reading summary

C h a p t e r 18

GREG DICKINSON

SELLING DEMOCRACY

Consumer Culture and Citizenship in the Wake of

September 11

D I C I< I N S 6 N E X P L O R E S H O W A D V E R T I S I N G AT T E M P T S T O estab�

lish connections between two very different concepts: consumption and citizenship. He notes that in modern US culture there has been an historical link in public dis­

course between citizenship and consumerism, including advertising messages during

the Cold War that contrasted purported abundant American consumer choice with restrictive Communist societies.

Given the tragic and unique situation facing marketers, especially those in New York,

after September 11, he argues that ads for products after 9/11 "constituted, 11 or rhetorically created, a particular type of citizen: the citizen whose patriotic duty was to consume in a post-9/11 world. In this case, then, the "problem" that advertising

tried to solve was "do not let the terrorists win, 11 and the solution to defeating them was to reinvigorate consumption behavior. Ads went through different stages in this .post-9/11 linkage, going from the commemorative to the philanthropic to

finally blatantly associating themes of security and safety-both sources of great anxiety at that time-to consumption. He concludes that equating citizenship with consumption, as these post-9/11 ads did, may undermine other forms of democratic

participation.

Right now we are all Americans. (Allianz Group advertiseme�t, September 16, 2001, p. 45)

As rhetoric is a mode of knowing, it must include some kind of aesthetic knowledge; as a practical art, it will be likely to include thi aesthetic·sense that registers how the world is both mundane· and sublime, a world of both economy and awe, technique and terror.

(Hariman, 1998, p. 16)

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On September 16, 2001, Kmart bought a full-page advertisement in the New York Ti in which the page is filled with an image of the United States Flag. At the bottom of page is an explanation: "Instructions for use: Remove from newspaper. Place in w dow. Embrace Freedom" (Kmart, 2001, p. B3). In small print, Kmart identm.. itself as the sponsor of the advertisement: "from the over 250,000 Kmart associa (Kmart, 2001, p. B3). Although the advertisement makes no direct mention of attacks of September 11, 2001, the image is clearly a response to the crisis. Appeari on Sunday immediately following the attacks, this advertisement serves as a nearly id example of the ways corporations responded to the material and symbolic attack on United States.

As a response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Kmart advertisem works precisely between the sublime and the mundane of which Hariman ( 1998) wr The attacks and the subsequent collapse of the World Trade Center were terrori and fearsome. The event was "sublime." Yet, as Hariman (1998) pointed out, practical arts of rhetoric and democratic governing work by weaving awe-inspi: · sublimity with the crafty i:ntelligence of the mundane and everyday. In its very banal (a newsprint flag taped to a window), the Kmart advertisement reweaves the sublic= into the practical, the everyday, and the mundane.

This advertisement does nQL do this work bv itself instead __ it · win the attack. This disco

ges ericans to enact their citizenship through consumption. A vertisers fa, particular difficulties in confronting the post-September 11 environment. Shopping the context of the life alteri:ng, mortal attack seemed a banal and selfish action. Se"· seemed i:n even worse taste. Television networks, for i:nstance, provided round­ clock coverage of the disaster uninterrupted by advertisements. At the same tin­ consumption was and is crucial to mai:ntai:ni:ng the health of-advertisers specifically the economy more generally, a point eventually acknowledged explicitly in b American and travel more campaigns. How corporations responded to the attacks crucial to not offending taste while keeping the dollars flowing.

In attacking the World Trade Center, the terrorists aimed their assault not simpl_ official U.S. interests (the attack on the Pentagon is more clearly an attack on the Uni States as a political entity), but directed their concerns at commercial globalizati Barber (1995) in his influential book McWorld vs.Jihad argues that a fundamental ch teristic of contemporary global culture is the conflict between the universalization Western capitalism (a capitalism that is identified most deeply with the United Sta Brennan, 1997) and the resistance to this universalization as grounded in race, ethnia and/ or religion. Transnational corporations-the protagonists of Mc World-serve reasonable target for the frustrations of the people struggling against the homoge · forces of Western capitalism (Barber, 1995; Baudot, 2001; Brennan, 1997; Callini 2001; Hardt & Negri, 2000; Ritzer, 1998).

In the first month after Se tember 11 , cor orate marketers used advertisements make two specific r etorica claims. rrst, they created identification between th ;;lves and America such that the hea of cor orations was con ruent with the h of the nation. Second, ey suggested that enacting consumption was a central mode enacting citizens ·p and patriotism. In this article, I outline the theory of constitu·· rhetoric, which serves as a theoretical framework for critical analysis of the adverfu. ments. I also trace the emergence of the citizen consumer i:n 19th and 20th cen discourse. Usi:ng these theoretical and historical frameworks, I then demonstrate

SELLING DEMOCRACY 297

the advertisements under analysis (re)constitute the audience as c1tJzen consumers, showing how the advertisements proffer consumption as a primary means foi: respond­ ing to the attack� of September 11 .

