Measuring Social Values: A Content Analysis of Sunday Comics and Underground Comix

Abstract

This research seeks to document the social distribution of materialism as a value in American society by content-analyzing character and commercial symbols in Sun-day comic strips and underground comix books. Unexpectedly. underground comix showed more concern with and more positive portrayal of materialism and more endorsement of wealth and material comfort as goals. The findings indicate the pervasiveness of a consumer culture in the mid-twentieth century and suggest that the baby boom generation. reared in material abundance. may be unabashedly materialistic. Content analysis of media such as comic art is advocated as a technique for measuring the distribution of social values of concern to consumer researchers. C onsumer researchers view values-widely shared, general guidelines for action-as one of the driving forces in product and brand choices and other con-sumption behaviors (Gutman 1982; Henry 1976; Ni-cosia and Mayer 1976; Vinson, Scott, and Lamont 1977). Their pivotal role in consumption choice suggests the importance of conceptualizing and measuring val-

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