Interpellation

The concept of interpellation has had considerable importance in analyses of consumer culture both in the academy and in the practice of marketing and advertising. This concept makes an important contribution to understanding the processes whereby people are recruited into identity positions thus bringing together the inner world of unconscious processes and external representations that occupy the public terrain of ideas, symbols, images, and myths. The concept of interpellation accords high priority to symbolic systems and representations but combines them with the operation of the psyche and psychological processes in the structuralist tradition. By offering an explanation of the mechanisms through which people are recruited into identity positions through being confronted with symbolic systems and signs, interpellation presents useful material for the design of advertisements. ...