A rhetorical study of in-flight real estate advertisements as a potential site of ethical transformation in Chinese cities

Real estate markets in Chinese cities are in transition. Advertising for new developments in these markets often reflects changing city aspirations and branding rather than environmental and social experience. This paper investigates real estate marketing as a site of potential ethical transformation of values related to new urban development. It uses Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical analysis as an approach to coding real estate representations from in-flight magazine advertisements as a means of capturing environmental and social viewpoints in China during 2008–2009. Both Chinese and foreign participants coded representations into four code modalities. These were based on anthropocentric – non-anthropocentric environmental orientations and nationalistic – universal social orientations. The results suggested that new developments in China are more likely to be understood as based on environmental resource use for continued national economic expansion rather than for a more sustainable world. Emerging patterns in coded representations have opened up the possibility of greater social choices that were however difficult to unambiguously decode from Chinese real estate advertising. From this it is concluded that it may take some time before real estate demand shifts in response to representations of Chinese eco-cities being promoted by Chinese policy makers in the 2000s.

► In-flight real estate advertisements are interpreted by Chinese and foreign readers.
► Rhetorical analysis finds a shift in readership patterns of interpretation.
► This shift suggests a possible change in ethical values of readers over time.
► Potential change in environmental ethics in real estate markets may not take place in near future.