Constituting the Citizen Consumer

The traditional view of the relation between rhetoric and audience suggests that audi­ ences and rhetors exist prior to the rhetorical act (Charland, 1987). These audiences are more or less conscious of their position as audiences and, as such, make rational, conscious decisions about the arguments the rhetor makes. The rhetor, like the audi­ ence, is also conscious of her /his position as rhetor and strategically constructs argu­ ments designed to appeal to the audience. Aristotle's (1991) definition of rhetoric as the "ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion" (p. 36) encodes this rationalistic form of rhetoric.

Rhetorical and critical theory in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries finds this conceptualization of the rhetoric/ audience relationship unsatisfactory. Perhaps most prominent in shifting this rhetoric/audience relationship is Burke's (1969) move to include identification as a crucial term in rhetorical theory. In the Rhetoric ef Motives, Burke ( 1969) argues that persuasion underestimates the ways rhetoric functions, often at an unconscious level, to create identification or connections between individuals. Rhetoric as identification functions far more globally than does rhetoric as persuasion and often does the prior work of creating the groups to which persuasive messages can then be directed.

Charland (1987) in his germinal essay "Constitutive Rhetoric" takes up Burke's notion of identification and the emphasis on rhetoric's ability to create audiences. "Theories of rhetoric as p_yrsuasion," Charland writes, "cannot account for the audi­ ences that rhetoric addresses" (p. 134). Charland argues that becoming a subject (i.e., an audience member) is to take up a position in the discourse. This "taking up" is not, however, entirely or even mostly voluntary. When individuals enter a rhetorical situ­ ation and acknowledge or recognize the rhetorical address, they become the audience member the text calls forth. However, as Charland points out, this hailing is not a one-time action, but is constantly repeated. "This rhetoric of identification is ongoing, not restricted to one hailing, but usually part of a rhetoric of socialization. Thus, one must already be part of the audience of a rhetorical situation in which persuasion could occur" (p. 138). Each rhetorical act draws on preexisting discursive positions and, in addressing the audience, recreates those positions. Rhetoric as constitutive both creates and recreates the audience itself. The rhetoric of post-September 11 advertisements demonstrates that the constitution of the audience of the citizen-consumer is processual and ongoing. Drawing on pre-September 11 images of the citizen consumer, the advert­ isements immediately following the attacks work to reconstitute Americans as citizen­ consumers. Tracing the pre-September 11 history of the constitution of the citizen consumer becomes crucial to understanding the post-September 11 reaction.

Citizen Consumers

Over the last 125 years, consumer culture has become a crucial way for individuals to enact their public citizenship in Europe and the United States. By the 1880s a robust

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298 GREG DICKINSON

consumer sphere vied with the public sphere as a site of public and civic action (de Grazia, 1996). The development of consumer culture represented a deep break with earl' orms of ca italism as economic activi shifted from production-in the home and i12__:>mall�hops-50 the consumption of mass-produced goods (Altman: 1990). Mass media texts urging consumption (Marchand, 1985; Pumphrey, 1987) encouraged this shift. Altman (1990), for example, explores the Better Homes in America campaign that was intimately linked with the women's general interest magazine The Delineator. The magazine collaborated with Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover to urge both homeownership and consumption of newly created, mass-produced house­ hold goods like washing machines. The discourse of the Better Homes in America campaign combined consumption and patriotism in powerfully persuasive ways. Altman (1990) noted, for example, an advertisement for Western Lumber Company quoting Herbert Hoover as asserting that the family and the family home are central to civilizations. This advertisement draws together the discourses of consumption with the authority of government discourse to persuasively connect consumption and civic engagement.

In this way, advertisers used political language as one means of understanding and justifying consumption. During the Depression, advertisers turned to the language of politics to legitimate their own activities and to describe products and consumers (McGovern, 1998). This language of politics sought to turn consumption into a politiC<)l practice, equating consumer choice with voting, freedom, and the exercise of civic responsibility. As McGovern (1998) writes, "in metaphors equating consumers with citizens and purchasing with voting, admen portrayed consumption as the true exercise of the individual's civic role and public identity; consumption as the ritual means of affirming one's nationality as an American" (p. 42). B the end of the De ression, advertisin succeeded in securin two crucial and interre ed connections: rs that

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consum tion serves as a central mode of citizenshi that being a good <2!1sumer and a good American are 6rndamentaUy cauuec�d.

