Why Media Matter: Toward a Richer Understanding of ...

Why Media Matter: Toward a Richer Understanding of Consumers' Relationships with Advertising and Mass Media Elizabeth C. Hirschman and Craig J. Thompson We propose that consumers' relationships to nonadvertising forms of mass media are an essential aspect ofthe perceived meanings they derive from advertisements. After presenting a multidisciplinary theoretical framework, we discuss the results of an in-depth grounded theory investigation that identifies three key interpretive relationships between consumers and mass media vehicles.

Elizabeth C. Hirschman is Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, Rutgers University. Craig J . Thompson is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, University of WisconsinMadison.

Journal of Advertising, Volume XXVI, Number 1 Spring 1997

A substantial portion of advertising research has focused on the processes consumers use to decode the information conveyed in an advertisement and/ or the situational factors that influence consumers' processing strategies (Coupey 1994; Peracchio and Meyers-Levy 1994; Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983; Sawyer and Howard 1991). In recent years, however, several theorists have called attention to the influence of consumers' background knowledge on the meanings they derive from advertisements (Friestad and Wright 1994; McCracken 1989; Mick and Buhl 1992; Mick and Politi 1989; Scott 1994a, b). Central to this emerging perspective is the realization that consumers often process advertisements for meaning rather than information (McCracken 1987) and that advertisements can be experienced as aesthetic events enjoyed in much the same way as the material in which they are embedded (Randazzo 1993; Sherry 1987). From this consumer-response perspective (e.g., Scott 1994a, b), the interpreted meaning of an advertisement emerges in relationship to the multiple frames of reference consumers use to make sense of it. The frames of reference can be very wide-ranging in scope, encompassing ideals about the good life, views on celebrities, knowledge about standard advertising genres, and aesthetic standards for production values. Such interpretive frames of reference are essential to understanding what consumers "do" with advertisements. For example, motion pictures, television shows, and fashion and entertainment magazines present images, icons, and stories that give the consumer a frame of reference or schema for interpreting advertisements (Fiske 1989; Kellner 1992; Lutz and Collins 1993; McCracken 1987; Wells and Gale 1995). Advertising researchers have tended to treat advertising as a domain distinct from news and entertainment media. However, a large body of work suggests that such distinctions are not relevant to the ideological aspects of consumer socialization. That is, media and advertising have a symbiotic relation in which media enhance the effectiveness of some advertising by portraying certain product/brand assortments as more desirable than others and, more generally, by providing subtle yet pervasive instructions on how to be a consumer (Ewen and Ewen 1982; Miller 1988; Ogles 1987; O'Guinn, Faber, and Rice 1985; Schiller 1989). Though advertising researchers have largely left the study of mass media to communications researchers, the history of advertising practice is intertwined with that of the entertainment media. As a case in point, the emergence of standard mass media formats such as soap operas, situation

44 comedies, and game shows was intimately tied to advertising interests (Fox 1985). Plot lines of soap operas, for example, were often written in conjunction with sponsors. Hence, those media forms functioned as subtle promotional vehicles by prominently featuring a given sponsor's products and, more generally, by promoting a consumer mindset that was assumed to make the audience more receptive to advertisements for mass-produced packaged goods (see Lavin 1995). Product placements and product tie-ins are more recent examples of the symbiotic relationship between advertising and creative interests (Wells and Anderson 1996). Despite this historic legacy, academic advertising researchers have tended to concentrate on the persuasive influences of advertising per se, generally ignoring the substantial influences exerted on consumer preferences by television programs, magazines, and motion pictures (Faber and O'Guinn 1988). Such an advertising-focused view fails to address the significant role of the mass media in shaping the frame of reference by which consumers interpret advertisements. We propose that consumers' relationships to nonadvertising forms of mass media are an essential aspect of the perceived meanings they derive from advertisements. Our argument parallels McCracken's (1989) conceptual argument—based on his meaning transfer model (e.g., 1986)—that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsers in advertisements is contingent on the background meanings comprising the celebrity's public persona and the culturally predominant image of the promoted brand. We expand on this thesis both conceptually and empirically. After presenting a multidisciplinary theoretical framework, we discuss the results of an in-depth grounded-theory investigation (Glaser and Strauss 1967) that identified three key interpretive relationships between consumers and mass media vehicles, with a particular emphasis on mass media celebrities.

Ideological Structures and Cultural Frames As prior research has shown (e.g., Faber and O'Guinn 1988; McCracken 1987, 1988; Nichter and Nichter 1991; Scott 1993a,b), mass media vehicles sort reality into meaningful social categories that provide a frame of reference from which consumers interpret their daily lives. For example, mass media images provide prototypic expectations about the consumption patterns (e.g., dress, food preferences, leisure activities, appearance) characteristic of persons

The Journal of Advertising who are rich/poor, young/old, male/female, and blue collar/professional (see, e.g., Bourdieu 1984; Fiske and Hartley 1978; Hirschman 1988). Cultural critics argue that the seeming plethora of media images, plot lines, and character portrayals is organized around a limited set of themes that continuously reproduce a particular cultural system of beliefs or ideology (Fiske 1989;Traube 1992). Through routine exposure to advertising, television programming, cinema, and the popular press, consumers are continuously immersed in this ideological system (Bordo 1990; Braudy 1986; Fiske and Hartley 1978; Freedman 1986; Jhally 1987; Scott 1993b). Gitlin (1983) contends that one major reason for the ideological consistency of the mass media is "the logic of the marketplace." In an effort to ensure market success, producers of mass media vehicles oflen incorporate character types, plot lines, and social images that have proven successful in previous ventures. Hence, the media landscape presents a recombinant culture in which new media vehicles reproduce aspects of the ideological system that were previously embraced by consumers and are consistent with consumers' understanding of their cultural meanings (Turner 1992). The phenomenon of recombinant culture is manifested explicitly in advertising, which borrows freely from other mass media forms when formulating its particular message and affective tone. The use of celebrity endorsers who evoke a set of media-established meanings is one of the most widely discussed examples (Agrawal and Kamakura 1995; McCracken 1989), in that a fair degree of symbolic congruence between the endorser image and the brand image is necessary for the endorsement to resonate with consumers. However, even advertisements that do not employ celebrity endorsers must be sensitive to the cultural meanings and images diffused through mass media (Turner 1992). The relative success of an advertisement depends not only on the rational merits of the message being presented, but also on how well it appropriates desirable mass media images, styles, and cultural icons to its promotional purposes (Jhally 1987; McCracken 1989; Scott 1990; Sherry 1987). Hence, even advertisers that are not directly interested in media vehicles per se need a working knowledge of media images to manage the communication process effectively. Several analysts have proposed that the ideological structure of mass media operates in concert with more traditional forms of advertising promotion (Ewen 1976; Ewen and Ewen 1982). For example, the ideal-

Spring 1997 ized images conveyed by media vehicles may engender a sense of displeasure in consumers with their current personal appearance, lifestyle, and possessions. Advertisements then fill the emotional void by generating their own set of idealized images that, when read in context of the broader media universe, implicitly promise that the promoted product can move the consumer toward the desired ideal state. Individual consumers are subtly enticed to engage in an ongoing cycle of consumption in quest of the everelusive media ideals.

