Research Symposium

BIO

Julia Luetje is a freshman at Florida State University from Kansas City, Kansas. She is majoring in Sport Management with a minor in Communications or Hospitality. Julia is a Presidential Scholar and in the Honors Program. She is passionate about sports and social advocacy, particularly in using sports as a platform to promote equality and representation. She enjoys studying and exploring how culture and sport influence each other. After graduating early, Julia plans to get her masters in Sport Management, with the potential of going to law school afterwards. Ultimately, she hopes to build a career in the sports industry where she can contribute to positive change while expanding representation.

Analyzing Historical Commercial Postcards

Abstract

The research question for my project is “How did visual imagery shape the appeal and persuasiveness of historical commercial postcards?” Understanding the strategies companies used in these postcards provides insight into the effectiveness of postcards as advertisements and early 1900s lifestyles. Advertisements are seen all around the world in various forms of media from television to billboards to internet popups. Even though postcards are not a primary means of contemporary advertisement, they are important to study because they offer insights into the values of the time period and understanding the way that postcards are advertised can be extrapolated to modern advertisements. This research uses textual and visual analysis with an inductive coding scheme to analyze the companies’ persuasive strategies, including visual patterns, such as exaggeration, realism, and color, and textual patterns, such as humor, emphasis, and information. These observations are supported by literary research about historical visual rhetoric in advertising. As a result, this textual and visual analysis revealed how companies used attention-grabbing strategies to appeal to consumers, especially since these forms of advertising also serve as a form of communication amongst senders and recipients. Further studies could analyze more cards with a wider range of products as well as considering the cost and circulation of postcards. The implications are that while postcards can be used to share information amongst people, they can also be used as a form of advertising and their visual advertising strategies differ based on the product type.

Keywords: postcards, advertising, commercial