LEC-Seminar Workshop on "The Limits of Cultural Globalization"

Jawaharlal Nehru University & Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, June/July 2000

Globalisation and Popular Culture
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Reading Advertisements Sociologically

SUSANTA KUMAR JENA

The year 1991 was the turning point in India's globalisation drive. Under the Narasimha Rao Govt in 1991, the Indian society was officially opened to the forces of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation. Though the process of the integration of the Indian economy with the global market has not been all encompassing and smooth, it has been seen to be irreversible. Since 1991, New Delhi has seen four Prime Ministers in 9 years. The changes in the basic contours of the political rhetoric have not caused any severe dent upon the globalisation process. The task at hand in this article is to analyse and understand the impact of globalisation on popular culture through an interpretive study of modern advertisements. This article contains three parts. The first part is about the theoretical framework needed to analyse modern advertisements. The second part is about various substantive instances illustrating the main arguments of this article. The last part is the concluding one.

This paper seeks to understand and analyse the changes brought by globalisation in popular perceptions and lifestyles. Print and television advertising is one area where these changes are significant and highly visible. Before setting out to effect an interpretive study of advertising in the Indian context, some qualifications are in order. One, this paper does not use the term globalisation quite often, the purpose being to avoid unnecessary repetition. So the background of the paper B that is, the Indian society in its transitional phase interacting with the forces of globalisation B should be kept in mind to give an element of coherence to the entire discussion. Two, any particular ad is open to varied interpretations. The paper has tried to opt for the interpretation, which seems to be most plausible from the viewer=s point of view. Since the target audience is heterogeneous, the paper aims at achieving a safe degree of generalizeability. I

Theoretically speaking, advertising and culture are related to each other. Advertising as a symbolic form of the capitalist economic system governs the principles of the social exchange in which the reciprocal limits of the world of objects and of subjects are elaborated (Gallissot, 1994). The cultural significance of advertising is that it has become, in its multiple forms (printed ads, Posters, films and so on) as well as in its techniques (marketing), a full-fledged consumption goods which is part of the cultural industries as a cultural object and constitutes one of its dominant modes of production. The cultural perspective argues against the traditional opposition between advertising and society which stems principally from a mass media vision: the masses on the one side and the media on the other.

The mainstream manipulation thesis seeks to find out what the effects of advertising are on society or on a group (women, children, ethnic minorities, middle class, youth etc.), and vice versa. The conception here is that advertising and mass society is two essentially distinct realities simply related by a mirroring link: society is claimed to be alternatively modeled by the advertisement medium or reflected in it.

The cultural perspective on the country, rules out any a priori cleavage. There is no mirroring between advertising and the immediate social milieu on which it interacts. Modern advertising is defined as a mode of discourse that is a particular way of using resources for expression. It gives objects their meanings and show the target audience their use. It creates a certain intelligibility of the cultural categories that if, at the same time, visualizes and ritualizes. The foundational premise of this perspective in that advertising exists only in and for a certain environment (Gallissot, 1994).

Following Gallissot, we can talk of three different paradigms of conceptualizing advertisements. The Marxist paradigm (Ewen, 1976) conceptualizes advertising as an expression of relations between people in the form of market relations. Advertising is seen as the mediation process which is by itself the ideological sector, since it is contingent and creates artificial needs (Marcuse). The problem with this paradigm is that it derives consumption systematically and unproblematically from production through a rigid and hierarchised frame, which conceives the relationship between the economy, society and culture in the form of unilateral determinations. The Marxist paradigm ignores the fact that advertising has a certain social reality because it is experienced at the level of the socio-cultural system, not because it has an ideological at the cultural level (Sherry, 1987).

The consumption paradigm goes beyond the Marxist distinction between two values of a product: use value and exchange value. Use value or utility is also a matter of culture: every utility is symbolic (Sahlins). The ideological manipulation of advertising does not manifest itself on the level of commodity fetishism (at the level of production) but rather at the level of sign fetishism ( at the level of representation). To consume is above all to consume signs. Consumption practices gain their meaning through a system of objects which is commonly experienced. Consumption thus appears as a kind of ritual which performs culture, and advertising is seen as a ritual of these rituals which constitutes the process of exaggeration and simplification called >hyper-ritualisation= (Goffman, 1976). This paradigm is criticized for its conceptualisation of consumption as the decipherment or the performance of pre-established cultural codes. It rules out multiplicity of willed actions that would define consumption practices as creative, the whole set of collective orientations which make them possible in society (De Certean, 1980).

