A psychoanalytic analysis of advertisements in fashion magazines

The main objective of this thesis is to analyze advertisements in fashion magazines by using Freud?s dream analysis method by which he explains with collapsed psychoanalytic perspective in his study named ?Interpretation of Dreams I-II?. 185 different advertisements texts published in ?Vogue?, ?Marie Claire?, ?Cosmopolitan?, ?Elle?, ?Elele?, ?Harper?s Bazaar?, ?Instyle?, ?All? ve ?Super? fashion magazines have been analyzed by the Freud?s dream analysis method (content analysis is used where necessary), and then 68 required advertisements texts has been selected and used for this study.Consumption is not only for satisfying the needs, now it has become a process based on a lack of ?desire?. Consumption constitutes identity formation as symbolic and therefore meanings are being consumed. Advertisements constantly encourage consumption with using visual simulacrums which are based upon on lacks of desires. Hence advertisements texts do not reflect the actual properties of objects since these texts aim to create a world of dreams in human minds.Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, interpreted the visible contents of dreams and he especially emphasized hidden meanings of the dreams. In ?Interpretation of Dreams I-II? Freud analyzed dreams in different aspects, and he disclosed that interpretation of dreams are the ?king way? constituted by the unconscious activities of the subject. In this thesis advertisements are treated as dream texts and these texts are analyzed to reveal actual meanings of hidden contents. The Themes and the concepts used by Freud in his dream analysis method (visible content, the hidden content, impregnating of wıshes, signs, unconscious desires, free association, distortion of dreams, the first and second spiritual agent, the dream-process, condensation, displacement, representation, secondary revision and defense mechanisms) have been adapted to advertisements analysis in the thesis.Key Words: Advertisement, advertising, psychoanalysis, Freud, ?The Interpretation of Dreams?