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‘Keep calm, stay safe, and drink bubble tea’: Commodifying the crisis of Covid-19 in Singapore advertising

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Rebecca Lurie Starr Open the ORCID record for Rebecca Lurie Starr [Opens in a new window] ,
Christian Go Open the ORCID record for Christian Go [Opens in a new window]  and
Vincent Pak Open the ORCID record for Vincent Pak [Opens in a new window]
Rebecca Lurie Starr*
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Christian Go
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Vincent Pak
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
*
Address for correspondence: Rebecca Lurie Starr Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences National University of Singapore Block AS5, 7 Arts Link Singapore 117570 rstarr@nus.edu.sg
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Abstract

Advertisements employ multimodal configurations of semiotic resources in an effort to lead consumers to draw particular meanings from desired consumption behaviors. This analysis examines the deployment of such resources in advertising during the global Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on the Southeast Asian nation of Singapore. We identify five discourses that offer distinct framings of Covid-19 as a challenge for workers, a wellness issue, a threat to home and family, a challenge for women, and a threat to the Singapore lifestyle. Undergirded by neoliberal notions such as the productivity imperative, these discourses rationalize a range of consumer behaviors as necessary and justified in the struggle to defeat the virus. Advertisements are argued to place the burden of navigating the pandemic primarily on women via the evocation of power femininity. We propose a new framework, crisis commodification, as a means of understanding the ideological mechanisms at play in Covid-19 advertising. (Critical discourse analysis, crisis commodification, semiotic analysis, advertising, public health, Southeast Asia)*

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Article
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Language in Society , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 333 - 359
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

The authors thank Michelle Lazar, Andre Theng, Raymund Vitorio, Roey Gafter, and Mie Hiramoto for their comments and support. Portions of this project were presented at the Workshop on Gender and the Covid-19 Pandemic, hosted by the Gender and Sexuality Research Cluster at the National University of Singapore in November 2020; we thank the attendees for their helpful feedback.

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