ABSTRACT
This chapter explores dialectical tension and builds a synthetic model of consumption as a symbolic vocabulary and resource for identity construction and maintenance through ‘communities of practice’. Consumption as a social practice is a dynamic and relatively autonomous process which involves the symbolic construction of a sense of self through the accumulation of cultural and symbolic capital. Mediated experience is an outcome of a mass-communication culture and the consumption of media products and involves the ability to experience events which are spatially and temporally distant from the practical context of daily life. Thus even low-level repetitive consumption behaviour enacted in private has the potential to play an important role in the construction and maintenance of the self. Consumption of the symbolic meaning of goods plays a central role in supplying meanings and values for the performance of social practices and advertising is recognized as one of the major sources of these symbolic meanings.
