The Social construction and change of consumer identity, ideology and 'spectacle': a study of credit card commercials in Turkey from 1989 to 2004

Abstract

Starting from the liberalization period by the Ozal government in mid-1980s, the Turkish society has become increasingly dominated by consumption. Introduced around the same time, credit cards have spread exponentially and altered people's conception of and relationship with money and consumption remarkably. The simultaneous advance of advertising has supported and accelerated the transformation of Turkish society into a true consumer society.This study of forty credit card commercials from 1989 to 2004 has enabled an observation of this social and cultural transformation and of the way consumer identities and ideologies are constructed in advertising. Shifting the focus from the product towards the consumer and placing him/her in the centre of all consumption and communication efforts, credit card commercials have changed from a rational attitude to a persuasive one. They seek to draw consumers' attention and choice to the product advertised by addressing their innermost feelings, beliefs, values and desires. With a variety of enhanced visual, audio, narrative and rhetorical techniques, commercials create spectacles to compensate for the irrationalities of rationalized credit cards and simulate dream worlds consumers can escape into.