  Historians have regularly debated whether advertisements can be used as a
viable source to study the past. Their main concern centered on the question of
agency. Were advertisements a reflection of historical events and societal
debates, or were ad makers instrumental in shaping society and the ways people
interacted with consumer goods? Using techniques from econometrics (Granger
causality test) and complexity science (Adaptive Fractal Analysis), this paper
analyzes to what extent advertisements shaped or reflected society. We found
evidence that indicate a fundamental difference between the dynamic behavior of
word use in articles and advertisements published in a century of Dutch
newspapers. Articles exhibit persistent trends that are likely to be reflective
of communicative memory. Contrary to this, advertisements have a more irregular
behavior characterized by short bursts and fast decay, which, in part, mirrors
the dynamic through which advertisers introduced terms into public discourse.
On the issue of whether advertisements shaped or reflected society, we found
particular product types that seemed to be collectively driven by a causality
going from advertisements to articles. Generally, we found support for a
complex interaction pattern dubbed the consumption junction. Finally, we
discovered noteworthy patterns in terms of causality and long-range
dependencies for specific product groups. All in, this study shows how methods
from econometrics and complexity science can be applied to humanities data to
improve our understanding of complex cultural-historical phenomena such as the
role of advertising in society.