Not only did advertisers and marketers connect consumption and citizenship, the government officials increasingly looked to consumerism as an important form of enfranchisement. The state supported consumerism through policymaking that created a post-World War I "world where mass consumption not only shaped the economy, but also altered the political realm, becoming a new vehicle for delivering the traditional American promises of democracy and egalitarianism" (Cohen, 1998, p. 111 ). As Cohen (1998) argues, many New Dealers saw empowerment of consumers as one way of enhancing civic roles of common people while at the same time maintaining free enterprise. Official Washington language began to equate democracy and American nationalism with consumer goods and consumer possibilities (Lipsitz, 1998, p. 142). By the 1950s connecting consumption to democracy shifted under the weight of the cold war. Consumer capitalism offered the means of creating an egalitarian society and, thus, became a way to ''beat the Soviets at their own game of creating a classless society" (Cohen, 2003, p. 125). President Eisenhower asserted that consumer capitalism could help win the cold war, declaring "war upon [the Soviet Union] in the peaceful field of trade" (cited in Cohen, 2003, p. 127).

This discourse connecting consumer choice to democratic freedom remained robust in the 1990s and the new century before the attacks of September 11, 2001. As Barber (1995) writes,

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SELLING DEMOCRACY 299

Political agnostics, they [capitalistic markets] nonetheless borrow and warp political ideas and political terms. . . . Brand choice and, within brands, item choice (Crest Blue and Crest Regular), have been widely taken to constitute the essence of freedom in market societies and have even been sold to "new democracies" as such.

(p. 72)

This language of consumer/ democratic choice remains coherent prior to the September 11 attacks. For example on September 13, 2000, just less than a year before the attacks on the World Trade Center, LG (2000) advertised a new wireless service that is "dedicated to life, liberty & the pursuit of joy'' (p. A 14). Taking on the language of the Declaration of Independence, the advertisement suggests that using a cellular phone can serve as at least one mode for practicing the fundamental rights inherent in citizenship. A similar argument is offered in a full-page Dell (2000) computer adver­ tisement published the following Sunday. The advertisement reads: "Free speech, free press, free DVD. [Only in America]" (p. Y 9). W hat should be clear, then, is that consumption and the language of citizenship have become intertwined over the last 150 years.

The Constitutin9 Text

McGee ( 1990) argues that in postmodernity texts are fragmentary. The critic must construct a meaningful text out of the nearly limitless fragments available. In construct­ ing the "text" for this critical analysis. I investigated every advertisement published in the New York Times for the 3 months immediately following the attacks of September 11. 2001. 1 The New York Times was particularly important for the ways it simultaneously served New Yorkers and a national readership as one of three "large, nationally influen­ tial newspapers" (Dennis et al., 1992, p. 59). 2 The New York Times served then as an ideal site for companies to address local, national, and even international audiences in the days following the attacks.

From this group of advertisements, I selected ones that in visual or verbal content addressed or responded to the attacks, 246 fulfilled the criteria for analysis. Of these 246 advertisements, nearly half (n = 122) were full-page advertisements and of these full-page advertisements, just over half (n = 64) were placed in the first section (section A) of the paper. 3 The number and prominence of the advertisements suggest their importance to the corporate advertisers placing them and the perceived visibility the advertisements would have to readers. In comparing the selected advert­ isements to advertisements from the same time the previous year it became clear that themes developed in the post-September 11 advertisements were unique even as they drew on the visual and verbal themes of consumer citizenship. The advertisements I have selected, taken together, make a rhetorically compelling image of the citizen consumer, an image that, as suggested in the conclusion, is found other textual fragments, in particular fragments of the political rhetoric in the immediate post­ September 11 moment. 4 Constructing a "text" out of these advertisements allows insight into the ways this particular discourse strives to settle identity in an unsettled moment.

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Nationalizing Consumption

In the month after September 11 , corporations used advertisements to create identifica­ tion between themselves and Americans and, using this identification, urged Americans to see consumption as powerful means for enacting patriotism in a post-September 11 world. Crucial in making these arguments was their order. The advertisements began by creating identification between corporations and the nation. In creating this identifica­ tion, corporations came to look like citizens. The advertisements began to connect consumption to patriotism-and thus citizenship-by urging consumers to give gener­ ously to relief efforts. Urging charitable contributions served as a rhetorical link to asserting consumption as a crucial practice in support of the nation. This final move most fully recreates the audience as citizen consumers.

The Corporation as Citizen

The first response by advertisers to September 11 appeared on September 12. These first advertisements set the tone visually and verbally for the ways companies would initially respond to tragedy. Although there are a number of design characteristics common to many of these early advertisements (e.g., they express sympathy and sup­ port for the families and friends of the victims, they emphasize the logos and names of the companies buying the advertisements, they are very visually simple) what is essen­ tial for this argument is the way the advertisements nationalize companies by identifying them with the United States.

