Eesti elanike hoiakud reklaami suhtes 1993-2008

Date

2008

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Tartu Ülikool

Abstract

Description

This particular paper is about peoples’ attitudes towards advertising as communicative activity in general, differentiating in the empirical sense evaluations (like-dislike), expectations (what kind of advertising is good) and attribution of meaning (here: the role of advertising and depicted benefit). The purpose of this paper is to describe different roles of advertising in the consumers’ consciousness, the criticalness of consumers’ towards advertising in 2008 and to evaluate directions and extensions of attitude changes compared to 1993. So this paper adumbrates the change of advertising attitudes in the background of market economy and consumer culture, the development of economy and media situation. The focus of this masters paper is actual from the consumer culture’s (critical analysis) point of view, adding empirical material in the general notional discussion of a relationship between consumer as passive or active practitioner and individual (consumers) and social system (advertising as an institution). This particular paper’s hypothesis is put up in the key of development of consumer culture and consumer, which theoretical assumption is that the way consumers interpret advertising reflect the values that are driven from our culture and culturally acquired fantasies and desires. The author’s hypothesis is that, the role and the meaning of advertising (as phenomenon) has changed for an individual with the general development of the consumer culture in the context of the development of the economic sphere. In order to check the reliability of the hypothesis, the formed research questions and instruments are chosen and formulated in the frame of three theoretical approaches: McQuail’s verbalised roles of media; the benefits and needs of media conception and Max Weber’s conception of illegitimacy of power. In this paper’s first chapter the review of theoretical and empirical approaches is given, including the review of different authors’ disquisition of role of advertising in the society, consumer activity and criticalness. In addition the papers of authors’ who have explored Estonian consumer culture are observed. In the second chapter of this paper the research object is observed more closely- the methodological aspects to measure the attitudes towards advertising and researches from foreign authors In the third chapter of this masters paper the focus and the main research questions are presented. The forth chapter describes the data of the empirical part, including qualitative and quantitative, the sources and the method of data collecting. Separately the early data’s and for this particular paper compiled so called original research data collecting methodologies and the base of choice are observed. This paper’s fifth chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the empirical data in the focus of the research questions. The separate subchapters are about the qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the end of the paper the conclusions and the discussion are presented, as well as summary and the list of references used in the paper and additions that include the details of the original research methodology, the table of the measurement error that is originated from the error of choice, the questionnaires, the tables of the results and the pupils’ essays’ complete systematised overview. The research questions and conclusions The first research objective of this masters paper was to find out what kind of social roles of advertising as an institution were distinguished in the consumers representations during different stages of Estonian consumer culture and whether the importance of different roles has changed for the consumer. In order to complete the research objective the standardised attitude poll data from the early 1990s in comparison with the results of April 2008 conducted original research (representative standardised poll of population) is used as a data source. To open up the consumer representations, this quantitative empirical material has been supported by discourse analysis of the early period (1993- 1997) and the current young consumers’ (the generation born in 1991- 1993). The paper’s analysis of the empirical part showed that in comparison with the year 1993, the perceive emotional efficiency (amiability) of advertising has decreased more than twice and rationally perceived efficiency (has been beneficial) 12%. The advertising’s informative role is less valued and the role of entertaining higher compared to early years. From the conceptualised roles of advertising the entertaining role (83 % agrees) and informative role (81 %) are the most represented in the today’s consumer’ s reflections. The mobilising power of advertising (45%). The connecting role in the sense of (consumer) culture continuality’s capacity is admitted by 41 % and in the sense of agenda by 14% of population. The discourse analysis of the consumer texts showed that all the conceptualised advertising roles were represented in the texts of early periods and in the texts of present day young consumer discourses the critical and noncritical (passive consumer) point of view appear in case of all the roles. The second research objective was to evaluate the illegitimacy of advertising as an institution from the modern society consumer’s point of view and whether the need for state regulations is needed. The empirical material for this research objective was gathered in 2008 during quantitative original research from the sample that is representative for the population. From the results it becomes evident that the three concepts verbalised by Max Weber are completed by advertising as an institution for 30 % of population. 38 % of population considers advertising to be a normal phenomenon and a mean to succeed in business, but have a critical preconceptions towards the reliability of what is presented in advertising. For 4 % of the population none of the illegitimacy premises in case of advertising is completed. The third research objective is to find out how critically today’s consumers are disposed towards advertising as an institution and in the range of possibility compare attitudes with the early 1990s. It was analysed how young people (born in 1991- 1994), socialised in the consumer society, interpret advertising – whether from the position of active (system) aware practitioner or from the passive receiver position in their written discussion? The consumers level of criticalness was measured using 10 standardised arguments, which were partly formed on bases of theoretical disquisitions, partly based on the representations of the benefits and damages expressed in the essays of the pupils. The formed arguments represented possible attitude from the personal and the society’s point of view. The results based on the cluster analysis show that 32 % of the population represent critical attitude towards advertising. However, the critical attitude does not mean direct denying of advertising. Most of the representatives of a critical attitude consider advertising to be beneficial for the society, because it supports the function of companies and can be a carrier of the supportive and educating messages. The critical attitude is defined most frequently by reflecting negative influences of advertising from the society’s and the personal’s point of view. The representatives of noncritical point of view form 50 %. The group is characterised by the higher reflectance of efficiency of advertising from the personal and social aspect and the attitudes that are characteristic to the naïve and passive consumer. Noncritical attitude does not mean believing in advertising blindly (44 % does not agree with the argument that the information provided in the advertising is always reliable). The critical or noncritical attitude towards advertising does not determine, what kind is the advertising roles’ perceived hierarchy of roles, however the degree of reflecting the roles is different (admitting their personal influence). This particular paper represents a little piece of Estonian consumer culture development description, since it has a certain documental value. The paper’s part on conclusions and discussions refers to the possible future research directions, to open better the advertising attitudes as describing the consumer culture development indicator’s essence.

Keywords

magistritööd, reklaam, hoiakud, tarbimiskultuur, tarbimisühiskond, tarbijad

Citation