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Role of consumer culture to self and identity
An essay on consumer culture
An essay on consumer culture
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The essay will explore the concepts of ‘Habitus’ and how it can form a personal taste. In order to discover if taste can be considered to be truly personal, it is important to first investigate on the ideas of consumer culture and how meaning can be created. There are a number of theorists that need to be pointed out when talking about this subject matter, such as; Slater, Bourdieu, Lury and Miller. There will also be a slight touch on the key aspects of semiotics and semiology as this tool will be used in order to apply the main theories to practice. So as to carry this out, the theorist Barthes will be studied as well. According to Slater (1997:26), ‘consumer culture is, in principle, universal and impersonal’. The notion behind this is that consumer culture is believed to be something that is in general for everyone and not specifically personal to you. The variance between production and consumption is growing larger for the reason that, individuals would now rather consume an item that is already available to them instead of producing items themselves. People would now work in their jobs to earn money just so they can spend it on items that someone else has produced as their job. It is a process that goes round in a circle; work, leisure, work, leisure. Slater (1997:8) also mentions that, ‘consumption is always and everywhere a cultural process, but ‘consumer culture’—a culture of consumption—is unique and specific: it is the dominant mode of cultural reproduction developed in the west over the course of modernity’. This explains the concept of meaning and how there are meaning of things in the uses of consumption. Things involve meaning for the reason that consumption is cultural. Meaning is created through the cultural val... ... middle of paper ... ...ent and the style shown is informal and relaxed. This ad is addressed to the theory that says working classes have no time for the reason that Twix is a quick snack chocolate bar and does not need a lot of time to consume. Additionally, it would appeal to the lowbrow because it’s all about eating it fast and not caring about the actual taste. Therefore, Twix contains a lot of fat in it and is not made with great care or quality. Works Cited Barthes, Roland. (1977). Image Music Text. New York: Hill and Wang. Bourdieu, Pierre. (1986). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Lury, Celia. (1996). Consumer Culture. Cambridge: UK: Polity Press. Miller, Daniel. (1987). Material Culture and Mass consumption. Oxford, UK: B. Blackwell. Slater, Don. (1997). Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
The chosen article is Two Cheers for Consumerism by James Twitchell. In this article he talks about consumerism, commercialism, and materialism. He argues the stand point of consumers and the role they live by every day. In other hands the critics, Academy, gives the consumers and overview description to their consumers.
Richard Louv attempts to question the modern consumer culture of the United States by juxtaposing the complexity of purchasing a modern “Mercedes SUV” with the simplicity of staring out the window of a car. Louv uses a multitude of images to remind his audience ¬¬ who are likely the same age as he is ¬¬ of their childhood experiences. Louv also uses personal anecdotes to promote the drastic differences between simple wholesome actions and the modern consumer culture. His use of rhetorical questions also helps the reader in his/her attempt to understand that, “people no longer consider the physical world worth watching.” Louv’s use of technically specific words like, “municipalities” helps him to qualify his statements. The use of rhetorical
The Sex of Things concludes with selected bibliography by Ellen Furlough, highlighting gender and consumption in historical perspective. The bibliography includes histories of consumption and consumer culture as well as theoretical contributions and contains a number of categories rooted in feminist research on consumption. These categories include: sites of consumption, marketing and design , spectatorship and reception, production of representations, domesticity, sexuality, appearance, and politics and ideologies of consumption. Each section ranges historically from the Middle Ages to the present. Unfortunately, the bibliography is dominated by Western perspectives; only a few of the sources are non-Western in orientation.
At first, the narrator conforms to the uneventful and dull capitalist society. He fines success in his work at an automobile manufacture, has obtained a large portion of his Ikea catalog, and has an expansive wardrobe. He is defined by his possessions and has no identity outside his furniture, which he remarks, “I wasn’t the only slave of my nesting instincts” (Palahniuk, 43) and “I am stupid, and all I do is want and need things.” (Palahniuk, 146) For the narrator, there is no fine line between the consumer [narrator] and the product. His life at the moment is a cycle of earning a wage, purchasing products, and representing himself through his purchases. “When objects and persons exist as equivalent to the same system, one loses the idea of other, and with it, any conception of self or privacy.” (Article, 2) The narrator loses sight of his own identity; he has all these material goods, but lacks the qu...
