|
Patriotic
advertising and the creation of the citizen-consumer
Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai
School of Communication, University of Miami, Coral Gables,
FL, USA.
E-mail:
wanhsiu@miami.edu.
Tel: 1-(305)284-2845.
Fax: (305)284-3648.
Accepted 20 January, 2010 |
|
As the United States confronts political and economic
turmoil,
corporate marketers and political leaders
encourage citizen-consumers to shop to keep the economy
growing. The purpose of this study is to explore the
relationship between consumption and citizenship in American
culture and to understand how consumers make sense of
buy-domestic advocacy and advertising appeals to patriotism.
The study used semi-structured in-depth interviews to
investigate how consumers conceptualize patriotic
consumption; the ethnic, age and professional profiles of
the 18 participants represented diverse voices and
experiences. The study participants viewed the free market
as an essential site for consumers to reaffirm core American
values
and citizenship. Whereas they believed that consumption had
a positive collective impact on the economic system, they
regarded saving as a self-centered practice. Framed by
issues of corporate outsourcing and trade deficit,
patriotism, rather than nationalism, is
the driving factor contributing to
consumer ethnocentrism, and consumers regard the purchase of
domestic products as an altruistic helping behavior.
Key words:
Patriotic advertising, consumer ethnocentrism, buy-domestic,
citizenship. |