Active Readers and the Production of Meaning In recent years, the ideological structure of advertising and media images (and their presumed effects on consumers) has been challenged by researchers who emphasize the active, productive nature of consumer-media relationships (Fiske and Hartley 1978; Hall 1980; Turner 1992). As Fiske (1987, p. 286) writes, "Despite the power of [media] ideology to reproduce itself in its subjects...the people still manage to make their own meanings and to construct their own culture within, and often against, that which the industry provides them." Similarly, Hall (1980) proposed that consumers' interpretation ofthe media is an intrinsically social and interactive process in which audiences act not as passive consumers of media persuasion, but rather as active producers of perceived meaning (also see Iser 1978; Scott 1994b). According to this perspective, audience members bring to their viewing of mass media vehicles a wide range of unique personal experiences and a wealth of socially derived knowledge grounded in their occupation, gender, age, social class, and ethnicity. Using these internally based percepts, audience members actively construct the meaning of motion pictures, magazine articles, television programs, print and broadcast advertisements, billboards, and so on from their particular vantage points (Morley 1980a,b; Turner 1992). This formulation challenges the conventional boundary between production and consumption of media, for in the act of consumption a personalized set of meanings is produced. The conception of the producm^co/isu/ner requires a model ofthe relation between the meaning-encoding activities of producers and the meaning-decoding activities of consumers that is more complex than the traditional "passive model," which portrays the media consumer as a mere receptor of an ideological system (Hall 1980). In addressing this complexity, communication theo-

45

rists have begun to explore more extensively the cultural dimensions that govern the process of media interpretation (Moores 1993; Radway 1984). This stream of research suggests that one of the primary foundations of shared understanding between producers and consumers of media is that both draw upon culturally shared associations, expectations, and strategies of interpretation, termed the cultural code (Hall 1980). The cultural code provides a shared understanding of how to read the symbolic meanings embedded in mass media images. From early childhood, individuals are socialized into a deep knowledge of what meanings specific products embody. For example, in U.S. culture, pickup trucks are generally understood to represent rural, blue-collar transportation, whereas chauffeured limousines are seen as representing urban, affluent transportation. Most consumers within the culture are fluent in reading multiple forms of this code and can readily provide renditions of the common cultural meanings of various pets (e.g., mutt dog vs. Persian cat), hairstyles, apparel styles, leisure activities, foods (e.g., hotdogs vs. caviar), musical forms, and so forth (see, e.g., Bourdieu 1984). Thus, rather than representing a .smorgasbord of idiosyncratic meanings, consumers' interpretations of cultural products follow a discernable cultural logic, albeit in a way that is often tailored to their personal interests (Hall 1980). Because media vehicles are situated within the cultural code, their producers can use shared understanding ofthe code to entice consumers to form certain types of interpretations (Lutz and Collins 1993; Scott 1994b). For example, when actress Roseanne Barr and her television family, dressed in blue jeans and flannel shirts, gather around their Sears-purchased, formica-clad kitchen table and drink coffee from mugs, the audience understands that the story is unfolding in a working class context and brings to bear expectations and meanings relevant to that cultural frame. By analyzing the content and structure of such consumer interpretations, we can attain a nuanced understanding of how consumers manage cultural frames of reference to interpret the images conveyed by the mass media. In the next section, we describe the methodological logic used to elicit and analyze consumers' interpretive relations to the mass media. The implicit theoretical motivation of our analysis derives from research on the sociocultural foundations of cognition (Holland and Skinner 1987) and the previously discussed literature on the active quality of reader (i.e..

The Journal of Advertising

46 Table 1 Age and Occupation of Interview Participants

Females

Males

Age

Occupation

Age

Occupation

6 9 12 17 18 20 21 21 21

First grade student Third grade student Seventh grade student High school senior High school senior College junior College senior College senior College senior Teacher/psychologist Stockbroker Theater Administrator Housewife/Designer Advertising Executive Research Analyst

9 14 18 19 21 21 21 21 21 22 32 40 40 47 54

Third grade student High school sophomore High school senior College sophomore College junior College senior College senior College senior College senior Store manager Journalist High School Teacher Publishing Executive Accountant Lawyer

35 40 40 44 49 53

consumer) responses to mass media. Our goal is to discern the strategies consumers use to generate idiographic (individual-level) beliefs and attitudes toward advertising and the mass media.

Methodological Logic and Procedures The Logic of Grounded-Theory Research Grounded-theory methods are particularly appropriate when the purpose ofthe research is to discover consumer-based constructs and theories, as was the case in our study. Using such methods, the researcher first seeks to discern key patterns or relationships in the empirical data; this process is termed interpretive tacking (see Geertz 1979). The researcher next engages in a process called grounded reading in data (Strauss and Corbin 1990). Here, patterns that emerged from the data direct researchers toward literature bases that may offer relevant insights for interpreting the patterns. Thus, the empirical analysis can be enriched by theoretical constructs and conceptual insights generated by previous research. However, these supplemental interpretive sources are adapted to the unique characteristics ofthe phenomenon—as reflected in the empirical data—rather than functioning in an a priori manner.

The analysis continues iteratively as the researcher moves between observed empirical evidence and established theoretical concepts. Through this interplay between the empirical and conceptual realms, a novel perspective of the phenomenon being investigated is constructed. At all points during the analysis, however, the grounded-theory researcher strives to ensure that every resulting theoretical proposition is supportable by the empirical evidence. The resultant grounded theory can serve as a foundation for future empirical research and theory testing (Strauss and Corbin 1990).

Data Collection and Analysis Procedures We conducted semistructured interviews (see Mick and Buhl 1992; Thompson, Locander, and Pollio 1989) ranging from 90 minutes to two hours in length with 28 consumers, balanced across gender. All interviews were undertaken as one-on-one dialogues between interviewer and participant. The ages ofthe participants ranged from six to 54 years and were roughly analogous for men and women. Participants were members of middle and upper middle socioeconomic classifications. Table 1 reports the age, gender, and occupation of each participant.

47

Spring 1997 The sample characteristics were purposive (e.g., Lincoln and Guba 1985) and reflected previous research indicating that mass media product relationships can vary greatly in accordance with social class (Moores 1993; Press 1989). To keep the domain of interpretation to a manageable level, we focused on consumers known to have fairly well-developed media schemas, whose lifestyles and cultural standards are well represented in mainstream media, and whose product preferences are of high interest to advertising practitioners. We readily acknowledge, however, that the empirical generalizability of our analysis and grounded-theory model can be determined only through subsequent research. Hence, our study is reported in the spirit of construct discovery rather than justification (Deshpande 1983). Interviews were conducted by two primary researchers and two research assistants, who were knowledgeable in interpretive methods. After explaining that the purpose ofthe interview was to obtain the participant's views of the role of mass media in influencing his or her behavior as a consumer, the intervieweer asked the participant a "grand tour" question focusing attention on body image and appearance: "Do you think the media, say TV shows, motion pictures, and advertisements, influence your feelings about yourself, how you look, and what you wear?" The purpose of this question was to orient all participants to a common phenomenological base in structuring their thoughts. Though we began with a particular and highly selfrelevant domain of consumption to stimulate conversation, our participants were free to "wander" into other phenomenological domains if they so chose. Interviewers encouraged respondents to elaborate freely on the interpretive stances they employed in making sense of media and advertising. The interviews were transcribed verbatim from audiotapes, but any identifying names or references were replaced with pseudonyms to maintain the anonymity ofthe participants. Participants were assured of their anonymity and were given access to their transcribed interviews for correction and/or amplification. The senior researchers read through the entire set of transcripts independently on several occasions, developing thematic categories and identifying salient metaphors used by the participants to describe their experiences with their self image and its relationship to images presented by mass media vehicles and advertising. Throughout this process, we talked with one another on a regular basis about jointly discerned themes and meanings. At the conclusion ofthe interpretive process, the first draft ofthe complete manu-

script was given to four participants (two women, two men) for their comments, which were incorporated in thefinalmanuscript. Simultaneously, comments were also sought from three academic peers experienced in interpretive research methods. The final manuscript benefitted from their contributions. We identified three interpretive strategies that consumers employed to form relationships with the mass media: (1) inspiring and aspiring, (2) deconstructing and rejecting, and (3) identifying and individualizing. Within each of those broad relationships was a complex array of personal meanings, self-perceptions, and cultural beliefs that allowed mass media images to become relevant to consumers' everyday lives. In the following account, we provide an analysis of these interactive and multifaceted consumer-media relationships. Concepts and findings from relevant prior research are used to provide context for our discussion and a theoretical web for the results.

Analysis of Interpretive Strategies Motivational Interpretations: Inspiring and Aspiring The first mode of consumer-media relationship we discerned occurs when a media image is interpreted as representing an ideal self to which the consumer can aspire. Salient media icons are read as inspirational goals or as presenting ideals that the consumer chooses to work toward. The unattainability of the ideal is experienced not as a source of frustration, but rather as the source of its attraction; that is, the ideal is read as a goal toward which one can continuously strive along some personally important dimension. Striving toward the ideal becomes analogous to striving to be one's best, with the icon serving as a concrete standard against which to assess one's progress. The Suspension of Disbelief In this motivational relationship, many potential sources of disbelief are suspended. That is, the consumer does not invoke the commonplace knowledge that public images (particularly those of products and celebrities) are constructed by advertising and public relations and that the presented image may not correspond to reality. Instead, the consumer opts to believe that the media image is genuine. Importantly, the motivation for this literal reading of media icons is the view that the inspirational ideals they represent are in the realm of possibility for the consumer. The following passage from Benjamin, a 40-year-old professional, illustrates this relationship.

