1. Interpellation:

Ideologies "hail" subjects. Images interrupt the individual, rendered a subject through this action.
• Images target their viewers as individuals even when the image is in the public domain
• Advertising interpellates consumers strongly or implicitly by constructing them within the "you" of the ad
• Producers of media aim to use codes and conventions that will most effectively interpellate the subject
• As subjects, viewers tend to forget that the image is produced and aimed to the public. Viewers subconsciously mistake themselves as the individual for whom the image's meaning is personally intended. - Practices of Looking

"I am sitting in class, it is extraordinarily boring and 'Oh My!', I get the sudden urge to go to the bathroom! I pick my favorite stall (the second one), I look around for a bit, and then my gaze stops on the only thing to really stare at in the stall: the green advertising on the wall. I start reading it without putting too much thought into it, until one particular sentence grabs my attention, "...unless YOU HAVE TO PEE or something." Wait, no, it must have been a mistake. Let me reread this... nope, that's right! That little Wind mobile ad definitely has my attention now! I feel awfully exposed all of a sudden."

Interpellation can be defined as an interruption of someone's narrative, "the way that images and media texts seem to call out to us, catching our attention" (Practices of Looking 2nd Ed, p.50), which is exactly what this ad does - really drawing us in to inspect the ad more fully, talking to us as a viewer, catching us right in that action which gives more weight to those specific words, making us all of a sudden all too aware of the ad, the bathroom stall, and our action. As creepy as this message is, how can one forget an ad that "caught" them during one of their most private moments? Admittedly, it is a very affective method, one that in bathroom stalls though, crosses the boundary of privacy.

2. The Analogy of The Cave in Plato's Republic

The bathroom advertisements we see on campus are mostly provided by Zoom Media, a company that promotes itself as "Canada's Leading Targeted Lifestyle Media". Upon learning that this company specifically "targets" it's viewers, we started to question whether choosing targets was an invasive act, or an innocent move to promote good business. In our group, most of us found that these Zoom Media ads were less invasive than some of the others. More specifically, they do not interpellate the subject in the bathroom as directly as some of the aforementioned ads. But the company itself is inviting people to advertise in places that are otherwise associated with privacy.

Zoom Media prides itself on having found the best places to advertise in order to reach their targets. On the Zoom Media website, an interested advertiser can access information on media habits, purchasing power or market concentration of specific demographics such as students, generation X, generation Y, young families, business executives, or teenagers, to name a few. The access to this information is important for successful marketing, but members of the advertised demographics might feel vulnerability, or a loss of privacy when learning that bathroom advertisements are chosen based on their own market behaviour.

The workings of media agencies are largely hidden to the viewers. Most people do not understand the research and statistics that are required to achieve "Targeted Lifestyle Media". These hidden media processes are analogous to the hidden sources of shadows in Plato's Cave. The Cave describes a group of chained prisoners who understand shadows on a cave wall to be reality with no understanding of their source. In regards to bathroom advertising, we see only the ads which are but an imprint of our market behaviour with very little understanding of how that imprint landed upon the wall in our bathroom.

With this in mind, it is important that viewers of advertisements question why advertisements are posted in private places, and what is gained by those advertising in these places.

3. Theodor Adorno:

Adorno was a member of the Frankfurt School theorists, who were interested in applying Marxist theory to the new forms of cultural production and social life in 20th century capitalist societies. Adorno believed that the culture industry manipulated the population through generating in consumers a false consciousness, encouraging individuals to buy into the belief systems that reinforced capitalist ideologies. Though cultural goods may be made to appear different, Adorno emphasized the idea of pseudo-individuality, in which mass-produced culture advertises uniqueness, all while completely lacking individuality. This mass-produced culture was said to foster false needs, subduing the masses to simple 'dupes of the system'.



Adorno's idea of pseudo-individuality is apparent in this chartered accountant ad. Bathrooms are an ideal location for gender specific advertisements. In women's washrooms, the ad features Terry, used to represent a successful woman who has secured herself a good career. This advertisement may instill in female viewers a sense of power, and may inspire them by portraying a woman similar to themselves who has a future that may appeal to them. Outside the washroom, however, the advertisement includes both a man and a woman. This removes the sense of individuality the ad may have previously given the female viewers, as now they are each simply one of the many people targeted by this particular advertising company.


Adorno's idea of subduing the masses may also apply to the effect of privacy on the viewer while in the bathroom. Advertising companies are likely aware that people are less guarded while using the bathroom, as it is generally considered an area of complete privacy. By letting our guard down, we may be more vulnerable to the ideas presented to us in bathroom ads, making it more likely that we will buy into the ideologies that are forced upon us even in such private moments. In this shopping spree ad, "the look" is being advertised as something that is highly desireable. With nothing else to look at in a bathroom stall, the huge word WIN immediately grabs our attention, easily interpellating us into the ad. It encourages us to buy into consumer culture, giving us the idea that one look is best for all women.


Many theorists have critiqued Adorno's work, stating that it is too universalizing and does not consider how viewers interpret and interact with media forms. One such interaction is the gaze.

4. The Gaze:

Viewers produce meaning in images through the relational activity of looking.
It is important to think of the viewer not as a passive recipient of the advertiser's message, but as a subject who negotiates the meaning of the text they are viewing.
Different viewers interpret advertisements differently. Among the four of us, we all had different interpretations of this chartered accountant advertisement.

It's easy to be intrigued by Terry's professional dress and confident stare, and to find this ad to be an inviting image of being an accountant.
However, some of us completely ignored the advertisement, having seen it so many times.
Others found it insulting to our intelligence to glamorize the profession of being a chartered accountant by using a picture of an attractive woman wearing nice clothing.

Either way, the ads take on different meanings for individual viewers and their placement directly in our line of sight within the bathroom stalls does not necessarily imply that we are forced to look at them, or that we will necessarily notice them after a while.

5. Foucault and the Panopticon

The panopticon references the idea that we always feel watched, and thus regulate our behaviour accordingly. But do we feel watched in the bathroom where we should feel confident in our privacy?
We may feel less regulated inside a bathroom stall, and therefore our interaction with the text of the advertisements may be different in the absence of the social gaze. We may take more time to examine the advertisement and negotiate its meaning for ourselves, or take down a number in privacy without the fear of being judged for looking at an advertisement such as this Sexual Assault one.







On the same line, advertisements are generally taken as being an annoyance, bombarding us in every which way. In the bathroom especially they are seen as a pure invasion of privacy. However, if we step back for a second to try to see the positive side of ads in our bathroom stalls, we may realize that some of them can in fact be really useful in our everyday lives, whether it is for writing down that one number away from the public gaze, or to find an apartment - that personal ad shows that the students themselves are mimicking the ad companies. We know that bathroom ads are very efficient and that they will be best viewed in the stalls where it is just us and the ad - whether for useful services such as Safewalk, or to get a student deal with a new phone company! It all depends on the perspective we take as bathroom users!

Works Cited

Morgan, Michael L. ed. "Republic, Book VII". In Classics of Moral and Political Theory, 4th ed, 186-192. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2005.

Sturken,M.; Cartwright,L. "Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture". 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Zoom Media Canada/Targeted Lifestyle Media : Targets Overview. Retrieved from http://canada.zoommedia.com/en-ca/Targets/Overview.aspx