The secret life of objects. A psycho-social analysis of consumption's imaginary

Abstract

Advertising in general, and television advertising in particular, is an important communication channel through which values, lifestyles, and even the socially-shared "imaginary" are transmitted. A psycho-social analysis of the imaginary contents in television advertisements is specially called-for, given that contemporary culture, strongly marked by the use of the images, constitutes what some theoreticians call "the audio-visual age". In this article we analyse advertisements from a psycho-social perspective, to identify the way in which advertisements articulate, through images, the social imaginary.