back Framing Chinese Advertising: Some Industry Perspectives on the Production of Culture

industry, despite growing at an annual rate of 15%, is institutionally unstable. Standing at the intersection between cultural production and commodity production, advertising is shaped by its structural relationship with the media and corporate sectors, both of which are reined in by the socialist state despite the growing trend of infrastructural diversification within these sectors in recent years. In China where media are still state-owned, changing media policies have impacted upon advertising in a way unprecedented in world advertising history. A similar parasitic relationship holds true for advertising and the corporate sector. In May 2000 a new tax law, capping corporate advertising expenditure at 2 % of its annual gross revenue, predictably implicated the advertising industry in a heated debate over the crossover of regulatory jurisdiction. Justifiably, the uproar was targeted at the National Tax Bureau for its failure to consult this new policy with the official organ governing the advertising sector-- the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC). All this serves to illustrate the mutual dependence of the media, advertising and the corporate sectors on the one hand and the urgency of framing advertising research in the context of institutional studies on the other. Speaking of advertising as a cultural institution adept a