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Cultural Diversity In Television Narratives: Homophilization, Appropriation, And Implications For Media Advocacy, Cristel A. Russell, Hope J. Schau, David Crockett

David Crockett

This research explores the role of cultural diversity in the construction of consumer identity, and in particular, how cultural diversity is appropriated through television viewing. Data based on depth interviews and surveys of young adults who created brand collages centered on a television-based character reveal that viewers identify and engage with television narratives through a process of “homophilization”; that is, they actively envision various features of television narratives as similar to themselves and their own lived experiences. The data also show that homophilizing processes are enacted primarily by customizing the narrative, or textual poaching, in which the consumers insert themselves …