"Alienation and simulation in commercials as a new field where consuming culture is re-created"

Consumption has transformed from a means of meeting daily needs to an ideological element in the 20th century. While the concept of "consumption" essentially bears positive connotations, it has today come to represent a cycle of negative associations. The main reason for this is the instrumentalization of consumption and the commodization of the consumer. The ideology of consumption requires the constant enchantment of the consumer in order to secure the cycle of need-luxury, pleasure-deprivation, ends-means. In doing so it commodizes the consumer for the reproduction of consumption by normalising consumption for luxury. This study aims for a critical perspective on the ideology of consumption, with its main problem being the alienation of the consumer and his/her own eventual realisation of the concept of the "master simulation". The first part of the study aims to found the critical perspective on a theoretical background and draws on the theoretical framework on the culture and ideology of consumption furnished by Marx, Weber, Gramsci, Althusser and Baudrillard. The second part of the study takes up the concepts of alienation and simulation, which are key elements of the critical perspective, in terms of the ideology of consumption and the views of Kant, Hegel and Marx. The final part of the study attempts to argue the conclusion that advertising is a significant field of reproduction of the ideology of consumption. The case of residential advertising in Turkey creating, among other forms of alienation, the alienation of the consumer to his/her identity is examined with a view to describing the main problem of the "master simulation". As an analysis of the "master simulation" is advertising necessitates the examination of the background of advertising, Barthes' semiological analysis method has been applied. Key words: Consumption, Ideology, Alienation, Simulation, Advertising, Semiology.