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 Sunday 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.