48

The Journal of Advertising There are times when I see men in films and think you know I wish Ihad a more V-shape and maybe I should work on expanding my chest. But then I'll make a comment like that to [spouse's name] or maybe earlier to another girlfriend and they would say that you do look like that. But I never felt that I did.. .41 is my jacket size and my waist is 32. So that is pretty much of a "V," but a guy like Arnold Schwarzenegger has a 12-inch difference, you know what I mean.

Though Benjamin's physique is exceptional in comparison with the average American male body, he aspires to the idealized standard represented and exemplified by the media icon of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Comparison with the icon affords a sense of dissatisfaction with his current build, but the icon is also inspirational because it affirms the possibility that such a look can be attained. A broader theoretical point derived from this passage is an orientation Hall (1980) termed "reading within the dominant code." In this interpretive relation, the consumer embraces the media image in terms of its predominant cultural meaning (e.g., the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a masculine ideal) without invoking cynical or critical views that might undermine the sense of its authenticity. For example, Benjamin could have interpreted the media icon in a number of ways that would have diminished its power as an inspirational model. However, rather than psychologically distancinghimself from the celebrity icon, he interpreted it in a manner consistent with the meanings culturally associated with the Arnold Schwarzenegger persona and embraced it as a model for his ideal self. One cultural motivation for reading celebrities in this way is that they have long embodied the meanings and traits deemed most desirable by society (Dyer 1986; Gamson 1994). The celebrity stands as an archetypic representation of cultural ideals toward which noncelebrities can aspire (Fiske 1992). Some of our younger informants also expressed this interpretive orientation as they elaborated on their aspirational referents by endowing them with admirable personality traits and capabilities that extended beyond physical appearance. This point is illustrated in the following passage from an interview with Ashley, a nine-year-old girl, in which she described the character Dotty, played by Geena Davis, in the film A League of Their Own. I liked Dotty because she was funny, pretty, and a good catcher. She was a leader to her team and never gave up. The first thing I think of when I think about baseball is Dotty.

Jake, a nine-year-old boy, also ascribed several positive characteristics to his media idol. I: Have you ever looked at someone and said, "Boy, I want to look like that?" J: Well, most people I don't. But if I had a choice, I'd probably say Arnold Schwarzenegger. I: Oh yeah? What do you like about him? J: Well, he's really... he has a lot of muscles, and a lot of people... theyjust respect him a lot. And he's probably the nicest movie guy there could be and stuff. He gets a lot of money from movies, and he helps the poor. He helps children that are disabled and stuff.... He's a good idol. A key factor for this young consumer is that Arnold Schwarzenegger has "a lot" of the cultural virtues he admires—muscles, popularity, respect, money, niceness, and helpfulness. Jake's thoughts thus echo theoretical proposals (McCracken 1986, 1988, 1989; Scott 1993a,b) that media celebrities not only serve as icons of physical attractiveness and beauty, but also embody a broader set of cultural meanings and values. As McCracken (1988, p. 109) noted, "Individuals are constantly engaged in the study of the lives of others for proof that their personal ideals have been realized." At the young age of nine, Jake has a media idol that provides personally meaningful proof that it is possible for someone to have and accomplish "a lot." Like Ashley, Jake admires his idol not only for physical prowess, but also because of what he believes to be the actor's personal virtues, such as assisting the poor and disabled. Jake appears to have formed a composite image of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and man, drawn not only from Schwarzenegger's films, but also from his highly publicized social activities, such as his charitable contributions and his previous tenure as head of the President's Council on Physical Fitness. A broader point illustrated by this composite image is that the meanings celebrity figures represent to consumers are grounded not only in the various fictional roles they have played in motion pictures or on television, but also in their public actions as citizens (see also Dyer 1982, 1986; Turner 1992). Jake's reading is also consistent with prior research suggesting that boys and men tend to read media images of idealized males in terms of power and action (Steinman 1992). Though stereotypical gender roles may not be fully applicable for any single consumer, these cultural conventions did seem to exert a decided influence on the personal values expressed

Spring 1997 by our male participants and the types of media images and icons to which they related. The value of physical power, often as embodied in the athletic physique, was frequently expressed as the ideal they sought to attain. This feeling is clearly expressed by Benjamin, age 40, in the following dialogue. I: Is there an actor that you see and think "I would like to look like that?" B: As a matter of fact, Steve Martin. I think he's in really good shape and when I see him dance, I see that athleticism. Did you see Leap of Faith? I: Yes. B: He had amazing movements in that. Also I saw, this was probably the most powerful. I saw Frank Langella do Dracuta on Broadway. When I saw him in that play it was very powerful.... When I think about it now, it was like he had a certain power that he was able to project that was partly his physical being. His physique and looks and hair. I definitely felt that I wanted to look like that. Our interviews revealed a gender-based difference in the types of media icons our participants aspired to emulate. Young men commonly use athletes as aspirational referents (see, e.g., Braudy 1986, p. 572; Fiske 1992, p. 39), whereas young women commonly use fashion models (see Nichter and Nichter 1991; Richins 1991; Scott 1993a,b; Stephens, Hill, and Hanson 1993). In the following interview excerpt, John, a 19-year-old college sophomore, describes his inspirational/ aspirational relationship with professional hockey player Ron Sutter. I think that athletes give me a way to live my life. There's this one hockey player, Ron Sutter, he's my favorite hockey player. And he just has this attitude every night when he plays that he's going to sacrifice himself for the betterhood of the team and he gives his all... That's how I want to lead my life. I want to be able to go out there and just do things for the betterhood of my parents, my family, myself.

Sutter's cultural availability as an inspirational/ aspirational referent to John is likely enhanced by the "blurring" between Sutter's performance as an athlete and his appearance as a commercial spokesperson for athletic equipment manufacturers. The athletes most successful as product endorsers appear to be those whose public personae radiate not only athletic excellence, but also a certain heroic-but-human nature: Jimmy Connors, Magic Johnson, Joe Montana, George Foreman. As Jhally (1987, p. 92) observes, "values of masculinity and fraternity are

49 present in both advertisements and programs, and sports personalities flit between the two." In contemporary North American culture, girls are largely expected to admire and aspire to the physical ideals embodied by female fashion models (Freedman 1986; Richins 1991; Stephens, Hill, and Hanson 1993). That same pattern emerged in our interviews. Consider the views expressed by Felicia, a 12-year-old girl. I: Tell me what it is about her that makes you want to look like her [Cindy Crawford]? F: She's really pretty. Everyone loves her.... Her figure, her body, her face. Everyone likes her. I: And so when you're looking at her, how does it make you feel about yourself? F: When I'm looking at her it makes me think, ooh, I wish I looked like her.... It makes me think "am I ever going to look like that?" Right now I'm young, so when I see Cindy Crawford, I'm still young yet and what is she, 20-something and I'm only like 12.... Like I think people think that everyone has to be exactly the same, everyone has to be perfect, everyone has to have the same quality, so that when someone comes that doesn't have one of those qualities, who's not that pretty or not that thin, then people just block them out and they don't even give them a try. So it's like, I guess when you look at them you think, if I'm not going to look like that, is everyone going to block me out and not like me? Felicia's passage expresses the sense of anxiety that can affect a girl as she begins to cope with the culturally significant transition from childhood to womanhood. Even at the age of 12, Felicia has internalized the cultural belief that a woman's appearance is her primary social asset (see Stephens, Hill and Hanson 1993; Nichter and Nichter 1991). Fehcia's metaphor of being "blocked out" is a telling one that reveals a sensitivity to an implicit theme of contemporary media and advertising images that has long affected women's identities: to be visible as a person, a woman needs to conform to standards of physical attractiveness (Bordo 1993). The icons may change over time, but this media-diffused, cultural narrative of feminine identity has remained remarkably stable (see Douglas 1994). Gravitating Toward the Image. The interview passages expressing an overt sense of aspiration often also conveyed an implicit sense of inspiration. That is, media icons appeared to offer concrete affirmation that the meanings and ideals they represented could be attained or at least approximated and, thus, in-

