Issues in Social Policy

This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of advertising regulation, with attention given to the history of regulation; the breadth of policy areas and options (self-regulation, government regulation, indirect policies); contemporary controversies (native advertising disclosure and data-mining privacy); and ongoing controversial advertising categories (alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, advertising to children, and political advertising) to highlight advertising’s contentious position in society—but also the challenges of attempting to govern this complex social institution. Throughout, the authors make the case for a “wide” approach to advertising policy. This approach goes against the long-established narrow regulatory paradigm that views advertising as merely having the economic function of communicating product information to rational, sovereign consumers.