ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the understanding of advertising as either persuasive or informative. It looks at the etymology of the word 'advertising', charting its development from the supposedly 'innocent' sense of informing, to the more suspicious and potentially morally questionable sense it has acquired of 'persuading' and 'influencing'. The chapter argues that the distinction between informing and persuading cannot be upheld in any simple form. It shows how the supposedly innocent sense of advertising as informing can never have existed apart from, indeed, has always been inhabited by, the supposedly reprehensible sense of advertising as persuasion. The chapter assesses the implications of this argument for the work of certain influential, if not canonical, texts on advertising. It draws out the implications of the debate for advertising in general, and cigarette advertising in particular.