The Journal of Advertising

50 spired our participants to work toward attaining the ideal. This inspirational relationship with a media image was more pronounced for older people, who used the celebrity as a marker of what is "humanly" possible in terms of looking beautiful or handsome at an older age. Though such images of what aging ideally should and possibly could look like might be expected to have a negative affect on older consumers' feelings about their own physical appearance, that was not the case among those we interviewed. Rather, aging-but-still-beautiful celebrities seemed to serve as beacons of hope, as inspirational figures for consumers who had abandoned efforts to imitate the appearance of much younger models or athletes, but had not given up the desire to look the best they could "at their age." Consider the following two excerpts. Ginger, a 35-year-old communications researcher, commented: G: Today I guess like now I'm older, I look at people like Racquel Welch, I look at her and say, oh my God I hope I look half that good when I'm that old. And there's a few, there's somebody else I just recently saw. Anne Margaret. God! I: What do you admire about them? G: That they still are beautiful. They don't look old to me. You can tell they're older.... I'm sure they've had some plastic surgery, but they don't look artificial. They still look natural. And you can tell they're older, but they're just beautiful. You look at them and they're beautiful. And I like that. I want to be like that. Beatrice, a 53-year-old professional woman, stated: B: I compare myself to Jane Fonda. That's what I normally do. Yeah, I compare myself to totally unreasonable people. Somebody like Jane Fonda, knowing full well that she spends her life exercising. But still, I feel that would be the ideal. I: Because she's 50 years old? B: Right. Because she's 50, and so she's showing what is possible at that age. Even though these women realize the celebrities they admire are endowed with above-average natural

beauty, are likely to have had plastic surgery to maintain their beauty, and have made a lifelong commitment to keeping fit, they still view them as positive icons of female attractiveness. The celebrities anchor, in essence, the upper end of the female beauty scale at age 40, 50, and beyond. Further, they are living women and not fictional characters who therefore offer concrete evidence and hope that other women can "look that good at that age."

Several commentators have noted that media vehicles have become more inclusive of older women in recent years, but that the older models still conform to the beauty standards of youth-oriented culture (Douglas 1994). Such female icons are noteworthy because they have managed to defy the natural course of aging and hence retain their attractive (i.e., youthful) appearance. One issue raised by these inspirational icons is whether consumers are fortunate that many celebrities whose public persona is grounded in appearance, such as Racquel Welch, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jane Fonda, are culturally permitted the use of artificial means to maintain their beauty over time. That is, is it more psychologically comforting to gaze upon a surgically enhanced 50-year-old icon whose appearance seems to defy the forces of time or to see one whose appearance—in the absence of such maintenance—refiects the unmediated effects of aging? An experience of the latter alternative is offered in the following passage from William, a 54-year-old man and former college athlete. W: I guess I see other people in my age group are getting older too. You know, I looked at Frank Gifford doing an interview with his wife on TV, and he is a little older than I, and I thought, "Holy cow! He looks a lot older than he did just a few years ago." I: So are you saying that you see yourself in that kind of a transformation process? W: Of course. The changes are very rapid. You just have to accept getting older. It's not just physical appearances, but when you try to do something your body hurts a lot more and you just can't do as much, physically, as you did in the past. For William, the visible aging of his own valued

media icon confirms the inevitably of aging and the necessity of accepting "getting older." For this consumer, a sense of decreasing physical prowess is a fact of aging that is particularly challenging to his sense of self-identity as an athletic individual. Though watching a famous former athlete undergo a similar transformation provides a meaningful image of identification, it does not seem to give William much solace or inspiration to regain some of his more youthful physical capabilities. Finally, the following comments by Marilynn, a 44year-old homemaker, demonstrate t h a t the aspirational and inspirational qualities of a media icon can extend well beyond physical appearance by relating to the consumer's own life.

51

Spring 1997 M: I admire her [Jodie Foster]. I think she's the kind of woman that I would like to have lunch with. I would like to talk to her. I think she would be interesting. I: What is it that you admire about her? M: She's successful, she's in charge, she's attractive, she's gorgeous. But you know you would like to have her over for lunch, as opposed to just admiring someone who looks like a Barbie doll. I: What would you talk to her about if she came over? M: ...About what decisions she's made... and how she would incorporate her professional life and her family life. How having a family would change the way she would make movies.... For Marilynn, a former industrial designer, Jodie Foster stands out as a female celebrity with a unique combination of physical beauty, power, and competence. Marilynn not only draws inspiration from Jodie Foster's example as an accomplished, multifaceted v^roman, but also views her as someone who would be able to relate to her own life as a mature woman. At a more symbolic level, her narrative presents this celebrity as embodying a life that has been lived in

terms of personal choices different from her own (specifically, to place career over family). Jodie Foster not only has qualities that Marilynn admires, but also represents an alternative life course to which Marilynn once aspired and understandably on occasion speculates about. To draw from McCracken's (1988) discussion on meaning displacement, the icons ofthe mass media offer a place where individuals can project valued meanings that seem irrelevant to one's everyday life. Through her relationship to the celebrity icon, Marilynn is able to maintain some sense of connection with a previous life and its forgone prospects.

Critical Interpretations: Deconstructing and Rejecting The second mode of consumer-media relationship we identified is in many respects oppositional to the first. Here, consumers' relationship with the mass media is expressed through overt criticism ofthe artificial and unrealistic quality ofthe media representation and the economic motivations that are perceived to drive the media and advertising industries. We use the term "deconstructing" to reflect that consumers in this relationship mode bring to the fore fairly general culture knowledge about the production of

media hype to reveal its (presumed) underlying economic motivations and intended effects. In the following passage, Henry, a 32-year-old store manager, expresses such an interpretive stance. I think you have to work up to your own potential and take your strengths and work with that. If you tried to look too much at the media, commercials and that kind of thing — they're trying to sell you something. So they are like going to have this perfect person. Like sneaker commercials. Buy these sneakers and you are going to be able to do what Michael Jordan does, which obviously isn't true...

In this passage, Henry interprets media and promotional messages as trafficking in obviously unrealistic appeals and further explains this cultural situation as an expectable outcome of the marketing system. Henry's deconstruction does not lead to outright rejection. However, many people to whom we spoke saw lurking beneath the surface ofthe media image a manipulative agent that tries to force consumers to conform to arbitrary aesthetic standards, to abrogate personal freedom and their authentic self identities in order to consume in the socially condoned way. This interpretive stance is illustrated by George, a 47-year-old financial analyst. I think the media, if they had their way they would like to have everybody in lock step over certain things, and I don't know if it's really the media or it's the use of the media [by] certain groups. I don't know if it's Hollywood or the fashion industry, would have you believe that if you don't buy a certain brand of jeans, let's say at $75 instead of the same jeans that might cost $25,... you're out of step, because they don't have the right label on them. If you let that affect you, you can start spending a lot more money than you might choose to, because the label isn't the right label, or you need to have a label as opposed to having no label on the clothes, so I think there's some effect there.

This informant attributed a much more malevolent set of motivations to media products that called for a rejecting stance. There's always some kind of a message. Either a subtle or a direct message as to what's the right thing to do. So you've got to make your own decisions in life, and take the cues, take the input, take the data, and then make your own choices.... Then there's reality as to what is real and what is Hollywood, what is fantasy. Shut the TV off and you watch 100 people walk by, there's only going to be three or four of them that are going to look like what you just saw on TV, so it's not real.... I guess I either consciously or unconsciously am say-

52 ing that the people you are seeing on TV are not a true representation of the population in general. It's fantasy. It's entertainment, and you treat it as such. George's rejection evokes the cultural ethos of individual choice whereby a person must clearly distinguish between fantasy and reality and make selfdirected, rational decisions. Thus, both Henry and George converge on the belief that media products (as a repository of unreality) should not be able to hurt individuals. The view of media and promotional images as being either relatively inconsequential or relatively easy to resist (if one is sufficiently vigilant and rational) was prevalent among our male informants. Gender and Media Interpretations. Such an interpretive orientation (e.g., media images cannot hurt you unless you let them) is consistent with psychological research suggesting that men's self identity tends to be based on a sense of personal autonomy and control (Chodorow 1994). Treating media influence as a matter of personal choice reinforces the sense of autonomy. A different level of explanation for this male orientation is offered by cultural critics who suggest that physical attractiveness (i.e., conformity to cultural ideals) has been and remains a more significant criterion for women in everyday social life than for men (Bordo 1993; Nichter and Nichter 1991). Therefore, male consumers may not be attuned to the negative interpersonal dynamics that can occur for women who diverge from the beauty ideals conveyed through media images. The following passage from Alicia, an 18-year-old high school senior, illustrates this gender-specific perception of media effects. I am concerned about guys gawking at these models and everything. And especially with like Cindy Crawford. It's gets you really aggravated because they are like gawking at them and you know you're never going to look like a supermodel in way, shape or form. I'm short and not that thin. So how are you going to attract a guy if you're not the type they want? And it influences me because I feel a lot better about myself when I am thinner. Like Alicia, our other female informants commonly expressed a belief that the effects of media images are consequential and not easily avoided. One major concern they repeatedly voiced was the cultural idealization of the "Barbie doll" look (see Nichter and Nichter 1991). Many of our female participants believed a uniform look or template was put forward by advertising and the mass media and that they, as women, were evaluated by society according to the degree to which their appearance matched that look.

