Strangers in a strange land: adolescents, advertising and the perception of ideology

Abstract

This research examines whether adolescent males of European descent are able to identify the operation of the ideology of relations of domination within a contemporary Western capitalist society like New Zealand. It is argued that within this context advertising will be a major carrier of the ideological message. Several concepts: Ideology, Advertising, Adolescence and Body-Image, are examined to establish whether ideology can influence social behaviour, the adolescent being used as an example. This examination not only assesses how the relations of domination and their ideological function may operate within society, but also looks at the construction of the adolescent within this society with reference to such social operations. A research exercise is then conducted to test the awareness of the operation of ideology among a group of adolescents. This component of the research consists of a questionnaire administered individually to the ten student subjects, examining their response to advertising and in particular their perception/ understanding of the ideological function of advertising. The conclusion of this research is that the adolescent males of European descent used in this research were unable to identify ideological operations within advertising. Although several subjects were able to identify attributes consistent with the formation of an ideology, they were unable to specifically link these attributes with the concept of social operations related to a set of relations of domination. Possible explanations for these findings may be found in examining the concept of mystification and the presentation of a 'commonsense' social perspective by the intellectuals of the social group asserting its dominance.