Habitus, Doxa, and Ethics: Insights from Advertising in Emerging Markets in the Middle East and North Africa

Dr. Minette E. Drumwright (The University of Texas at Austin) // October 13th, 2016 // 3:30pm-4:30pm // Belo Center for New Media (BMC) 5.102

How do advertising practitioners in other cultures confront ethical issues? Building on research conducted with Sara Kamal, Professor Drumwright employs Bourdieu’s theory of practice to examine how the perceptions, practices, and discourses of advertising practitioners in Middle East and North Africa influence the advertising field’s habitus and doxa. Through this investigation into culturally inflected media practices, our understanding of the ethical problems of advertising is enhanced by examining them as macro, meso, and micro phenomena. Understanding how these three levels interrelate, interact, and reinforce one another is critical to understanding the habitus of advertising practitioners. Underlying biases that shape the doxa can be explained by ideas central to behavioral ethics. A better understanding of the forces that shape the habitus and doxa with respect to ethics is key to moving toward a culture that encourages ethical advertising practices.

Free and open to the public.