The Journal of Advertising One very clear expression of this view was offered by Beatrice. B: I would say, you know, I'll give you like 25 points on my IQ, but make my hair straight. Take away the pimples, 10 points. I would be tall, blond. I would keep my eyes, because I've decided green eyes are fine. A tall, straight-haired blonde, not short, you know.... I: Why are those attributes so attractive? B: Because I'm short, dark haired... and tend to get a little fatty. Because they are diametrically opposed I guess. I: Where is that feeling coming from Beatrice? B: Media.... The media never lets you alone. They never let you alone because every message, even if it says "it is ok to weigh what you weigh," they are still making you conscious of it... They focus on weight and they focus on self-improvement. On all the problems you have. When asked later to describe the body type projected by the media, she replied: B: It's the typical WASP body. What is it? The ectomorphs. The very tall, very thin, yeah, everything was designed [for them]. These models are not only thin,... they are also an exaggerated degree of tallness. Some of them are 5'9", 5'10". I mean, the way the clothes hang, you can do more extreme fashions, but I think it's much more than that... it's a very, very specific body type. Donna, a 40-year-old professional woman, provided a virtually identical description. D: I'd say that she'sfivefoot eight, she's probably blonde. She has, you know, real long legs. She doesn't have a stomach. She doesn't have any, uh, flab. She doesn't have any cellulite. She has a great head of hair. She has a perfect face.... I think it is an American thing. In Europe there is a slightly different focus.... If you ever noticed, in a European film the camera goes right to the person's face and even if it is not a classically beautiful face, it's beautiful. Well, they treat it as beautiful. Donna expressed a rejection of the media's idealized look by challenging the cultural perspective itself For her, the European perspective, as symbolized by cinematic technique, is more respectful of persona] uniqueness and less demanding of idealized perfection. Rather, it recognizes and appreciates an expressive face, whose beauty derives from complexity and not necessarily from having classic features. In the following passage from Jan, a 17-year-old Asian woman, recognition of the influence of media images is accompanied by a sense that they have not

Spring 1997 merely affected her self-perception, but have had a direct effect on the actual contours of her body: I don't think I would have the same body image if I were in Taiwan.... Maybe I wouldn't have exercised as much, maybe I wouldn't have gotten as involved in sports because when you are in sports you have more of an athletic look about you, a more overall toned body. You know there's being thin and toned and there's just being thin. That is how Asians are. In that way, I am more Americanized, because I do want the thin toned look versus . the thin Asian look. Not surprisingly, some young women rebel against the imposition of these images on their identity. An 18-year-old woman, Susan, whose transcript is excerpted below, had an elaborate rationale for rejecting advertising and media images of female beauty. I: Is there anybody on here [on TV] that you would want to look like, you wished you could be or look like her? S: No. First of all, I don't believe in those people. I think it's totally fake. The people on TV are, they have makeup artists, they're air brushed. It's not really them. In a magazine, that's not really them. Sometimes they actually put different bodies on people's faces just to make it all go together. There's not really anybody I want to look like. I don't know, I don't feel that it's necessary to do that. I: What comes to mind when you look at a magazine and you see those models? S: ... How happy and healthy can she be, because when you really get down to it and you hear how tough a model's day is, it's not fun. It [only] looks fun. And to me, behind that smile, it's just fake because behind it is agony. They are missing out on all the good times of their life. They can't eat. They're on strict diets. They have to do exercise workouts. If that's what it takes to have a good body, then I don't want one, because it's excluding everything else around you, and to have a gcxid body is saying you are not going to have a life, so what good is having a good body if you can't have a life? I mean, they're telling all these young girls that that's what you have to look like to be beautiful, when really beauty starts on the inside, not on the outside. So they are teaching us wrong. I mean, maybe everyone wouldn't be so conscious and diet, worrying about food if they wouldn't keep putting all these people up saying you could look like this too. In Susan's view, media images border on fiction ("they're airbrushed, it's not really them") and therefore have no relevance to her world of actual experi-

53 ences (i.e., "the movies, the bowling, all the everyday normal things"). Like the female participants quoted previously, Susan was explicitly conscious of the pedagogic power of media products ("they are teaching us..."), but she viewed their instructional content as misguided and dangerous ("...it's unfair... and it's wrong"). What comes through in these female voices of rejection is a more extensive societal focus than emerged among our male participants. Whereas the male consumers to whom we spoke saw media products as primarily a threat to the sovereignty of individual choice, female participants saw those products as part of the larger social fabric that subtly, yet pervasively, challenged their self confidence. These middle class men and women occupied different gender-based social positions and provided diff'erent readings of media effects. The men's version of deconstruction and/ or rejection fostered a feeling of being able to assert rational control mass media products. Their interpretations afforded a kind of self-fulfilling satisfaction by reinforcing their preferred view of themselves as autonomous decision makers. For women, however, the interpretations were offered in the spirit of voicing displeasure at the perceived inequities embedded in media images. The satisfaction women drew from this interpretive relation was in noting media images that stood in contrast to the mainstream representations of feminine beauty, and perhaps in being able to identify a domain toward which they could freely express general dissatisfactions about the gender relationships experienced in their everyday lives.

Personalizing Interpretations: Identifying and Individualizing The third relationship mode we found, identifying and individualizing, describes distinct ways by which consumers negotiated their self perceptions and personal goals in relation to the idealized images presented in the mass media. We characterize this interpretive stance as personalizing to suggest that the consumer reads the media vehicle as off"ering a reflection of his or her own life experiences and qualities. Identifying encompasses two major dimensions: (1) the media image is perceived as representing a desirable value or meaning, and (2) the consumer willfully identifies with (or emulates) the image as a way of affirming that he or she possesses the desired value or meaning. Individualizing represents consumers' efforts to manage a fundamental paradox of contem-

54 porary society — namely, that consumers must construct a unique self image or sense of individuality while at the same time conforming to the cultural code presented in the mass media and embodied in tangible products (Davis 1992). The tendency to compare oneself with media icons is implicit in many of the passages previously provided. Many saw the comparisons consumers as imposed by others in their social network or by society as a whole and did not necessarily desire or accept them as appropriate. Others, however, saw identification with a media icon as a positive affirmation of seZfidentity. The following comment by Phillip, a 21year-old college junior, exemplifies that view. I've been compared to Jason Priestly on [Beverly Hills] 90210. At least they are noticing the uniqueness of my image. They're noticing that he doesn't look like everybody else. He's unique. The point's getting across. I'm doing what I want to do. For this participant, to resemble an attractive celebrity was, somewhat paradoxically, to bear a mark of distinction. Phillip perceived media icon Jason Priestly as the personification of individuality, autonomy, and uniqueness. By being compared with this icon, Phillip gains social affirmation that he also has those desired traits or, in terms offered by McCracken (1986), he is able to transfer those cultural meanings to his personal experiences and self perceptions. Similarly, Fiske (1992, p. 38) reports that teenage girls adopted the "Madonna look" not only to "construct for themselves empowered identities, but [also] to put those meanings into social circulation." In the following passage from Ginger, a 35-year-old communications researcher, we see that the ability to transfer meaning does not always require that one physically resemble the celebrity. It can emerge from a feeling of emotional resonance with the celebrity and the character he or she represents. I saw Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, [and] I identify with the character she's playing, even though I don't think it's because I looked like her. I thought she looked prettier than what I looked like in high school.... The more I think, I don't do it on appearance so much, it's probably more what's going on with them and where they're at.... So like in [Beverly Hills] 90210, Andrea, that character, I identify with Andrea. That's where I would be in that scene. Sort of on the outside, working hard, trying to do good, trying to get into the scene, but not having the right kind of look. This passage also suggests that the transfer of meaning from media icon to consumer has a projective