A small advertisement for Best Buy (2001) coalesces many of the rhetorical strat­ egies typical of advertisements run immediately following September 11 . "As you weep, we weep/ As you pray, we pray/ As you endure/ we will endure" (p. B14). Visually the advertisement is very simple, just elegantly typed verse surrounded by white space and centered over a small Best Buy logo. Taking this advertisement as representative I explore its rhetorical workings and then begin to think about the differences encoded in some of its companion advertisements.

Perhaps most striking about this advertisement is that it does not advertise any particular product or service. In one sense, this absence is not conspicuous. Indeed, if the advertisement had at once addressed the tragedy and explicitly tried to sell DVD players, the company would have been subject to accusations of poor taste. Every advertisement that addressed September 11 in the first 4 days after the tragedy made the choice to focus on the tragedy, not selling. This choice signals a crucial distinction between these advertisements and those before September 11 that use patriotic lan­ guage. In advertisements placed before the attacks, patriotic language would be directly connected to purchasing a particular product or service (as in the advertisements for LG wireless services and Dell computers). After September 11, the advertisements eliminated direct selling, focusing exclusively on creating a comforting identification among corporation, audience, and nation.

In the Best Buy (2001) advertisement, identification is created through the use of the pronouns "you" and "we." "As you weep, we weep [italics added)" (p. B14). "You" always includes an individual addressed, but it can either suggest a single individual or a collectively addressed group. Both seem to be at work here. Because this advertisement appears in the New York Times, there is a real sense in which the you is the individual

reader. At the people will read tragedy is not ii context of a trag the collective of

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reader. At the same time, within both the context of mass media where numerous people will read the same newspaper and the same advertisements and in which the tragedy is not individual but collective, you is also collective. Within the rhetorical context of a tragedy that is being named as an attack on America, you is not only read as the collective of New York Times readers but as individual Americans.

The "we" in the advertisement allows Best Buy to take on an identity that is not limited to selling television sets. Instead, this company is personified: It weeps and prays just as does the individual reader and Americans as a whole. Thus, whereas the we/you language works as division between audience and rhetor, our common weeping and the nra creates a more fundamental 1dentincation that ts, m Burke's (1969) worJ;', compensatory to division. In ·s way, es uy ecomes as American as you. ·s personalizing and nationalizing of the company is cemented in the final two lines of the verse: "As you endure/ we will endure" (Best Buy, 2001, p. B 14). The advertisement equates the endurance of Americans and America with the company, as Best Buy' s future becomes a si� of the enduring of the country.

This Best Buy advertisement typifies advertisements from this early post­ September 11 period. Use of "we," "us," and "you," the expression of sorrow and sympathy; the creation of the relationship among organization, employees, and citizens runs across nearly all the advertisements of these first three days (see, for example, ABC Carpet and Horne, 2001; Bailey Banks and Biddle, 2001; Cartier, 2001; ExxonMobil, 2001; Kreis Collection, 2001; Macy's, 2001; Tiffany and Company, 2001a; Verizon Wireless, 2001a: Vitamin Shoppe, 2001). Each of these advertisements assiduously avoids selling any product or service, yet each asserts connections to the audience and the nation. As a group, these advertisements provide the language for beginning to think about the relationship between corporate organizations, the tragedy, and the nation.

This nationalization of brands is more visually explicit in another set of advertise­ ments that adds a visual element beyond the white space, type, and logo thematic explored above. The Saks Fifth Avenue advertisement of September 13 is the first to make connections among brand, flag, and September 11. In this small advertisement, a waving U.S. flag is captioned "with sadness" (Saks Fifth Avenue, 2001, p. B3). The Saks logo appears in the bottom third of the advertisement. This advertisement resembles previous Saks advertisements that had run for some time in the New York Times but in place of jewelry or clothing waves the flag. By using the flag, Saks eliminates any arnbiguit found in the Best Buy advertisement, o enl connectin brand and national identity. The advertisement creates a secon rhetorical effect, one that becomes much

,E10re explicit in the days to come. This effect entails the commodification of the flag and, thus, the comrnodification ;;rthe signs of national identitX. The flag is placed in the exact spot in the advertisement usually reserved for the product for sale, which portrays the flag as commodity and suggests that buying the flag may be a way of enacting one's national identity. Just as importantly, it implies that selling the flag is an appropriate way of being a good corporate and national citizen. Saks becomes a purveyor of the sig.ns of n ationalism and in so doing takes on the mantle of national identity. Perhaps the most obvious example of this use of the flag· as nationalizing move is the full-page advertisement run by Kmart discussed above. Kmart provides the mode by which the practice of freedom is possible. And, just in case the reader has forgotten how the flag really looks, the advertisement's fine print that reads "this side up," reminds us which side is up. Saks Fifth Avenue and Kmart are only two of the many corporations that use the U.S. flag in their advertisements (see, for example, Brown Harris Stevens, 2001;

302 GREG DICKINSON

Carlyle, 2001; Classic Sofa, 2001; Cushman and Wakefield, 2001; Garden State Volvo, 2001; Lord and Taylor, 2001; Manhattan Auto Group, 2001; Mercedes-Benz Green­ wich, 2001; New York Times Company, 2001; Paul Miller Family, 2001; Staples, 2001).

