restating of the obvious, since if puffery<br />
is not widely successful in influencing consumer decision making it would have<br />
long ago ceased being part of the advertiser's rhetorical tool kit. In a study by