The Journal of Advertising component in which the person views the character as representing his or her own life situation, and thus the transferred meanings provide some degree of self validation. Consumers' understandings of their identities are developed over the life course; oflen, certain cultural images and ideals become interwoven with self perceptions through fantasy and the media vehicles from which those fantasies derive. Who Am I? In contemporary culture, individuality is one of our most coveted values. Not surprisingly, none of our participants expressed a desire to be exactly like a particular media icon. Rather, they sought to incorporate certain characteristics and meanings embodied by the celebrity figure into their own sense of individuality. In this individualizing mode, consumers use the images conveyed by the mass media as a visual department store of symbolic possibilities that can be tried on, adopted, altered, or discarded in keeping with their desired self. Consider the words of George, a 47-year-old financial analyst. I don't consider myself a slave to fashion, but I think, just looking at somebody on TV gives you some ideas on maybe how a person can look. You know, the different people on TV. Everything from the movie stars to the news commentators and so on. You are seeing a pretty wide variation of people. So you kind of pick out your, I won't call them role models, but people who you think look well and you might copy some of the things that they might do or... gee, I think that looks nice and maybe I can do that. Like the Larry King type suspenders, or it might be different types of suits or shirts or outfits, so I maybe get some ideas from the media.

This consumer (and several others) drew an important distinction between being a "slave to fashion" and consciously choosing from among different media images. The point is expressed more strongly in the following passage from Phillip's interview, which addressed his self-described resemblance to teen celebrity Jason Priestly. P: I compare myself to other people, you know, everybody does that, even though the way you want to dress may be your unique style, but I'm sure you're drawing from other people, celebrities or whatever. I: Like Jason Priestly? P: See that's one thing I really disagree with because, sure my hairstyle looks like that, but I did have sideburns when I was in junior high. When I was a senior in high school and a freshman in college, I was heavy into sports and 1 had

Spring 1997

55

my head basically shaved like a Marine, so I had no hair. Now I decided to grow my hair back, I let my sideburns grow, I let my hair grow and I style it like that and everyone assumes, Jason Priestlylook-alike. But, like I said, if they want to believe it, fine.... It's the way I style my hair. I'm sure if I looked at other people and the way they dressed, I'm sure I could find role models or whatever you want to call it, that they've chosen to emulate. Everybody does it. And once you feel comfortable with what you've established, then that kind of dissipates, you stop doing that, you're satisfied with what you've established and you work from there. That's when you build your own model of yourself, and I think that's the stage I've hit now. I'm satisfied with the way I am and I'm going to work from there and just work on building that and not so much of drawing from other people.

In this remarkably insightful passage, Phillip expresses the ambivalent tension between the knowledge that he—like everyone else—emulates the styles and images conveyed by the mass media, yet simultaneously desires to establish a unique personal identity. In defense of his individuality, Phillip argues that his current resemblance to Jason Priestly in fact represents a return to the way he used to style his hair (prior to Priestly's arrival on the media scene). The look therefore can be claimed as "his style"—an authentic gesture of selfhood—and not a copied identity. Though he acknowledges that his appearance has been socialized by the mass media, Phillip strives for a logic that will enable the modeled look to serve as a unique expression of his style. Phillip's resolution of this paradox is a sense that one must first construct one's identity from the stock of cultural images available in the media and then, once the core self has been created, go forward to construct a truly unique self that will be recognized as such by others. As Braudy (1986, p. 587) remarks: When daily life is perceived in great part as a constant performance before an audience of others, and the popular media are preoccupied with discussions ofthe proper and improper way to behave, individual self consciousness about performance is unavoidable.... Prom the wardrobe of visual styles... we each put together our own costume.

Discussion In our analysis, an interpretive dyad consisting of mass media vehicles and their consumers is used to describe the major relationships emerging from the

interviews. As depicted in Figure 1, on one side is the formal "text" of a media vehicle or advertisement whose content reflects the intentions of its creators (artists, writers, copywriters, public relations consultants, and so forth) and generally is designed to appeal to some defined segment of consumers. On the other side ofthe dyad is the consumer who interprets the text in terms of his or her own frame of reference (see Radway 1984; Scott 1994b). Linking the two are the interpretive strategies identified in our study that consumers use in the sense-making endeavor. Consumers who use an aspiring and inspiring strategy interpret media images by as worthwhile goals and motivating examples. The relationship is one of emulation, in which the images provide motivation for the investment of personal time, effort, and selfsacrifice to attain a certain body type or lifestyle. The existence of celebrity icons who at least appear to have certain looks, meet standards of success, or defy the aging process, affirms that such goals are humanly attainable and that the consumer's efforts will ultimately provide personal reward. The second strategy, deconstructing and rejecting, refiects a more critical relationship between consumers and the mass media. Rather than accepting media images as representations of reality or authentic possibilities, consumers sometimes focus on their exaggerated, artificial, and fantasy-like nature. Further, our informants actively sought to identify the message they felt the image implicitly conveyed. In so doing, they sought to weaken the perceived power ofthe image to "sweep them away" in a quest for the ideals it portrayed. Rejecting is a logical extension of deconstructing whereby consumers disavow the image and its implicit meanings. In this interpretive mode, consumers view idealized media and advertising images as unattainable constructions and, more strongly, as manifesting undesirable values such as materialism, style over substance, and self objectification. In this mode of relationship we also discerned a major difference between men's and women's interpretations. Our male participants were more comfortable in describing themselves as individuals who managed to stand outside the institutional infiuences they could see affecting others. In contrast, our female participants' direct experience had sensitized them to a variety of problematic life issues that they could meaningfully interpret as being tied to the influence of media and advertising. Rather than being external observers, they saw themselves as trying to resist distorting infiuences from within the system.

The Journal of Advertising Figure 1 Interpretive Strategies Used to Create Consumer-iVledia Reiationships

Constructed Relationship

Media Vehicle

Consumer

Interpreted meanings, image associations, life & situational goals, consumption preferences, perceived meanings of cultural icons

Intended meanings, iconic representations, motivational appeals to assumed consumer values

Interpretive Strategies

I inspiring and aspiring

emulating relationship, focus on constructing a desired self-concept/lifestyle, media icons as a horizon of possibility

deconstructing and rejecting

critical relationship, focus on insulating the self-concept from threatening images, media icons as unrealistic ideals

identifying and individualizing

empathetic relationship, focus on affirming self-concept and current consumption patterns. media icons as a reflection of one's better qualities

57

Spring 1997 The emotionally charged nature of many statements of deconstruction and rejection attests to the powerful influences female consumers ascribed to media images. As noted by the historian Foucault (1980), power and resistance are mutually supportive. One does not reject and actively seek to resist that which has no potential to influence oneself and, conversely, the greater the perceived influence, the stronger is the act of rejection. These gender-based differences afford an important insight about the public policy implications of mass media effects (see, e.g., Stephens, Hill, and Hanson 1993), namely that the issues should not be debated as merely theoretical propositions. Rather, manifestations of media effects are tied to the specific cultural positions of consumers. The experiences and effects of^media images may vary greatly across gender, class, and ethnic orientation (Hooks 1991). Ultimately, when arguing about the effects of mass media and advertising, we must ask not only "what effects?", but also "effects on whom?" The third strategy of identifying and individualizing reflects an empathetic and personalized relationship between the consumer and the media image. In this case, media vehicles were interpreted in relation to consumers' sense of personal history, their sense of how others in their social network perceived them, and specific beliefs about their own range of identity possibilities. Celebrities stood out as particularly prominent in these self-referential interpretations. This focus on the celebrity is consistent with the historical construction ofthe "star" as one who embodies specific cultural meanings (Gamson 1993; McCracken 1989). As Dyer (1986, p. 16-17) notes, "stars represent typical ways of behaving, feeling, and thinking in contemporary society, ways that have been socially, culturally, [and] historically constructed. Stars also are embodiments of the social categories in which people are placed and through which we make our lives—categories of class, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and so on." Persons to whom we spoke displayed a remarkable flexibility in being able—and willing—to decontextualize icons and images they had observed in a variety of media contexts (e.g., advertisements, television programs, magazines, motion pictures, sporting events) and to recontextualize them in ways suitable for their own lives. In forming these selfreferential relationships, consumers often adopted an analytic orientation toward media ideals. Rather than "buying" the image in toto, they focused on specific

aspects that seemed plausible within their own life situations, self conceptions, and the social constraints posed by their everyday lives. Though consumers' identifying activities were often directed at altering their current self perception or image, the changes were seldom intended as radical breaks from their personal history and established social networks. Rather, consumers' efforts to incorporate media images were typically subtle transformations that formed a coherent pattern within the context of their current life situations. Thus, the models, celebrities, and fictional characters populating media texts function as a lingua franca, a common language of consumption ideology spoken fluently by all participants, yet used to construct a unique text of personal history.