A final thematic is ubiquitous in the first 4 publishing days after September 1 l . Financial companies, many of which had offices in the World Trade Center towers, produced advertisements designed to reassure clients that the companies are still able to manage client resources. The first of these, an advertisement by Morgan Stanley, appeared on September 13. It is a full-page advertisement, which, although bigger than the Best Buy advertisement, draws on the same visual resources. It is composed of simple type centered in white space. However, rather than being a poetic attempt to express condolences, it is an open letter from the chair of Morgan Stanley, Philip J. Purcell. The advertisement begins with a statement of condolences for those lost and proclaims the victims innocent and part of what will be "one of the most tragic events in American history" (Morgan Stanley, 2001, p. B3). The advertisement strives to restore client confidence in the financial institutions that anchor New York. After expressing sorrow for the events, the advertisement states:

Thanks to our network of over 60,000 people throughout the world, including those in New York City, our assets and all of our clients' assets are completely safe. And we are ready to begin again as soon as the markets reopen.

We are a company built on strength. Strength of resources. But even more important, strength of character.

We are a company that will never forget the extraordinary value of human life.

(Morgan Stanley, 2001, p. B3)

This is the first post-September 11 advertisement to directly address the tragedy in a way that connects the attacks and business interests. Financial companies bore the brunt of the attack because they formed a significant number of the tenants in the World Trade Center towers. The attack struck the center of globalized financial networks. ·W ithin this context, globalized financial companies had a particular burden in respond­ ing. The attack raised questions about the security of the global financial networks as

· well as the security of individual accounts. This advertisement directly addressed these concerns. The advertisement prorn:ises

reassurance that no financial resources have been lost, andthat more money �e made soon. In short, the attackers, in spite of their spectacular momentary success, will enjoy no long-term success in disablin the global system they have attacked. Su ort­ in mvestmg m, committin to Mor an Stan ey is a way o resistin e attacks. Again, the themes of the Morgan Stanley advertisement are not i ·osyncratic, but instead run across numerous advertisements in these first 4 days (American Express, 2001; Insignia, 2001; JP Morgan Chase, 2001; Macy's, 2001; Merrill Lynch, 2001; Target/Mervyn's/ Marshall Field's, 2001). We see 4 days after the attacks the first attempts to reconnect corporate culture with patriotism and, through patriotism, citizenship. This connection between the corporation and citizenship lays the rhetorical groundwork for identifying consumption with civic duty, a connection that was strengthened in the following days.

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Citizenship as Charitable Givin9

Having worked to nationalize themselves, corporations then turned to the work of getting individuals back to buying. Appeals to charitable giving linked the early national­ izing advertisements and later advertisements that promoted consumption. The first of these advertisements was run by the New York Times Company. In this advertisement the company announced the opening of a new fund the 9 I 11 Neediest Fund (New York Times Company, 2001). Other corporations quickly took up charity as a way of responding to the crisis. On September 16, Sears ran an advertisement urging support of the American Red Cross through donations of money and blood. Money could be donated at any Sears store or through the Sears Web site. Further, Sears (2001) itself "donated $1 million in immediate support of relief efforts" (p. 41). Two pages later appeared an advertisement run by The Home Depot (2001).

At The Home Depot, we want to take back something we said. Recently, we've been suggesting that you bring your tax rebate to

The Home Depot and spend it with us. In light of last Tuesday's tragic events, we want to take that suggestion back and make another one.

Bring your 2001 tax rebate, and even more if you can, to The Home Depot and donate it to the United Way's September 11th Fund to aid families affected by the terrorist attacks ....

We can get back to building our own house soon enough. Right now it's time to help our neighbors.

(p. 43)

This advertisement directly addresses the ways consumption and the tragedy go together. The advertisement suggests that this is the wrong time to spend money on oneself. Instead, the money ought be donated to survivors and victims. This sentiment expresses the difficulties advertisers faced as they hoped to return customers to buying. W hile the advertisement urged individuals to not buy goods in the store, it also strove to create goodwill for the The Home Depot in hopes that consumers would return to buy later. Advertisements by GM and Staples on September 16th, Verizon and Fleet on the 17th, Bank of America on the 18th, and AOL Time Warner on the 19th promote these themes. In each case, the advertisements urge donations to particular private, non-profit corporations and, in some cases like that of Sears, trumpet their own donations to the relief (AOL Time Warner, 2001; Bank of America, 2001; Fleet, 2001; GM, 2001a; Staples, 2001; Verizon W ireless, 2001 b).

