ABSTRACT
Critics of advertising (Williams, 1980) have argued that advertising sells a product as well as a lifestyle. As Bandura (1969) put it, advertising disseminates product information from which people learn how to attach social meaning to material goods. According to Pollay (1986), advertising not only attempts to infl uence how people shop and actually use products, it also has an impact on the larger domain of consumers’ social roles, goals, values, and meaning, among other things. Hence, the persuasive power of advertising lies in cultivating consumers and creating a consumerist culture. Ewen (2001) characterized this power of advertising as “captains of consciousness.” Nevertheless, the infl uence of advertising as an “awareness institution” (Tussman, 1977) on the emergence of new media technology-centered consumer cultures is rarely studied; little is known about the social psychological process in which advertising cultivates relationships with target audiences and motivates consumption of high-tech products.