What Do Mass Media Vehicles Communicate to "Active" Consumers? Our model also has implications for understanding and correcting miscommunications between the producer's intended meanings and the consumer's interpretation ofthe cultural product. Our analysis is consistent with communication research suggesting that the major obstacle to shared communication is the reader/consumer's adoption of a cultural frame of reference different from that preferred by the producer. As Hall (1980, p. 99-100) states: Television producers who find their message failing to get across are frequently concerned to straighten out the kinks in the communication chain... often broadcasters are concerned that the audience has failed to take the message as they— the broadcasters —intended. What they mean to say is that the audience is not operating within the dominant or preferred code. In recent years, discrepancies of this kind have usually been explained by reference to selective perception.... But selective perception is almost never as selective, random, or privatized as the concept suggests. The patterns exhibit, across individual variants, significant clusterings.

A positive implication of Hall's argument is that the major forms of divergence between encoded and decoded media meanings are not random or completely unpredictable. Our analysis substantiates Hall's comments by identifying three families of interpretive strategies consumers employ to create meanings from their experiences with cultural products. These consumer-generated productions have systematic and describable qualities that reflect the interplay be-

The Journal of Advertising tween the cultural code (or system of meanings) embodied in the cultural product and the culturally situated reading the consumer gives to the text. What our analysis suggests is that the experience of cultural products is not "subjective" in the classic sense. Our consumers' interpretations took into account the cultural code embodied in the media image. For example, one participant, in rejecting the "waif look," was aware that fashion models are supposed to represent a standard of beauty and she understood how the models could be perceived as attractive. Her rejection was not due simply to a difference in subjective taste (e.g., beauty is in the eye of the beholder). Rather, it expressed a conscious awareness of a culturally shared "aesthetic" and rejection of those cultural meanings as embodied by particular media icons. The meanings consumers create through their experiences with cultural products are best described as a type of bricolage—a kind of thinking in which established cultural meanings and images are mixed and juxtaposed to create a relatively novel product that stays within the overall cultural frame of reference (Davis 1986). Such thinking creates new, personally relevant meanings for the consumer that in large part reproduce the major values and ideals conveyed by the media's cultural code.

Implications for Advertising Theory and Practice Researchers adopting anthropological and semiotic perspectives have often proposed that advertising messages operate and are made meaningful within the larger set of images flowing through popular culture (see, e.g., Braudy 1986; Jhally 1987; Mick and Politi 1989). Though our consumer participants were certainly aware that mass media images represent life in a highly stylized and idealized way, the persuasive appeal of specific media images and icons was not tied to the literal or factual content of the "information" they convey, but rather the consumerconstructed pastiche into which the images could be concocted. One reading of this montage of representations is that they provide "dreams of identity" (Traube 1992) through which consumers can participate in a shared cultural mythology that encodes allegorical meanings (Stern 1988) about how to live one's life. In these terms, the critical question is not whether the mass media distort reality, but rather what meanings consumers derive from the allegorical system.

The pragmatic implication of the consumer-media relationships is that advertisers need to become as concerned with mass media management as they are with the more traditional task of brand management. For example, the consumers in our study identified some television personalities, film stars, and sports celebrities who have never appeared in commercials, but who still influenced their product choices (e.g., "the Larry King-type suspenders," "the Jason Priestly sideburns"). Advertisers therefore must cultivate the same type of sensitivity toward the cultural consumption code that motion picture and television program producers exhibit (Frank 1995). For example, "Roseanne," "Murphy Brown," and "Cindy Crav-rford" must all be presented in ways that are consistent with culturally shared conceptions of "blue-collar housewife," "professional career woman," and "beautiful young woman" if they are to function effectively as characters in the media landscape. Perhaps even more importantly, our research indicates that television programs, magazines, and motion pictures inherently function as informal "advertisements persuading consumers to adopt particular lifestyles," as one insightful reviewer put it. Further, because such mass media texts are not viewed with the same cultivated skepticism as actual advertisements, they may have an even greater impact on consumers' preferences. As noted by Friestad and Wright (1994, p. 22), however, "all people are moving targets whose knowledge about persuasion keeps changing." This moving-target metaphor suggests that the overuse of product placement and product tie-in strategies will eventually lead to a heightened resistance by consumers as their "persuasion knowledge" becomes attuned to that promotional form. Hence, we suggest that advertisers exercise great caution in their efforts to manage the content of television shows or media programming in ways that are beneficial to their brands. Such efforts are likely to backfire when consumers become sensitized to the implicit persuasive appeal. To avoid consumer backlash, we recommend that advertisers instead monitor the symbolic meanings and images portrayed by mass media for specific product categories and brands and attempt to work within that ideological structure. Recently, a series of research projects conducted by Wells and his colleagues (Wells and Gale 1995; Wells and Anderson 1996) examined the content of television programs as "tele-ethnographic data." In particular, the consumption code surrounding coffee was

59

Spring 1997 explored in depth (see Sherry 1995). By conducting similar studies on their own product classes, advertisers of, say, automobiles, credit cards, or breakfast cereal may be able to construct more effective campaigns that capitalize on competitive niches made available by mass media proselytization. Our central thesis is that advertising must make itself meaningful within the larger ideological realm constructed by the mass media. Though advertising is certainly a powerful influence on the consumption code in its own right, it is not the dominant voice. By "singing in harmony" with the prevailing chorus of mass media texts, advertising may become much more potent as a conveyor of consumption preferences.

References Agrawal, Jagdish and Wagner A, Kamakura (1995), "The Economic Worth of Celebrity Endorsers: An Event Study Analysis," JournoZ o/Marfceiin^, 59 (July), 56-62, Bordo, Susan (1990), "Reading the Slender Body," in Body/Politics: Women and Discourses of Science. Mary Jacobus, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Sally Shuttleworth, eds,. New York: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 83-112. (1993), Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, Bourdieu, Pierre (1984), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Braudy, Leo (1986), The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. New York: Oxford University Press, Chodorow, Nancy (1994), Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, Coupey, Eloise (1994), "Restructuring: Constructive Processing of Information Displays in Consumer Choice," Journal of Consumer Research. 21 (June), 83-99, Davis, Fred (1992), Fashion, Culture, and Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Deshpande, Rohit (1983), "Paradigms Lost: On Theory and Method in Research in Marketing," Journal of Marketing, 47 (Fall), 101-110, Douglas, Susan J, (1994), Where the Girls Are: Growing Female with the Mass Media, New York: Times Books Dyer, Richard (1982), Stars, London: BFL (1986), Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. New York: St, Martin's Press, Ewen, Stuart (1976), The Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Roots of Consumer Culture, New York: McGraw-Hill Paperbacks. and Elizabeth Ewen (1982), Channels of Desire. New York: McGraw-Hill, Faber, Ronald J, and Thomas C. O'Guinn (1988), "Expanding the View of Consumer Socialization: A Nonutilitarian Mass-Mediated Perspective," in Research in Consumer Behavior. Vol, 3, Elizabeth Hirschman and Jagdish Sheth, eds,, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 49-78, Fiske, John (1987) "British Cultural Studies and Television," in Channels of Discourse, R, Allen, ed,, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 254-289, (1989), Understanding Popular Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman,