The third paradigm is what can be called the cultural analysis paradigm. Stemming from the linguistic influence in the social sciences, this paradigm is centered mainly on the analysis of advertisements. It tries to find out the logic of the organization of their content. It also involves locating networks of cultural meaning and identifying vectors which support it and transfer it from one place to another: from the constructed world to the object and from the object to the consumers (Mc Cracken, 1986). This paradigm does not limit itself to the mere mention of a static and autonomous level. Rather, the elaboration of meaning takes a diachronic point of view: the history of the conditions allowing advertising to become a cultural object.

Seen this way, culture becomes the system cultural industries and advertising becomes the industry which produces specific goods (here advertisements). The advertising industry produces specific contents, i.e. printed advertisements, posters, commercials. The advertising process is the transformational act which makes, through specific production (advertisements), strategic decisions about what interest groups are aimed at, the giving of a specific appearance to a product (design) and its graphic identity (logo, brand name and etc.) to whatever it is promoting (goods, services, institutions and so on). The advertising concept is at the same time the object in itself and the axis of its communication.

II Advertising as the production of commodity signs

A commodity sign joins together a named material entity (Siena car by Fiat) as a signifier with a meaningful image as a signified (security). Advertising involves a commercially viable language of appearances and images in which commodity relations systematically penetrate and organize cultural meaning. Not only are commodities joined to signs, commodities get produced as sign and signs become produced as commodities (Goldman, 1992). The Pavlovian technique of conditioning becomes the basis of producing commodity signs. Ads do not create meanings, but rather provide an arena in which to transfer and rearrange meanings. A successful movie star (Shah Rukh Khan) or a popular sportsperson (Sachin Tendulkar) acting in an ad of a popular brand (Pepsi Cola) is a case in point. This particular ad does not create a Sachin or a Shah Rukh out of blue but rearranges the meaning attributed to them by the audience to develop an image for the Pepsi brand.

Ads, while producing commodity signs, teach the target audience to consume signs. As the LG ad suggests, the LG microwave oven teaches the audience, the value of the preservation of nutrients in cooking and highlight the association of the brand name with the trendy attributes like slim figure and scientific cooking. Moreover, a local variable (Malai Kofta) is presented to heighten the effect of familiarity. The value produced by consumer goods advertising is the image. The primary value consumed is the symbolic image of the good that can be displayed. Constructing commodity-signs takes place in the social space where viewer and advertisement come together. There is nothing passive about the reception and assembly of meanings into commodity-signs in ads. Producing and realising sign values begins with advertising as a communication form requiring the viewer=s participation in the interpretation of meaning. Interpreting an ad, constructing meaning and producing sign value are inseparable and simultaneous process.

Though advertisers seek to steer meanings, they cannot guarantee interpretation. Readers= active interpretation of advertising texts may result in ratification of advertisers= >preferred= meanings or in >aberrant= meanings. Readers or viewers are neither homogeneous nor passive. Interpretations vary by subculture and interpretive community, as well as by class, gender and race. No matter how condensed and over structured, the meanings generated by ads are never finite. An ad by Punwire (a telecom company owned by the Punjab govt.) showing Hitler to highlight the uniqueness of its product backfired. So did the 1984 campaign ad issued by the Youth Congress showing a sikh taxi driver to highlight the need for a safe social atmosphere for peaceful existence.

Seen this way, advertising in a globalised market place is a process of production of commodity signs. Inherent in the capitalistic production system, advertising seeks to develop a deep-rooted consumer culture. In this way it goes beyond providing the audience with the needed information about products. It creates a culture consisting of actions and strategies involving signs and symbols (Swidler). The foregoing section shows how effectively ads perform this function in the contemporary Indian society. While promoting products of high sign-value, ads make them a part of cultural complex, thereby legitimizing them and the process behind them.

