For the past few decades researchers generated a stream of discussions over advertising and influence of culture on advertising design and delivery to the public (Üstüner and Holt, 2007; Borgerson and Schroeder, 2002; Kravets and Sadikci, 2014). Some argue that advertising is a tool used to create meanings, attitudes, and culture (Williamson, 1978), while others (Lin, 2001; Cheng and Schweitzer, 1996) contrast that culture and cultural values shape advertisements according to social needs and expectations. One way or another, advertising and culture continuously interact, create and employ cultural symbols to produce familiar concepts with the intention of selling products and services (Stern and Schroeder, 1994; Schroeder, 2005).
Advertising itself represents a world that is constructed through social processes.
One concern of consumer research is to examine the production of advertising in
90 order to understand socially accepted meanings (Jhally, 2014: 4; Malefyt and Moeran, 2003) and the designs, codes and symbols employed to produce those meanings (Hackley, 2002; Schroeder 2005; Sherry, 1987). Advertising generates knowledge but this knowledge is continuously produced from something previously recognised (Grier and Deshpandé, 2001). Williamson (1978: 99) adds that only if the new is already recognised as known can guarantee that what is newly created is truthful. In fact, Williamson refers this statement to the function of ideology, which he describes as:
“…constant re-production of ideas which are denied a historical beginning or end, which are used or referred to 'because' they 'already' exist in society, and continue to exist in society 'because' they are used and referred to.” (Williamson, 1978: 99)
It is also argued that advertising depends on the property of memory which in its turn creates so called “nostalgia” by implying cultural symbols, icons, images to push consumers’ intention to purchase (Kravets, 2012; Doane and Hodges, 2012;
Kessous, 2014; Visconti et al., 2013). Williamson (1978) suggests that scholars should be concerned not only with ‘what ads mean’ but also ‘how they mean it’. In this sense, Campelo et al (2011) argue that advertisements cannot be just a delivery of direct information to consumers, they act as a tool to create new needs for consumers, and therefore advertising creates meanings around those needs as a choice justification. Similarly, Borgerson and Schroeder (2002: 574) suggest,
“…ads are a representational system that produces meaning outside the realm of advertised product.” Furthermore, by looking back at Bourdieu’s symbolic power that is indirectly imposed through cultural mechanisms (e.g. images, icons, symbols) it is claimed that historically shaped icons, images or symbols are used in contemporary advertising practice to deliver hidden meanings (Schroeder, 2006).
In consumer culture, advertising and culture continuously interact, they produce and circulate cultural symbols as demonstrations of largely recognizable concepts
91 in order to sell products and services (Sherry, 1987; Hackley, 2002). Cultural symbols in advertising can be presented in different forms, such as logos, social stereotypes etc., and often can evoke the atmosphere of the past (Berger, 2015).
Scholars in the past tended to focus on the textual meanings and associations, such as the use of symbolic language that is implied to indicate shared experiences or feelings through circulation of ideas and information (Karo, 1975: 60). It is debated that the study stream in consumer research lacks in-depth exploration of the reproduction of meanings by consumers themselves and its impact on consumption behaviour (Hirschman and Thompson, 1997; Arnould and Thompson, 2005; Scott, 1994). In conjunction with this, the CCT perspective offers thorough investigation of the “relationship of consumers’ experiences, the system of beliefs, practices that construct social reality and structures” (Arnould and Thompson, 2005: 876). The construction of social reality depends on media communication channels that convey the system of meanings in such a way to preserve dominant interests in a society (Hirschman, 1993). The ideological structures, or system of meanings are translated to consumers through the identities and lifestyle ideals portrayed in mass media and advertising (Üstüner and Holt, 2007).
While research on the role of media in the construction of consumer culture and identity is an established topic in marketing and consumer research, there is significant gap in innovative approaches towards the research design and analytical methods implemented (Kjeldgaard, 2002; Woodside, Sood and Miller 2008). Traditional methods in this realm explicate how media images (online, print ads) disseminate a plethora of meanings, signs and symbols amongst people and how such visual means contribute to people’s sense of identity and lifestyle choices (Arnould and Thompson, 2005; Featherstone, 2006; Slater, 1997;
Thompson, Arnould and Giesler, 2013). The nature for some of these studies is exploring the impact of advertisements on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions through quantitative research approach (Goffman, 1979; Chae and Hoegg 2013; Bush and Furnham 2013). The main emphasis of other studies is the production of advertising, design and codes which can be studied in places by
92 looking at the visual rhetoric in marketing communications (Campelo et al., 2011;
Rampley, 2005; Bulmer and Buchanan-Oliver, 2006).
Above all, images represent not just visual graphics, but represent culture, values and beliefs, so it is important to consider the context behind the image (Wu and Memon, 1997). Upon the discussions related to the methods used in analysing advertising in cultural studies, semiotics stands upfront, which enables researchers to understand relationships of meaning within the text (Bell, 2001).
In his early studies Goffman (1979) saw advertisements as an exclusive segment of the real world and stimulating the individual’s perceptions of a good life, gender roles and understanding of what is right and good in social reality (Belknap and Leonard, 1991).
The next subsection provides brief overview on the role of the women’s magazine in gender studies and signifies the role of print media in the process of transmitting gendered ideologies.