Abstract
This chapter examines the ways in which advertising in the newly flourishing print media contributed to the creation of a new middle-class urban consumer culture in colonial Vietnam. It argues that advertising served to reinforce emerging ideas about individualism with a focus on the sale of products for the body. Thus, advertising contributed to a new kind of urban modernity, one marked by a break from the traditional collectivities that had defined Vietnamese society. At the same time, this new consumer culture helped create new urban societies that were defined along ethnic and national lines, and whose consumption patterns were at times shaped by such considerations.
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This is an oversimplification, as I do not wish to suggest that the 1920s or 1930s represented the triumph of individualism in Vietnamese society. While some literary figures, particularly within the Self-Strength Literary Movement, strongly advocated for individual self-determination, this met with more than a little resistance from those unready to accept what appeared to be a move toward social disintegration. For some literary insights into this debate, see Neil Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam (Berkeley and Los Angeles: UC Press, 1993), especially pp. 111–175.
References
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Đông-Pháp Thời-Báo [The Indochinese News], Saigon, 1923–1928 [DPTB].
Phong Hóa [Mores] Hanoi, 1932–1936 [PH].
Phụ Nữ Tân Văn [Women’s News] Saigon, 1929–1934 [PNTV].
La Tribune Indochinoise, Saigon, 1930–1933 [TI].
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Dutton, G. (2012). Advertising, Modernity, and Consumer Culture in Colonial Vietnam. In: Nguyen-Marshall, V., Drummond, L., Bélanger, D. (eds) The Reinvention of Distinction. ARI - Springer Asia Series, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2306-1_2
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