Reification and advertising form

Ads are message systems designed to organize perceptions and create >structures of meaning= (Williamson, 1978). Advertisers draw socio-cultural meanings from viewers= life worlds and the mass media themselves, and embed these meanings in images, which are then returned to viewers. Now framed in relation to meanings of products, services or corporate identities. A primary goal of advertising is to generate brand-name recognition. Thus a fundamental agenda in contemporary consumer-goods advertising is to link a >positioning concept= to a named product (Ennis, 1982). This entails turning a minimum of two meaning systems in relation to one another. Decades of cigarette advertising (Wills, for example), for example, connected meanings of cigarettes as commodity-objects to meaningfully arranged images of glamour (billiards table), sophistication (taste, made for each other), popularity (brand name) or rugged individuality (polo).

Looking at a wider canvass, one can relate the reification function of ads to what is happening in the present Indian society. An Aquagard ad establishes a water filter as the manifestation of hygiene in a country where more than half of the urban population (for Mumbai, it is 67%) does not have basic sanitation facilities. Newer and models of cars come to the market with their ads proclaiming the divine right of a consumer B the right to choose. What remains ignored is the fact that the consumers have no say in deciding which type of transportation system is good for them. The background assumption is that what is best for the Americans is also best for the Indians. A cosmopolitan woman is reified as honest, smart and sexy. Cars are similarly reified as symbols of efficiency and comfort.

Advertisements and family

Expanded sales and control of market shares are not the only agendas at stake in corporate advertising. Corporations also seek popular legitimacy by joining cherished values and social relations to their corporate images. Corporate ads present the virtues of >consumer freedom= as synonymous with democracy (Goldman, 1992). The family is one of the institutions representing the social ideal to which advertisers seek to link their images to bolster corporate legitimacy. Advertising intervenes as a potent political institution in mediating meanings of freedom, individuality, work and leisure, community and family life. This is legitimation advertising.

Maruti (Manufacturing Cars), Bajaj (Manufacturing two wheelers), HMT (Manufacturing Watches), Onida (Television Sets), Asian Paints (Indoor decorating), Lifebuoy (Soaps) and etc. have been resorting to this form of advertising. Legitimation ads are an outgrowth of the culture industry=s mass marketing of wish-fulfillments within a societal system fundamentally antagonistic to their realization. Ads concerning familial relations tap into a pool of unfulfilled desires and aspirations, channelling fulfillment of these desires through cultural commodities. On the other hand, these ads represent calculated attempts to restore confidence in corporate institutions while countering the erosion of >old values=, >social ability= and >private moral standards= (White, 1978).

Corporate ads present our most valued social relations as emanating from the products and companies being advertised (Goldman, 1992). Commodity reification and corporate legitimacy often intersect in ads. For example in Philips= >Let=s make things better= campaign, social relations appear to circulate about Philips products. Philips positions itself in gratifying relations to daily life, and edges viewers toward an interpretive stance of reification. Products bestow on aura of active agency on those who come near, and social relations take place among product-mediated actors. Philips= campaign brings optimistic familial relations into the lives of those who inhabit the Philips world, the name >Philips= representing both a corporate presence, takes credit for compassionate and fulfilling personal relations in the lives of people like us.

Corporate ads offer ideological justification and support for the sanctity of family life. Dabur=s Chyawanprash, Amul=s dairy products, Pepsodent=s dental products, Daewoo=s Matiz Car etc. are a case in point. Relations that constitute family life are situated in terms of consuming named brands, while set against the background of commodity consumption in general (Goldman, 1982). A mother-child embrace thus appears contingent on the presence of Johnson and Johnson baby care products. The Raymond ad campain repeatedly shows that gratifying father-son relation requires a physical infrastructure made up of commodity objects ( i.e. dress materials of specific textiles). Parent-child embraces are the culmination of intensely stirring dramas in Nescafe and Complan ads. Parent-child hugs are invariably associated with a microwave oven, a TV, a refrigerator and a baby food product. Mother-daughter embrace in an ad promoting a sanitary napkin (Whisper, Cortex, etc.) is very common. The same relation is shown repeatedly, devoid of any biographical history or context. The interchangeability of signifiers requires that viewers be able to generalize interpretively from any specific message the principle that commodity consumption in the necessary condition making possible the meaning of family life.

