THE DISCOURSE OF WESTERN MARKETING PROFESSIONALS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN-EUROPE - THEIR ROLE IN THE CREATION OF A CONTEXT FOR MARKETING AND ADVERTISING MESSAGES

It is principally through western media and marketing professionals th at new, 'capitalist' and market discourses have been brought to the fo rmer centrally planned economies of central and eastern Europe. Such d iscourses have not only come to play a ubiquitous role in these countr ies, but have also acted as media of social and economic change. The p roducers of such market discourses teach citizens the language of the market, its processes and rituals, how to interpret its advertising, t he symbolism of consumption and how to participate in the process of c onsumption. A major feature of this process has been the proselytizing attitude of many media companies, who see their role as that of bring ing the new ideology of consumption to the countries of the former eas tern bloc. The objective of the study is to examine what these markete rs and advertisers are saying about the necessity for an ideologically compatible context and intertextual sphere within which their texts c an be received; what their discourse tells us implicitly and what they themselves tell us explicitly about the operation of a dominating, he gemonic discourse on an everyday basis.