Social constructionism and research in marketing and advertising

Abstract

This paper seeks to present a general case for the use of a broadly social constructionist metatheoretical perspective for qualitative research in marketing. The discussion makes reference to a current empirical study into advertising creativity in order to try to draw out particular methodological and metatheoretical issues. The main primary data gathering method used in the study is the unstructured depth interview and this is supplemented by field notes, informal and secondary sources. Social constructionism broadly defined rests upon several key philosophical assumptions concerning the constitution of social life through language and discourse. Significant themes include the semiotic and illocutionary character of human discourse, the drive for ethnomethodological integrity in social research and the focus on the mutual construction of meaning as the main unit of analysis.