Invariably, the family is situated in, and associated with, leisure and consumption activities. Only where the family is depicted as rural (for example, Mahindra Tractor) do contemporary family members engage in laboring activities. Otherwise, TV ads show families systematically severed from work relations and production activities. Ads not only dissociate the context of family life from work activities, they situate the conduct of family life outside the framework of economic relations. A consumptive and not a productive unit, the typical ad family is defined as the private sphere. The images that compose this family demarcate it as a haven, a retreat, a place where one can engage in affectively supportive relations. This is amplified by treating the family as a feeling state. Archies=, Amul, Dabur, LG and etc. ideologically portray the family as a private, protected site for affecting individualism. Not only do these ads appropriate the most gratifying and hopeful private moments from people=s lives, they also unhesitatingly entangle their corporate presence in our achievement of intimate moments. This is dramatically shown in the Ariel ad in which friend counsels @To get something (wife=s praise), you will have to wash something@ (Kuchch pane ke liye, kuchch dhona pad ta hai).

Without sounding biased, one can safely attest to the impact of ads glamourising family on the target audience. A population so far murtured by the ideals of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat is now being made to see a globalised version of family. A younger brother is being shown in a shampoo ad attached to his equally lively sister through a shampoo pouch. The traditional ceremony involving marriage is being identified with the Raymond=s >Complete Man= ad. The forces of globalisation are intent upon giving family a new image-an image that is perfectly compatible with consumer culture and conspicuous consumption. A TV ad talks, preserving the nutrition of food articles for the better help of the whole family. A car ad exhorts the buyer to think of the safety of his family. And the list goes on Y

Pseudo-individuality and advertising

Adorno (1941) saw >pseudo-individualisation= the other side of the standardization brought about by mass-production and mass-consumption. Mass-produced objects are offered as a means of establishing one=s individuality. Thus Elle18 ad says to every woman consumer @ Because you=re worth it@. It is capable of being a mass-produced object and being unique at the same time. A De Beers as shows a girl saying @I wasn=t born a princess. But my father turned me into one@. This ad on diamond implies that the woman wears it, who thus joins the crowd, is contradictionally capable of thereby asserting her individuality.

Appeals to pseudo-individuality in cosmetics advertisements resets on the unstated premise that each consumer represents a standardized unit of consumption. Qualities of individuality, playfulness and spontaneity seem to emanate from the product. For example, a chamber ad promoting liquid make-up says, @ It fits your mental make-up@. Pseudo-individuality is hammered home by the continuous repetition of ambiguous personal pronouns. Pronouns like >you=, >yours=, >me= are employed in the text of cosmetics ads to refer to the product itself, to the beautiful model who appears in the photograph and to the reader.

Pseudo-individualization stems from the market imperative to differentiate the act of consuming multiple versions of essentially the same product. A consumer ad names the consumers through its mode of address, asking them to insert themselves when the model fits. Seeing a potential >you= in the mirror of the ad, the consumers are invited to perform a critical interchange of meanings. The concept of pseudo-individuality challenges the premise of consumer goods advertising that an integrated autonomous ego can be realized through commodity consumption. Individuality is a social relation not an object. Commodity signs are based on preconstituted formulas for individuality, which deny the fundamental social nature of personality.

Here lie the contradictions. Consuming a health drink, children become Complan girls and Complan boys. This sense of individual identity comes from the ad world in a social set-up where more than half the children population does not have pure drinking water within their reach. It is a huge mockery of the child laborers and their plight. The forces of globalisation, while creating a world based upon the false sense of individuality, have nothing to do with the betterment of the social milieu that would guarantee equal opportunities to all irrespective of one=s purchasing capacity. The political economy of globalisation in a hierarchical society like India is bound to aggravate the in egalitarian system rather than uplifting the sections of population having no access to resources and technology. No wonder that a movie magazine talks of >women with substance= in a society having little avenues for the socio-psychological development of its women population.