On the 19th, however, a new variation appeared that linked consumption and civic responsibility. For the first time, consumer practices are asserted as one way of respond­ ing appropriately to the tragedy. Morrell and Company sponsored an advertisement promoting a charity wine auction to be held on December 8, 2001. W ineries, wine growers, wine shippers, and private parties were urged to donate wines for the auction, the proceeds of which were designated for the New York Police and Fire W idows and Children's Benefit Fund. Donating and buying wines in the auction served as a "direct" response to September 11 (Morrell and Company, 2001). On the 20th this move to connect consumption to citizenship was taken one step further, as retailer David Yurman (2001) advertised that 15% of sales would be donated to the Silver Shield Foundation.

Seven days after the attacks, consumers are offered the possibility of responding to the tragedy through consumption. Indeed, the logic suggests that consumers ought to

304 GREG DICKINSON

spend as much as possible because spending more leads to greater donations. Similarly, East Harbor Chinese and Japanese Restaurant promised to donate the proceeds of 3 days of business and Stuart and Frankle, a brokerage firm, planned to donate all the commissions earned in a single day to the New York Times 9111 Neediest Fund (East Harbor Chinese and Japanese Restaurant, 2001; Stuart and Frankle, 2001 ). These advertisements, then, begin to link consumption with citizenship through the inter­ mediary of charitable giving.

Citizenship as Consumption

Advertising the donation of proceeds or portions of proceeds to various charitable organizations directly connected consumption with citizenship without the intermedi­ ary of charitable deeds. Ford entered this new territory first, with a full-page adver­ tisement published September 22. "Ford Drives America" reads the headline (Ford, 2001, p. A26). "In light of these challenging times, we at Ford want to do our part to help move America forward" (Ford, 2001, p. A26). The very next day, GM unveiled a print advertising campaign that explicitly worked the relationship between consump­ tion and citizenship. An advertisement headlined "Keep America Rolling" argued that buying and selling cars was crucial to the new, post-September 11 world.

On September 11, the world as we knew it came to an end. We sat glued to our televisions, watching events unfold that shook us

to our very core. And suddenly, the little things that had previously divided us seemed wholly insignificant.

Now it's time to move forward. For years, the auto industry has played a crucial role in our economy. General Motors takes that responsi­ bility seriously.

We think it's important to keep workers working, and for the econ­ omy to keep rolling along. It won't be easy. But nothing important ever is.

(GM, 2001b, p. A47)

This advertisement identifies GM as an American company, intimately linking the fate of the company with the fate of the country. It starts the identification as many other advertisements do with liberal use of the first person plural ("the world as we knew it," "We sat glued to our televisions [italics added]," "the little things that had previously divided us").

Second, the advertisement identifies the automobile industry as "crucial" to the U.S. economy. This central role creates a responsibility that GM "takes seriously." The profit motive central to GM becomes a "serious" matter in maintaining U.S. interests. The interests of GM and the interests of the nation are now one and the same. GM identifies itself not only with the nation but also with the consumer and constitutes the reader of the advertisement as a consumer-citizen. The last paragraph of the advertise­ ment reads: "This may very well be the most serious crisis our nation has ever faced. In this time of terrible adversity, let's stand together. And keep America rolling" (2001 b, p. A47). As GM and consumers-both central citizens of the United States-face this crisis, they can do so by doing what they have always done: building and buying cars, and in so doing, keeping America "rolling."

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SELLING DEMOCRACY 305

This emphasis on consumption as civic action in advertisements is reinforced in the style section of the Sunday New York Times 10 days after the attacks. In a three-quarter­ page layout, the paper displays eight products that demonstrate patriotism and good taste, most of which utilize the flag or stars as a prominent design feature. Ellen Tien (2001), designer of the page, justifies the display this way:

The recovery effort must include shopping, Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani has been telling New Yorkers. Spend money to support local business. Even before he issued his plea, retailers were scrambling for products to be sold in cooperation with relief groups. Manufacturers and retailers of the items featured here have pledged to donate a portion of the sales to rescue workers and families of victims of the World Trade Center disaster. Which means the civic-minded can now buy a little guilt-free pleasure.

(p. ST3)

This layout brings together all the themes in making consumption a civic action. Buying and wearing images of the flag became one way of being patriotic. This patriotism is enhanced by the fact that a portion of the proceeds from the purchases is donated to relief efforts. Buying a star-encrusted dog collar then allows the consumer to enact, display, and perform civic duty. As the dog wears the collar, the owner declares her/his patriotism while financially supporting the victims of the tragedy. The "civic-minded" can have pleasure, style, and civility all in one simple purchase. Not surprisingly, immediately below this display is a Tiffany advertisement displaying a U.S. flag made of jewels and precious stones (Tiffany, 2001 b).

