Catalonia, the pioneer of advertising as an academic science in Spain

Abstract

The fundamental goal of our research was to demonstrate that it was in Catalonia that advertising was first given the status of academic science in Spain in the opening decades of the 20th century, based on the knowledge and advances of the most industrialized countries, especially the USA. Our findings confirm three main lines of the proposed hypotheses, namely: a) the secondary role played by Spain in worldwide advertising theory; b) the national interest in adapting advertising studies in Spanish curricula, above all according to the contributions of Catalan theorists; and c) the leading role of the written press as a platform for the dissemination of advertising.

KEYWORDS: advertising, mass communication, education, press, psychology.