Gender relations and ads

An increasing number of consumer goods advertisements stress woman=s expanding avenues for achieving success and parity vis-à-vis men. Ads more and more depict men and women in relations of formal equity, but on different footing. Television ads present women playing and competing with men at men=s games, and winning, while in the end re-affirming their traditional (i.e. natural, >god-given=) gender traits-looking attracting and discharging their household responsibilities efficiently and effectively. The Elle18 cosmetics ad exhorts women to @Be yourself@. Redressing the power imbalance in gender relations is cast in terms of commodity consumption and personal appearance. Change occurs not through political or legal activism or economic policy making, but through individuated commodity consumption. (A lakme ad on lipsticks carries the caption: @ On the top of the world@. A L=Oreal ad on shampoo carries @Because I= am worth it@).

Ideological themes run the gamut from valourising a professional woman (or @woman with substance@) image in campaigns for Videocon, Nokia and Ericsson, to cosmetics and perfume ads that articulate a mythic superwoman figure. These ads feature the >new woman= B sublimely self-confident and secure, poised, effortlessly beautiful, she moves with a style and grace. She is independent, yet feminine; successful, yet caring; liberated, yet romantic; modern, yet traditional at the same time. Gender power is now partially lived out at the level of appearances. Ads frequently represent women taking control and power over their lives and relationships through their commodified articulation of feminine appearance. A Monte Carlo ad on sweters and pull-overs carries a caption @It is the way you make me feel@. This model of social power proposes that autonomy and control can be obtained through voluntary self-fetishization. A dialectic of desire, envy and power is embedded in these ads= form of address and the currency of appearances they endorse.

Let=s explain a TV ad promoting Ericsson cell phone. A beautifull woman dressed formally is speaking into her palm-sized cell phone. The cell phone is too small to be observed by the unsuspecting public (It turns out to be the selling point of the product). A middle-aged man sitting a few chairs away is mistaken and assumes that the woman is speaking with him. On hearing the woman asking for the dinner, the man walks up to her. Then the woman removes her palm from her ear and asks the man, @One black coffee, please!@ as if the man was a waiter employed in the restaurant. At this moment we hear the sound of laughter and some glasses dropping on the floor. This ad establishes the relationship between the product with the image of a successful and attractive woman.

The image of a successful woman in a globalised world is divorced from the actual political and economic forces operating at the level of family and work place. When a traditional society globalizes, the status of women is operated upon by the twin forces of the patriarchal orthodoxy and the emerging inequalities. For example, in the contemporary Indian society, the pre-existing familiar norms of gender inequality are being compounded by the emerging gender disparities in the work place. But the corporate advertisers say nothing about this situation. The >feel good= factor of globalisation remains unchallenged.

Ads and male gaze

Ads seek to address women about themselves as malleable surfaces that can be adorned with objects that carry desired traits via commodities= powers of signification. They encourage and perpetuate a pattern of seeing women as collection of body parts. Ads encourage women not merely to adorn themselves with commodities, but also to perceive themselves as objectified surfaces (Goldman, 1992). Representations of women in ads carry both a message and a set of instructions about how to make sense of it. The structure and format of an ad, along with its mode of address, communicate instructions about how to interpret the ad=s meaning. Some ads (like L=Oreal with the caption @Because I=m worth it@) are premised on women having internalized the male gaze so that >women are invited Y to respond to themselves through the imagined fetished of men= (Winship, 1980). When a female-mediated male gaze is presupposed, the model=s photographic appearance may be read as standing for the viewer=s own commodity-enhanced appearance, where the object of desire is the appearance that will make her an >object of envy for others= and thereby generate desire on the part of that >special male=. Examples are quite common. For example, when a Lee Girls ad shows a photograph of a beautiful model wearing Lee=s jeans the caption being >A fit that=ll haunt any man=s windscreen B the response is clear: >Hey, I wish that was me=.

Goldman (1982) also talks of the mirrored gaze. Ads often mirror desired ego packagings. This is plainly visible in ads where body shape is pursued because it says something important about the viewer who is a part of the audience targeted by the advertisers. The viewer is asked to insert herself imaginatively. For example, the Lee ad illustrates the fusion between the spectator-buyer, the spectator-owner and the object of desire. Like most consumer-goods ads, these ads address >you= as a subject with a coherent ego, invited to compare the photographed body as an object of desire to your own possible body. In turn, this triggers another comparison, this one made in front of the subject=s mirror. These ads encourage a narcissistic self-realization, wherein actualizing interpersonal power rests on evoking desire and envy through the details of one=s appearance.