It is crucial to recognize the interpenetration of editorial, political, and advertising content of this layout. The page functions as an unpaid advertisement for the products displayed. A New York Times journalist chose the products and justified the display by repeating Giuliani's assertion that New York City residents ought to return to con­ sumption. In the face of one of the most costly attacks on the U.S. in history, citizenship has been equated with consumer action.

As Charland (1987) argues, subject positions are never finalized and fully secured. Under the pressures of particular historical moments, subjectivities are open to change or are in need of resecuring. The attacks of September 11 raised the chaos of life to a flash point, reminding U.S. Americans that the nation's borders were not as secure as desired and that an accepted way of life was more fragile than imagined. Into this chaos, advertisements proffered a stabilizing and familiar position of citizen consumer, a pos­ ition that allowed individuals to return to business as usual, not so much as a way of ignoring or covering over the tragedy but as a directly effective response to the threat the terrorists posed. The purpose of these advertisements, then, is not directly logical or even persuasive. They are less concerned with selling particular products and more concerned with creating particular subject positions and articulating one way of stabil­ izing daily living within the chaos of life (Whitson & Poulakos, 1993).

The contemporary corporation was primed to proffer these responses. As the historical overview above suggests, consumption and citizenship were already deeply linked. What is more, contemporary research by business and organization scholars asserts that creating an image of an organization through storytelling and careful image management creates value for the organization. Contemporary business and organiza­ tion scholars write explicitly about these images as aesthetic (Mouritsen, 2000) and

306 GREG DICKINSON

designed to create identification among the organization and its various "stakeholders" (Albert & W hetten, 1985; Dowling, 2001; Larsen, 2000). Mouritsen (2000) argues that the expressive corporation creates intellectual capital that

is grounded in a form of aesthetic reflexivity, where the conventionally coherent grand scheme of organizational development is supplanted by the localized, step-by-step "unmediated mediation" of the problems of the day. In other words, the grand cognitive scheme of planned strategy is replaced by localized small schemes of empowerment.

(pp. 224---225)

The advertisements investigated here are precisely about the aesthetic creation of iden­ tification among the organization, its employees, its customers, and the nation. Indeed it is striking how seldom the advertisements--especially in the first few days-work to sell any product or service. Instead, what is at stake in the advertisements is the relationship of the organization to the chaos and anxiety of the immediate post-attack days.

In the first month after September 11 , corporations used advertisements to make two specific rhetorical claims. They created identification between themselves and America, such that the health of the corporation was part of the health of the nation. Having created this identification, the advertisements turned to the (re)constitution of the audience as citizen consumers. In resecuring this subject position, advertisers argued that it was citizens' patriotic duty to return to the stores, the dealerships, and the airways. This connection was not just made, however, by the companies. The New York Times involved itself in this debate through its editorial content that emphasized patriotic fashion for sale.

"Get down to Disney World"

This construction of citizens as consumers was so profound and so thorough that it permeated rhetoric at the highest reaches of our public discourse. President George W Bush (2001a), speaking in Chicago, 15 days after the attacks, takes up this appeal for consumer citizenship. Standing between the CEOs of American Airlines and United Airlines (the companies whose planes were used for the attacks), Bush says, "I think it's interesting that on one side, we see American; on the other side it says United. Because that's what we are-America is united." The move from the company names to the patriotic claim is easy. The corporate names draw on the well of patriotism for their own rhetorical force, and did so long before the events of September 11 . Bush is drawing on the related legacy from the New Deal of connecting national and corporate interests.

But Bush goes further, arguing that flying in airplanes is a crucial way of standing against terrorism. "You stand against terror by flying the airplanes . ... We will not surrender our freedom to travel ... we will not surrender our freedoms in America," Bush (2001a) asserts. Bush, in this speech, associates our freedom to fly with funda­ mental U.S. freedoms, equivalent to freedom of speech, association, or religious prac­ tice. Yet, as Bush expands on this freedom he does not argue for the importance of travel in creating political or civic association, instead freedom to travel is most strongly associated with business and tourism . Bush (200 la) urges citizens to fly in order to "do

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your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed." Thus, Bush suggested that it is our patriotic duty to visit the great image of America and the great American image of the world, Disney World. And it is our duty to enjoy life with our families. In flying to Disney World, we will be standing up to terrorism, demonstrating that although the terrorists may think they have "struck our soul, [they] haven't touched it" (Bush, 2001a). The soul of citizenship, then, rests in doing business, buying cars, and visiting the happiest place on Earth. Nearly 2 months after the attacks, Bush again asserted that resistance to terrorism and the enactment of citizenship rested on these consumerist activities of buying and selling.

