DOVE IL SACRO INCONTRA IL PROFANO. SIMBOLI RELIGIOSI NEGLI ANNUNCI A STAMPA ITALIANI

Where the Sacred Meets the Profane: Religious Symbolism in Italian Magazine Advertising - By showing the coexistence of two worlds traditionally thought to be separated, the presence of religious content in commercial advertising recalls Durkheim’s sacred/profane dichotomy. The study investigates this overlap by analyzing a sample of print advertisements that have made use of religion in selected Italian mass circulation magazines over a forty-year period (1969-2009). The findings show a long-term rise in the proportion of ads that include Christian motifs. There is also clear evidence of a sudden increase in the use of Eastern traditions, like Hinduism and Buddhism, during the last decade. The observed religious motifs fit seven varieties of commercial exploitation of religion that I call acquisition, endorsement, glorification, holism, re-enchantment, stereotypization, and sublimation. The analysis of correspondence reveals significant positive associations between the most “aggressive” and marketing-oriented varieties of exploitation and the period 2001-2009, suggesting that the way in which advertisers have used religion has changed over time. The proposed theoretical model is based on the existence of a religious field, produced by the work of specialists recognized as the holders of a specific “symbolic capital”, understood in Bourdieu’s terms as an accumulation of symbolic work, and an advertising field, resulted from a more recent process of division of labour within a similar social macro-dynamic. This model suggests that today religious symbols are no longer located in just one field, but in two distinct fields. It also interprets the exploitation of these symbols by advertising professionals as an attempt to expropriate the religious specialists from their administration.