The popular image of a woman=s appearance has changed under the impact of globalisation. With the massive televisiblity blessed upon Sushmita Sen, Aiswarya Roy, Diana Heyden and other beauty queens, the notions of Indian beauty have taken a Westernised turn (Slimness is an in-thing.), making the traditional images of beauty outdated and out of sync. The logic of male gaze can be extended to imply that the advertising industry is packaging the Indian notions of beauty as a woman for when the male gaze is the Western world.

Children and ads

Modern ads use children to give an emotional undertone to the products by suggesting the audience an element of familiarity. This trend is compatible with the changes occurring in the traditional family structure because of the forces of globalisation. The modern family has become child-centric in its life style. The colour of the car a family plans to buy is decided as per the wishes of the children in the family. This explains using children as models in ads promoting tooth pastes, shampoo, interior paints, soft drinks, health drinks, cars, washing machines, refrigerators and etc. The visibility of various consumer goods is seen to be related to the presence of child models in TV ads promoting the products. The role of child models is in no way restricted to the ads promoting children-related products. Presence of child models in ads on telecommunication products is a case in point. When a child model explains the uniqueness of an LG television set to the perplexed adults of the family, this logic becomes very obvious.

Cultural Common-sense and ad construction

Every society has its unique set of folklore, popular idioms, customs, myths, cultural practices and conventional empirical knowledge associated with its immediate environment. It is what Gramsci called cultural common-sense. Globalisation has led to replacement of the existing cultural commonsense of the local communities by an ahistorical cultural common-sense. Ahistorical because the umbilical chord of the elements of the traditional cultural common sense have been ruptured by the unrelated elements belonging to different contexts under the compulsions of globalisation. In a coca cola ad shown in TV, young boys are shown playing cricket in streets. Nusrat Fateh Ali, the late famous Urdu Quwali singer from Pakistan, is singing in the background. Red chillies are being dried under a scorching sun (Coca cola is also associated with red colour). Agra's Taj Mahal (traditinally associated with love and romance) is also being shown along with small girls performing classical dance. Seen this way, ads seek to promote a product by rupturing the cultural common-sense and creating a new image for the product to gain acceptance.

Advertising and citizenship

This section looks at the potential of advertising as a form of public communication and a setting for the actualisation of notions of contemporary citizenship. Citizenship includes more than the Marshallian triad of civic, political and social rights and obligations. Citizenship is also a feature of culture, operative as a dimension of individual and collective identities. To paraphrase Dahlgren (1995): to be a citizen means to be included culturally, not just civically, socially and politically. From a performative perspective on advertising, the role of advertising as a means to create varied notions of contemporary citizenship. The corporate brand names advertising civic virtues is an example of the commodification of citizenship.

The shell (an MNC manufacturing petroleum products) ad teaching the audience the value of an unpolluted environment or the Sriram Honda (an Indian-Japanese joint venture manufacturing generator sets) ad teaching the users the value of a noise-free, pollution-free and fuel-efficient power generation is a classic example of spreading the values associated with ideal civic life. But modern advertising goes beyond this. On the cultural level, various ad campaigns incorporate enjoyable visions of cultural differences and alternative lifestyles. A Nokia ad showing people belonging to different cultural groups (using the Nokia mobile phone to get connected to their rural farmers, American educated sons, Tamil Brahmins etc.) relatives is a case in point. A Complan ad showing a lady doctor commenting to mothers about the nutritional needs of their children is another example. A series of Glaxo ads in daily news papers about various contemporary health problems can be taken as an instance of how the good life and the good society. The analysis shows how particular commercials (Ruff and Tuff jeans wearing young man giving a helping hand to an old man and confronting an English man about the norm of respecting old people) tell valuable stories of the good life in multicultural societies. Likewise, advertising tells stories which may annoy the audience or which the audience assume will defend the fellow citizens (various ads showing the sikhs in bad light), and as such they may inspire new civil attitudes and life styles. The cosmopolitan life-style presented by the corporate advertisers reveals itself as a kind of civic attitude organised and produced by MNCs and mediated by talk about their commercials.