People are going about their daily lives, working and shopping and playing, worshiping at churches and synagogues and mosques, going to movies and to baseball games. Life in America is going forward-and as the 4th-grader who wrote me knew, that is the ultimate repudiation of terrorism.

(Bush, 2001b, p. 100)

Enjoying life, shopping, and playing, filling leisure time by visiting theme parks, buying jewel-studded flags and star-spangled dog accessories serve as the props for contempor­ ary citizenship and are the surest signs the terrorists have not won. This vision is an image of citizenship that U.S. corporations tried to sell in the month after the tragedy. And indeed, if these advertisements and the President are to be believed, back to the business of consumption is precisely back to the business of the nation. None of this image of citizenship as consumption should be particularly surprising. The trajectory of citizenship over the last 100 years leads us in a nearly direct line to a point where consumer capitalism serves as citizenship, where private rather than collective actions, decisions, and commitments are at the forefront of politics (Barber, 1995; Berlant, 1997).

Perhaps just as important are the ways the discourse of freedom and patriotism as consumption is paired with what Bullock (2003) called a political discourse of aggres­ sive law enforcement. At the very moment when George W Bush and corporate advertisers were urging a return to consumption, Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and other government officials were arguing for reinvigorated policing. Although the new emphasis on "law enforcement" endangers a set of civil liberties only recently won, these activities are justified as necessary for the preservation of the American way of life (Bullock, 2003). Placing the foregoing analysis of commercial discourse beside the political discourse of renewed policing suggests that the freedoms preserved include the freedom to buy and sell. In the baldest formulation, then, Ameri­ cans are asked to compromise or even substitute one set of freedoms (those we might call civil) for the assurance of another set (those we might call consumptive).

This choice of freedoms might make sense in a globalized world. As Held (1995) argues, we live in a world in which

international order is structured by agencies, organizations, associations and companies over which citizens have minimum, if any, control, and in regard to which they have little basis to signal ( dis)agreement; and . both routine and extraordinary decisions taken by representatives of

308 GREG DICKINSON

nations and nation-states profoundly affect not only their citizens but also the citizens of other nation-states.

(pp. 135-136)

In this globalized context, "democracy" is exceptionally difficult to define. Corpor­ ations, invested in this international, globalized order, recognize the desire of citizens to have some effective voice in the order. They proffer consumer choice as one mode of having democratic control, an offer seconded by governmental spokespeople including the president. Meanwhile, renewed and vigorous law enforcement within the U.S. and military incursions in foreign lands serve as securing counterbalances to the democratic choice offered by corporations.

These advertisements then work to constitute the audience and corporations as "citizen consumers" (Cohen, 1998, p. 111), and democratic choice as consumer choice. Marrying political activity with economic activity, the advertisements work hard to bolster the economy and generate consumer confidence not simply for the purpose of profit making, but instead as a fundamental civic duty. "Business as usual," the United Airlines advertisement reads. "Yesterday, a cliche. Today, a principle" (United, 2001, p. A25). As the advertisement makes clear, the business of buying and selling is about more than profits and losses. It is also about nationality, patriotism, and civic duty. The advertisements---combining the sublimity of the terror with the banality of ''business of usual"-create stability and order out of a world violently torn asunder. Constituting the audience as citizen consumers offers individuals shopping, flying, and visits to Disneyland as powerfully mundane modes of responding to the awfulness of the unleashed terror.

Questions

1 What are the two rhetorical claims that corporate marketers made in

their ads after 9/11?

2 What were common characteristics of ads in the New York Times

immediately after 9/11?

3 What key transitional role did philanthropy and charity play in early 9/11

ads?

4 What was the reason that President Bush gave for why people should

travel? What does the author argue could have been an alternative reason?

5 How have advertisements referenced other social crises ( like Hurricane

l<atrina or the Iraq War)?

Notes

1. Although I read advertisements for three months, it became clear that the crucial time period for corporations was the six weeks following the attacks. Thus all the advertisements I studied came from this period.

2. Although advertisers chose a range of outlets for their messages, my reading of the Los An9eles Times, Washin9ton Post, Rocky Mountain News, and Denver Post for this exact time period suggests that no newspaper was as important for corporations in communicating in an immediate and daily way to their audiences.

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SELLING DEMOCRACY 309

Another 44 advertisements were at least quarter page or larger. Thus over 166 of the 246 ( or about two-thirds) advertisements fill at least one-fourth of the total page. In an attempt to see what differences appeared in pre- and post-Septem ber 11, 2001, advertising. I investigated New York Times advertisements from September 11-October 11, 2000. Advertisements during this period that addressed politics and citizenship were primarily for political interest groups and addressed specifically political issues (see, Alliance for Better Campaigns, 2000: Campaign for America's Choice, 2000: People for the American Way, 2000: Save our Environment Coalition, 2000).

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