Consumption and the nihilistic discourses in advertising

Abstract

In the field of discursive economy, discourses collide, mingle with each other and empower each other. In advertising communication, the enterprises do not only compete in the sphere of the market, but also in the mediatic arena, where their discourses confront each other. The construction of an advertiser´s symbolic world takes into consideration his competitors´ symbolic world. Directly or indirectly, these discourses are all the time in conflict with each other, but without provoking tension in the system of the dominant values. Aligned with our present project, which consists in an approach to the poetics of advertising and to the production and consumption of discourse in contemporary times, by means of literary works, we will, in this article, discuss aspects of this discursive conflict in advertising, on the basis of the novel Nothing by the Danish writer Janne Teller.