(1992), "The Cultural Economy of Fandom," in Lisa A, Lewis, ed,, 2'he Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. London: Routledge, 30-49, and John Hartley (1978), Reading Television. London: Methuen, Foucault, Michel (1980), "The Eye of Power," in Power I Knowledge. Colin Gordon, ed,. New York: Pantheon, 146-165, Fox, Stephen (1985), The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators. New York: Vintage, Frank, Betsy (1995), Prime Time Television, 1995-1996. New York: Zenith Media Services. Freedman, Rita (1986), Beauty Bound. London: Columbus, Friestad, Marian and Peter Wright (1994), "The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with Persuasion Attempts," Journal of Consumer Research. 21 (June), 1-31. Gamson, Joshua (1994), Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America, Berkeley: University of California Press, Geertz, Clifford (1979), "From the Native's Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding," in Interpretive Social Science, Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan, eds,, Berkeley: University of California Press, 225-241, Gitlin, Todd (1983), Inside Prime-Time, New York: Pantheon, Glaser, Barney and Anslem Strauss (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Chicago: Aldine, Glaser, Milton (1985), "I Listen to the Market," in On Signs. Marshall Blonsky, ed,, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 467-474, Hall, Stuart (1980), "Encoding/Decoding," in Culture, Media, Language. Stuart Hall, D, Hobson, A, Lowe and P, Willis, eds,, London: Hutchinson, Hirschman, Elizabeth C, (1988), "The Ideology of Consumption: A Structural-Syntactical Analysis of DaWas and Diynas^y," Jburnal of Consumer Research 15 (December), 344-359, Holland, Dorothy and Debra Skinner (1987), "Prestige and Intimacy: The Cultural Models Behind Americans Talk About Gender Types," in Cultural Models in Language and Thought, Dorothy Holland and Naomi Quinn, eds,, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 78-111, Hooks, Bell (1991), B/ac^iLoofts: Boston: South End Press, Iser, Wolfgang (1978), The Act of Reading, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Jhally, Sut (1987), The Codes of Advertising, New York: St, Martin's Press, Kellner, Douglas (1992), "Popular Culture and the Construction of Postmodern Identities," in Modernity and Identity, Scott Lash and Jonathan Friedman, eds,, Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 141-177, Lavin, Marilyn (1995), "Creating Consumers in the 193O's: Irma Phillips and the Radio Soap Opera," Journal of Consumer Research, 22 (June), 75-89, Lincoln, Yvonna S, and Egon G, Guba (1985), Naturalistic Inquiry, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, Lutz, Catherine and Jane Collins (1993), Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, McCracken, Grant (1986), "Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaningof Consumer Goods," Journa/ of Consumer Research, 13 (June), 71-84, (1987), "Advertising: Meaningor Information?" in Advances In Consumer Research, Vol, 14, Paul F, Anderson and Melanie Wallendorf, eds,, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 121-124, (1988), Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Goods and Activities, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

The Journal of Advertising

60 (1989), "Who Is the Celebrity Endorser?: The Cultural Foundations of the Endorsement Process," Journal of Consumer Research, 16 (December), 310-321, Mick, David Glenn and Claus Buhl (1992), "A Meaning Based Model of Advertising Experiences," Journal of Consumer Research, 19 (December) 317-338. and Laura Politi (1989), "Consumers' Interpretations of Advertising Imagery: A Visit to the Hell of Connota-

tion," in Interpretive Consumer Research, Elizabeth C, Hirschman, ed,, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 85-96. Miller, Mark Crispin (1988), Boxedin: The Culture of TV, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Moores, Shaun (1993), Interpreting Audiences: The Ethnography of Media Consumption, London: Sage, Morley, David (1980a), The "Nationwide" Audience, London: BFI, (1980b), "Texts, Readers, Subjects," in Culture, Media, Language, Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe, and Paul Willis, eds,, London: Hutchinson, 63-173, Nichter, Mark and Mimi Nichter (1991), "Hype and Weight," Medical Anthropology, 13, 249-284, Ogles, R.M. (1987), "Cultivation Analysis: Theory, Methodology and Current Research on Television-Influenced Constructs of Social Reality," Mass Communication Review. 14, 43-53, O'Guinn, Thomas, Ronald J, Faber, and Marshall Rice (1985), "Popular Film and Television as Consumer Acculturation Agents: America 1900 to Present," in Historical Perspective in Consumer Research: National and International Perspectives, Chin Tiong Tan and Jagdish Sheth, eds,, Singapore: National University of Singapore, 297-301, Peracchio, Laura A, and Joan Meyers-Levy (1994), "How Ambiguous Cropped Objects in Ad Photos Can Affect Product Evaluations," Journal o/" Consumer i?esearc/(, 21 (June), 190-204. Petty, Richard E., John T. Cacioppo, and David Schumann (1983), "Central and Peripheral Routes to Advertising Effectiveness," Journal of Consumer Research, 10 (September), 135-146, Radway, Janice (1984), "Reading the Romance," in Feminism and the Representation of Women in Popular Culture, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Randazzo, Sal (1993), Mythmaking on Madison Avenue, Chicago: FVobus Press. Richins, Marsha (1991), "Social Comparison and the Idealized Images of Advertising," Joumai of Consumer Research, 18 (June), 71-83, Sawyer, Alan and Daniel J, Howard (1991), "Effects of Omitting Conclusions in Advertisements to Involved and Uninvolved Audiences," Journal of Marketing Research, 28 (November), 467-474, Schiller, Herbert I, (1989), Culture / n c . New York: Oxford University Press. Scott, Linda (1990), "Understanding Jingles and Needledrop: A Rhetorical Approach to Music in Advertising," Journal of Consumer Research, 17 (September), 223-236,

(1993a), "Fresh Lipstick: Rethinking Images of Women in Advertising," Media Studies Journal, 7 (Winter/ Spring), 113-124, (1993b), "Spectacular Vernacular: Literacy and Commercial Culture in the Postmodern Age," International Journal of Research in Marketing, 10 (August), 251-276, (1994a), "Images in Advertising: The Need for a Theory of Visual Rhetoric," t/ournoZo/" Consumer i?esearc/i, 21 (September), 252-273, (1994b), "The Bridge from Text to Mind: Adapting Reader-Response Theory to Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, 21 (December), 461-480, Sherry, John F, (1987), "Advertising as a Magic System," in Marketing and Semiotics: New Directions for the Study of Signs for Sale, Jean Umiker-Sebeok, ed,, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 441-452. Sherry, John, Jr, (1995), "Bottomless Cup, Plug-in Drug: A Telethnography of Coffee," Visual Anthropology, 7, 351-370, Shrum, L,J, and Thomas C, O'Guinn (1993), "Processes andEffects in the Construction of Social Reality," Communications Research, 20 (June), 436-371, Solomon, Michael R. and Basil Englis (1993), "The Big Picture: Product Complementarity and Integrated Communications, Journal of Advertising Research, 34 (January/February), 5763, Steinman, Clay (1992), "Gaze Out of Bounds; Men Watching Men on Television," in Men, Masculinity, and the Media. Steve Craig, ed,, London: Sage, 199-214, Stephens, Debra Lynn, Ronald Paul Hill, and Cynthia Hanson (1993), "The Beauty Myth and Female Consumers: The Controversial Role of Advertising," t/ourna/ of Consumer Affairs, 28 (Summer), 137-153, Stem, Barbara B, (1988), "Medieval Allegory: Roots of Advertising Strategy for the Mass Market," t/ourna/ of Marketing, 52 (July), 84-94. Strauss, Anselm and Juliet Corbin (1990), Basics of Qualitative Research, London: Sage. Thompson, Craig J,, William B, Locander, and Howard R, Pollio (1989), "Putting Consumer Experience Back Into Consumer Research: The Philosophy and Method of Existential-Phenomenology," Journa/o/" Consumer iJesearcA, 16 (September), 133-147, Traube, Elizabeth G, (1992), Dreaming Weniiiies; Class, Gender, and Generation in WSffs Hollywood Movies, Boulder, CO: West view Press, Turner, Graeme (1992), British Cultural Studies: An Introduction, New York and London: Routledge, Wells, William D, and Cheri L, Anderson (1996), "Fictional Materialism," in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol, 22, Kim Corfman and John Lynch, eds,, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, forthcoming. and Kendra L, Gale (1995), "Product Images in Television Comedies and Dramas," Proceedings, European Conference of the Association for Consumer Research,