THE ROLE OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN THE CULTIVATION OF SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS

Abstract

In this research, consumer cultivation was extended from the traditional area of television to that of advertisements as seen in magazines. The effects of advertisements may be considered as more consumerist and materialist than that of television programs. Advertisements portray real people, real products and real services, unlike television programs which are largely hypothetical stories. Therefore, magazine advertisements are considered as a more veridical source of information, making their cultivation effects more persistent. Through frequent reading of magazines that contain advertisements depicting luxurious brands, products and services, people have come to make higher estimations of people in society who can actually afford to lead such affluent lifestyles. However, when told that these advertisements may have an impact on their social judgments, people reconsidered the veracity of advertisements as a source of information. The explicit realization of this relationship led people to discount advertisements as an accurate information source, which led them to make lower estimations of social affluence. Furthermore, apart from cultivating social perceptions, these luxurious advertisements have also been found to cultivate materialistic values to a certain extent. People who read more magazines with these luxurious advertisements reported stronger materialistic values when they paid more attention to these advertisements.