Business Ethics: A European Review

The meanings of ethics in and

of advertising
Christopher E. Hackley
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Advertising presents special difficulties for business ethicists. Ads are trivial
entertainments, yet advertising culture has been held up as a metaphor for a
general moral degradation in the post-modern epoch. Ads confuse us since
theyare a new and unfamiliar form of communicative discourse whichwe find
difficult to place in an ethical category.This, mainly conceptual, paper
attempts to explore how ethics in and of advertising may be subject to
examination within a broadly social constructionist perspective.The paper
sketches out aview of social constructionism which draws significantlyon the
`turn to language' in psychology. It then attempts to discuss how ads might
work, or rather, as the paper suggests, how ads mean.The social
constructionist view point entails a rejection of cognitivist schemes of
advertising psychology in favour of a mutualist framework within which ads
and consumers jointly construct meanings which are essentially
indeterminate.This ontological perspective has implications for ethical
treatments of the field.The notion of meaning making as a psychological
principle leads the discussion into an initial consideration of how normative
approaches to advertising ethics might be framed.The self regulatory
system obtaining in the UK is offered as an appropriate example. An
underlying theme of the paper is that discussions of ethics in relation to
advertising cannot rest upon a simplistic cognitivist notion of how ads`work'
upon consumers'minds.The paper tries to show that a broadly social
constructionist approach may offer a richer scheme for examining
advertising ethics in its local, mediated, indeterminate and socially
constructed character.
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Introduction and unimportant. Such stances on the value of

advertising can usually be taken without fear of
Much of advertising is concerned with making controversy, such is the menial cultural status
grandiose claims about the trivial. It may be con- of advertising in contemporary Western society.
sidered vulgar, debasing, uninspiring, exploitative Advertising is often marginalised as a cultural

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 37
 Volume 8 Number 1 January 1999
form and dismissed as trivial. But if the totality
of advertising and marketing communications
messages, and the symbolic meanings they em-
ploy, play a significant role in framing and
constructing contemporary consumer conscious-
ness (e.g. Williamson 1978, Brown 1993, Lasch
1978, Pollay 1986, Hackley and Kitchen 1999)
then advertising may be far from culturally trivial.
Advertising may frame the meanings of everyday
consumer life in ways that carry elusive but
profound ethical implications. Considerations of
the effects of advertising rest upon (often implicit)
assumptions about how advertising engages with
individual consumers and with society as a whole.
Often, the engagement of advertising with receiv-
ing consumers is spoken of as if it were a face to
face direct human communication (Hackley and
Kitchen 1999). This way of talking might betray
something of the indeterminacy, power, subtlety
and variability in advertising as a discourse form
(Cook 1996). This paper seeks to portray the
meaning of advertising as a social construction in
order to deconstruct, and thereby reconstruct, a
form of ethical discourse about advertising.
The social constructionist perspective
The social constructionist movement in social
psychology (e.g. Bruner 1990, Gergen 1985, Harre
1979) has developed into a wide range of research
methods and approaches (Billig 1987, Harre and
Stearns 1995, Potter and Wetherell 1987, over-
views in Wetherell and Maybin 1996, Banister
et al. 1994, outline of controversies in Parker and
Burman 1993, applications in advertising research
in Hackley 1998a). Social constructionism in
general, and many discourse-analytic approaches
in particular, can be categorised as `critical'
positions in social science in the sense that they
are ideologically discordant with much that is
represented as traditional and mainstream in
social science (Parker 1997). Perhaps the most
fundamentally distinguishing feature of social
constructionism as a social theory is its mutualist
theory of meaning (Still and Good 1992). This
psychological thesis holds that meaning is a joint
construction: we draw on discourses in the social
38
world to construct meaning in our subjective
worlds. In contrast, cognitivist theories of mean-
ing hold that meaning is constructed by indi-
viduals as if in a social vacuum. Minds and brains
are supposed to be alone in the universe and
distinct from other minds and brains. Meaning is
a subjective construction premised on internal
cognitive structures. Cognitivism presupposes that
selfhood is located principally in the physical
nervous system. Personal identity is `embodied' in
a very fundamental sense.
The social constructionist thesis in contrast
takes the body as the locus for a series of social
engagements (that is engagements in discourses,
symbolic interactions, and social practices) which
together constitute an individual identity but
which are contingent on the social context of
being. On this view meaning cannot be seen as an
internal cognitive construction since cognition
itself is distributed through time and social
context. The thesis that meaning is constructed
jointly by and through discourse and social
interaction has radical implications for ethics.
On this view, the notion of ethics is inseparable
from ways of talking about and doing ethics and
ethical things. A broadly social constructionist
approach would hold that ethical discourses
emerge from social preconditions. Discourse
forms labeled as `ethics' have, like other primarily
verbal discourse forms, gaps or things left unsaid
which betray assumed ideological symmetry
between sender and receiver. Furthermore, the
things we say about ethics (and about anything
else) have a performative character: what we say
and the way we say it rhetorically sustains and
preserves certain relations of power, ideology
and selfhood. As an aside, the argument that to
challenge such assumptions is morally relativistic
(i.e. unethical) is itself a rhetorical device which
taps into ethical discourse forms (absolutism) in
order to suppress one voice and assert another.