The idea of civic attitude becomes prominent in the context of the process of nation-building in India. Globalisation has become a reality in India where the process of nation-building confronts the divisive forces of religion, language, region, community and etc. The uniqueness of India as a nation lies in its diversity and heterogeneity. The role of corporate advertising in spreading the image of nationalism in this context becomes very interesting. It is not necessarily restricted to the ads shown in the official TV channel, Doordarshan. The commodification of citizenship was at its best during the recently experienced Kargil war. When cricket stars, politicians, film and television actors and etc. added glamour to the efforts to help the soldiers fighting on the border, the corporate ads lent an aura of emotional nationalism to the whole scene.

Advertising and consumption diffusion

When mobile phones and pagers entered the Indian market, their possession became a matter of prestige and social demonstration. At a later stage, the size (how small one's pager is) of the device replaced mere possession of the device as a sign of one's sophistication. The same phenomenon was observed during the 1980's when Maruti cars entered the Indian automobile market as the people's care. But the earlier hype of owning a Maruti car has now been replaced by the mind-boggling range of choicest cars from the home-made Matiz, Honda city, Cielo and Indica to the imported Mercedes-Benz and Contessa. For a super-rich section of the Indian population, the issue is now associated with the number of cars owned by a family. Apart from the aspects of conspicuous consumption and demonstration effect, the aspect of consumption diffusion associated with the trickle-down of the elite phenomena shows how innovations in social habits become a part of mass processes.

Though consumption diffusion is primarily driven by the system of production, advertising plays a very significant role in this context. A careful study of ads promoting newer and trendier models of refrigerator (Kelvinator), washing machine (Whirlpool), detergent (Surf Excel), small car (Tata's Indica) and so on shows how powerful ads are in creating a negative image of outdated models of the same products and a positive image of newly introduced models. This generalisation also holds true for cosmetics beauty products and health drinks. This trend becomes very obvious in case of electronic and computer-related goods and services. Personal computers, television sets, video recorders, watches and computer programmes are prone to consumption diffusion. The cycle processes consisting of the introduction and rejection of these products in the market have short life span. The life cycle of a seemingly durable product like diamond is even not so long as to suggest any kind of immunity from the process of consumption diffusion. Another aspect of this process is related to special events like Valentine's day, Mother's day, the new Millenium and etc.

Consumption diffusion in a globalised Indian Society is bound to evoke different types of response. In a traditional society given to the repression of emotions and the absence of public showing of emotions, the forces of globalisation have made a visible impact. A Shampoo ad talks of similarity between mother=s love and long hair. It strikes everybody irrespective of one=s class position. Even the forces of Swadeshi emerging to oppose globalisation have been using the corporate advertising as a means of consumption diffusion, though what should be consumed is defined in terms of the >Swadeshiness= of the products. The Meshwak ad talks of the traditional knowledge confirmed by modern scientific investigations.

III

The present paper seeks to explore the basic contours of changes in life-style, values and popular images accompanying post-1991 globalisation drive through an analysis of a number of popular advertisements. The basic assumption remains: Advertisements are a window to social life of a society characterised by "conspicuous consumption" and demonstration overdrive. When consumer culture permeates every social fabric of an inequitous society, contradictions are bound to happen and flourish. Going beyond the conventional Marxist approach to understand an emerging capitalist society, the paper examines the cultural consequences of the increasing exposure of the Indian society to the forces of globalisation. The basic features of the commercial advertisements, the paper claims, point towards the changes involving consumer perceptions, popular tastes and public images. Nature, women and children are being used to project the emerging "cultural common-sense".

Following Goldman's analysis, this paper conceptualises ads as the production of commodity signs. Ads, while producing commodity signs to be consumed by the consumers waiting in a market place, indulge in reifying advertising form. To give an emotional undertone to the content of ads, the corporate advertisers use family as a legitimising agency legitimising the brand names. The paper discusses the concept of pseudo-individuality in the context of advertising and mass consumption. Gender relations are discusses as an extension of the logic of pseudo-individuality. This discussion also includes the notion of male gaze. The role of children in modern ads is also discussed with reference to the changes at the level of family. The paper then relates the Gramscian concept of cultural commonsense to the construction of ads. The next sub-section deals with the cultural production of citizenship and civic values through advertising. The concept of consumption diffusion is used to explain what is happening to the consumers' taste in term of accumulation of changes in tastes and preferences.