With the rise of industrialization, globalization, and mass production, the manufacturing productivity has been dramatically increased and accordingly the availability of consumer goods. And with the rise of the mass media, various products have been targeted on broad groups of consumers. Consumerism, which is propelled by a system of mass production and high levels of consumption, has been one of the themes in art works from twentieth century till now.
Consumerism is global; it occur every part of the world. It’s viewed as the social movement where people buy goods in excess just to find pleasure and enjoy life. It happens mostly in the western world though it still happens in the Japan as put forward in the novel. Yoshimoto has dealt with the theme of consumerism in many in many instances; it is more evident in the purchase of the juicer as well as the word processor. It has led Mike to believe that the Japanese have the taste in buying the new things. However, the authors also emphasize on the negative aspect of the consumerism through some of the impacts it has on Japanese tradition and culture. It’s through it that people have no value and the respect for the family. Due to their busy life, they find no time to spend with their families.
He is best known for his book, In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Bourdieu, P, 1984).
This essay explores the relationships between social, cultural, epidemiological, economic causal factors that led to the romantic perception of Consumption. In addition, Lawlor and Suzuki engage in the contemporary intellectual framing of Consumption by problematized Susan Sontag’s theory of illness and social metaphor within her work Illness as Metaphor. Sontag suggests that the existence of the Consumptive identifiers, like pale skin, low-grade fever, listlessness etcetera, occurred simultaneously with social metaphors of romanticizing Consumption. Lawlor and Suzuki challenge this notion by stating that the physical epidemiological identifiers are the building blocks in which metaphor are created, rather than metaphor and physical identifiers always simultaneously existing .
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction- A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984)
Predicates of personal taste have attracted a lot of linguistic and philosophical attention. They express an analytical difficulty in determining whose knowledge or taste is being expressed. However, there predicates of personal taste such as delicious and tasty seem to be different from other kinds of predicates. As their name suggests, predicates of personal taste exhibit personal taste; thus are essentially subjective. Coincidently, they give rise to disagreements such as the one in the following dialogue:
Many theorists suggest that consumption is correlated to the identity of an individual, that by purchasing goods from the mass market, it enables us to visibly establish our position within society. This differs from previous times in which a range of factors such as family histories, character and personal achievements played a significant role (Gabriel and Lang, 2006). Instead, there is the idea that the consumer has the ability to gain pleasure over objects, not just solely by the manipulation of objects, but through the degree of control over their meaning. The degree of control is developed and achieved through imagination and provides greater possibilities of pleasure experiences. This suggests that modern consumption can be seen as device that enables individuals to ‘dream’ about the desires they wish to fulfill. (Campbell, 1989: 79) (Cited in Gabirel & Lang, 2006)
In this essay Hume creates the true judges who are required to have: delicacy of taste, practice in a specific art of taste, be free from prejudice in their determinations, and good sense to guide their judgments. In Hume’s view the judges allow for reasonable critiques of objects. Hume also pointed out that taste is not merely an opinion but has some physical quality which can be proved. So taste is not a sentiment but a determination. What was inconsistent in the triad of commonly held belief was that all taste is equal and so Hume replaced the faulty assumption with the true judges who can guide society’s sentiments.
Sassatelli, R. (2007). Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics, London: Sage, Page 30, Page 126, Page 132, Page 133
“The average family is bombarded with 1,100 advertisements per day … people only remembered three or four of them”. Fiske’s uses an example of kids singing Razzmatazz a jingle for brand of tights at a woman in a mini skirt. This displayed to the reader that people are not mindless consumers; they modify the commodity for their use. He rejects that the audiences are helpless subjects of unconscious consumerism. In contrast to McDonald’s, Fiske’s quoted “they were using the ads for their own cheeky resistive subculture” he added. He believed that instead of being submissive they twisted the ad into their own take on popular culture (Fiske, 1989, p. 31)
Individuals also learn to adopt materialistic values through social learning from family members, peers, and the materialistic messages that they are frequently bombarded with in television programs advertisements (Kasser et al., 2004). The materialistic lifestyle, According to Kasser (2002), is a process of acquiring material goods beyond the necessities to meet human needs. It is of high importance to the individuals to attain financial success, impressive possessions, an attractive image, and a replicable status. Materialistic people tend to use money as a mean of self-enhancement (Kasser et al, 2004). Similarly, Belk (1985) explains materialism as the importance a consumer places on the acquisition and ownership of possessions (Belk 1985) and the view that there is a ris...