The pursuit of social truth through a more
penetrating analysis of ethical discourse does not
in itself seem unethical on the face of it.
In the social constructionist approach the
rhetoric we use is used not only for the benefit
of our audience but also to maintain meanings for
ourselves since the rhetorical use of linguistic signs
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
 Business Ethics: A European Review
is seen as a fundamental feature of individual
meaning-making (Goffman 1959, Billig 1987). A
reflexive awareness of this kind of consideration
and the social constructionist perspective of which
it is an aspect might be seen to act in a corrective
way by disciplining thinking about ethical theories
and their normative implications. That is, if we
engage only with the apparent internal logic of
(linguistic) ethical systems, we are limiting the
scope and insight which our analysis can generate.
If social and psychological life is constructed and
re-constructed through discourse after discourse,
then assertions about ethical values and what we
should do to live the good life can be seen as
further discourses which can be appraised not
simply on the basis of their apparent internal
logical consistency but also on the role they seem
to play in sustaining ideologies and power rela-
tions and in maintaining the `face' or persona of
the author (Goffman 1959). Furthermore, dis-
course is constituted through word and other sign
systems the surface features of which are not
communicatively unimportant. Analyses based on
assumed word referents and the underlying logical
relations of texts are not necessarily more intellec-
tually penetrating than analyses which consider
ethical texts (ways of talking about ethics) as
communicative systems which acquire their mean-
ings by virtue of discoursal interaction with
receivers. These meanings are indeterminate in
that they are variable depending on the receiver's
social position, intellectual predisposition or
mood. Other characteristics of mainly verbal or
written discourse forms are that the meanings
constructed through interaction with them may be
heavily influenced by surface features of word
forms, as in the case of analyses of poetry (Cook
1996), or the emotional power, for a reader in the
Christian tradition, of lyrical Biblical prose.
Ethical advertising discourse: senders
and receivers
Advertising and marketing communications in
general are represented in popular marketing and
advertising texts as an unproblematic unidirec-
tional communication in which the sender (the
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
organisation) seeks to persuade (or deceive) the
receiver (the consumer) through a message the
meaning of which is entailed unequivocally within
the coded message. Some marketing communi-
cations theorists feel that this simplified misrepre-
sentation of the human communicative process
lags behind developments in the communication
science of which it is a hybrid (e.g. Buttle 1995).
Essentially, such theories assume message-mean-
ing identity, a cognitivist scheme of information
processing, and cultural homogeneity. The mar-
keting message is constructed by the organisation,
fired through the ether at the target and may
penetrate the consciousness of the consumer
provided that `noise' does not intrude and de-
coding proceeds as intended. This `bullet' theory
of marketing communication seems prevalent only
in popular marketing texts in the UK (in the form
of, for example, AIDA models of promotion;
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). There is a
rhetoric of linear, sequential information process-
ing which can frame the marketing communi-
cations process in ways which is quantifiable and
which rhetorically sustains a cognitivist theory of
meaning. However, this rhetoric seems to collapse
when confronted with lay and professional talk
about advertising and marketing communications.
The picture emerging from current research is
that senior professionals in advertising conceive
of successful advertising campaigns (that is
successful in the sense that it supports the strategic
marketing goals of the client by establishing joint
meaning with a section of consuming receivers)
as an emergent intra-agency process which is
mediated by and through the world of popular
culture and everyday meaning-making (Hackley
1998a, 1998b). This seems to suggest a far more
subtle and complex process than that represented
in many popular marketing texts and, if accepted
as a fair interpretation, renders problematic the
attribution of ethical value to certain acts or
intentions since value itself can be seen as a social
construction mediated by and through the
language people use to talk about it.
There are other more culturally mediated
perspectives on how advertising and marketing
work which, while in themselves constituting a
strong research tradition, exist on the margins of
39
 Volume 8 Number 1 January 1999
mainstream marketing management education
(Bertrand 1988, Berger 1987, Williamson 1994,
Hackley 1998b, Sherry 1987). As a very brief
summary, we might suggest that marketing com-
munications insinuate themselves into consumer
consciousness by employing cultural symbols
through which people can construct and partake
in socially constituted meanings. Clearly, such a
thesis calls into question popular views such as
those of Lasch (1978) that marketing and adver-
tising culture is itself morally damaged, and is, in
its effects on society, morally damaging. But if we
adopt a mutualist theory of meaning how can we
speak of moral damage as if it is something some
persons inflict on others? Where are the subjects
here, and what is the basis for presupposing a
relation between them? If ethical issues concerning
marketing communications (such as general moral
degradation, acquisitive individualism, consumer
greed, hedonism, glorification or trivialisation of
sex and violence and so on) are social construc-
tions, then how can we frame coherent ethical
analyses? If something is wrong in society and in
consumers, why is it wrong and who is respon-
sible?
