Advertisements, Hyper-Reading, and Fin de Siècle Consumer Culture in the Illustrated London News and the Graphic

This article investigates the aesthetics of advertisements in the Illustrated London News and the Graphic between 1885 and 1906, demonstrating how they fostered readers' active participation in a rapidly expanding mass culture. As dynamic interpretive environments, periodicals facilitated advertisers' strategic representations of popular culture, encouraging readers to conceive of themselves as consumers. However, the aesthetic characteristics of commercial and editorial contents not only mobilized advertiser strategies but also created opportunities for readers to respond with tactics such as hyper-reading, through which they could exert agency as curatorial and appropriative producers of culture.