Social constructionist approaches and the
ethics of advertising
Social constructionism makes ethical analysis
problematic because of its mutualist (as opposed
to cognitivist) theory of meaning. This is not a
new perspective. Bertrand Russell reports a
correspondence between Leibniz and Arnauld. In
it, Leibniz had suggested that `the individual
notion of each person involves once for all
everything that will ever happen to him' (Russell
1945:593). Arnauld is reportedly appalled by the
implied consequences of this social constructionist
view of selfhood for Christian sin and free will,
and Leibniz accordingly never published the work
in which he developed this view. While social
constructionism usually has its philosophical
antecedents placed in speech act theory and its
modern antecedents in semiotics and psychologi-
cal sociology (Potter and Wetherell 1987) Leib-
niz's thesis clearly resonates social constructionist
40
models of the person as an entity created through
each fragment of social engagement and distri-
buted through time. This fragmentation (as
opposed to deconstruction) of the subject need
not necessarily preclude ethics, but it clearly
problematises the nature of the ethical agent.
Arnauld's concern was that the determinism
implied in Leibniz's (unpublished) work renders
sin and free will impossible. However, even if
personal identity and selfhood are seen as social
constructions the sense of agency and autonomy
of the individual need not be eliminated. If
discourse is the real stuff of social life there may
still be room for individuals to realise their plans
and intentions through it (Harre and Stearns
1995). Notions of free will and determinism may
have to be refined into reflexive considerations of
when an act or an intention is informed by social
practice, cultural mores or ideology, and when it
is informed by self directed agency while medi-
ated by and through social engagement. A social
constructionist purview might thus frame a more
sophisticated metaphysic for ethics, one which
does not rest upon a brutal dichotomy between
the free and the determined but which allows
individuals to both act upon and be acted upon
by, the social world (see Giddens 1982 for an
expression of the need for such a `dual structure'
of explanation in social theory, and Russell
1945:597 for a note on the irrelevance of the
question).
In the case of advertising, the human plans and
intentions are those of communications managers
and their clients, and also those of individual and
groups of, consumers. These multiple voices in
advertising cannot be reconciled with simple
ethical stances on the value of advertising.
Advertising is a relatively new discourse form
(Cook 1996) and as such we (as consumers,
advertising critics, ethicists, management aca-
demics, hedonists, social climbers, environ-
mentally aware citizens, users of lawnmowers
and other useful products and so on) may hear
advertising in many ways depending on our
various personal circumstances. Ethical stances
on justice often sway into an overt paternalism (as
in Plato's Republic and the advocated censorship
of poetry) in the guise that ethical discourse has
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
 Business Ethics: A European Review
authority over other forms of discourse (happi-
ness, freedom, pleasure). But the assumed auth-
ority is that of the narrator of ethical discourse
over the (presumably highly suggestible) hearers
of other forms of discourse. The possibility of
multiple voices in discourse (who was Plato
writing for?) and multiple ways of hearing
(interacting with) discourse forms achieves its
ethical stance through the emasculation (or at
least the transparency) of the performative
character of ethical talk. Thus if the ideological
interests in ethics are rendered transparent rather
than hidden by ethical discourses the ethical status
of ethics itself is enhanced.
Normative ethics and advertising
So how might we move from a consideration of
the meaning of social life as constituted through
discourse to a normative ethical position on
advertising? Acknowledging the extraordinary
complexity of human discursive accomplishment
might be seen to render normative ethical stances
impossible. But this does not mean that we should
be persuaded by the argument (implicit but
common in management studies) that simple
theoretical caricatures of social life are of more
instrumental value than more complex but truer
theories. The attempt to understand something of
the complexity of human meaning making might
provide insights which can inform ethical judg-
ments. It seems odd to formulate normative
ethical rules from within one frame of social life
(say, that of business ethicists) that are designed
to guide behaviour in another. How can, say,
advertising regulation make sense to consumers
if regulators don't know how consumers make
sense?
I suggest that the social constructionist ap-
proach outlined here suggests its own response to
this question: moral sensibility may be developed
through an intellectual assimilation of different
discourse forms. Much of UK advertising regula-
tion, for example, is primarily reactive, relying
upon complaints received from the public to
prompt the intervention of the industry regulators.
Thus the moral sensibility of certain sections of
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
consumers is seen as a metaphor for absolute
moral standards. More generally, communicative
action may be constituted on many levels through
the various voices, actors, narrators, ways of
hearing and so on engaged in the process. A
moral judgment cannot stand outside the mean-
ing-making of communicative parties since it
places the meaning making of one group in an
ideologically superior position to others. This is
not to deny the social necessity of power: it is to
argue that the grounds for this power can and
should be transparent. Ethical judgments con-
cerning business in general and advertising in
particular may be necessarily authoritarian in
character, but a cultivated sensitivity to the
complexity and subtlety of various (alien) forms
of discourse seems a precondition for emancipa-
tory forms of ethical regulation. The `critical' in
social science is implicitly a moral position based
on a transparent pursuit of truth. If the quality of
meaning making in unfamiliar discourse forms
such as advertising is a closed book to ethicists
then ethical discourses might miss the point.
Advertising itself might fulfill a human need for
playful engagement with different discourse forms
(Cook 1996). This kind of engagement might be
more fundamental to sense making in the social
world than ideologically naive forms of ethics
allow.
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