Transcript Lecture Four: Consumer Culture

Lecture Four
American Culture: Consumer Culture
What is Culture?
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Culture is the lens through which we see the
world
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Gives shape and meaning to our daily lives
Culture is a social process – we create and
recreate culture
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Culture is shared, learned, taken for granted,
symbolic, and it varies across time and place
Material and Non-material Culture
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Material Culture (or material goods)
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The material objects we create are usually the first
indicators of cultural differences
Non-material culture
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Beliefs – the truth of it all
Values – the right and wrong
Norms – the rules
Rituals – practice and reaffirmation
Language – the heart of it all
US Dominant Culture: Consumer Culture
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The dominant culture in American society
today is the consumer culture
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A consumer culture in one in which we define
ourselves and our value in society in terms of
goods we purchase
Consumer culture both unifies us and
differentiates us from one another
The Ritual of Shopping
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In a consumer society
consumption is a
process by which we
reflect our values,
beliefs, and norms.
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Shopping today has
become a cultural ritual
that reinforces our beliefs
and values
Overspent American
Overspent American
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In the book Overspent American sociologist
Juliet Schor found that in a consumer culture
– where our social value is determined by the
goods we consume – we are participating in
consumption competition
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We work more to make more money to be able to
spend more money on “stuff”
And increasingly we go into debt to buy more stuff
Consumption Competition
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Consumption Competition: the process by
which we consume goods to demonstrate our
status to others
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Schor says in consumption competition we focus
on visible goods and primarily what she calls the
“Big Three”:
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The house we live in
The car we drive
The clothes we wear
Symbols of Consumer Culture
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Brands act as symbols of social status in
consumption competition
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If you look around you on any given day you can
see how ubiquitous brands have become in our
society – they are on everything and everywhere
Research has shown that brands are
powerful reflectors of latent functions
Our Consumption, Our Values
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If we are consuming goods today to gain and
reflect social status in society today, what
values & beliefs are reflected in our
consumption of material culture?
Socialized into a Consumer Culture
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Socialization: the lifelong process of social
interaction through which individuals acquire
self identity and the social skills needed for
survival in society
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Socialization is central to society, without
learning the culture of a society we could not
get along in that society
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However, when we act based on our cultural
ideas, values, and beliefs we recreate that society
Mass Media and Socialization
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There are many agents of socialization in our
society today –family, school, peer groups –
but one of the most powerful socializing
agents today is the mass media and, more
specifically, advertising
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We live in an “advertising environment”
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Ads occupy a vast cultural space in our lives and
are present in virtually all social contexts from the
labels visible on our clothes to the ads on TV
Role of Mass Media
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Mass Media plays a central role in the consumer
culture
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Increases the symbolic value of “Brands” through
advertising that associates latent functions with brands
Stretches our reference groups, whereby we feel we are
competing with the people on TV (TV shows like “MTV
Cribs” is a good example) and not just our neighbors
How much influence does mass media have?
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Adults see an average of 2000 advertisements a day
Children see an average of 40,000 commercials a year
We use 6.5 hours of mass media a day
Advertisements and Socialization
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The goal of advertising is to sell products and
one of the ways advertising does this is to
associate latent functions with the products
advertised
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Often ads tell us we lack something the is socially
valued, but we can have it we buy the product
advertised
Conspicuous Consumption
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According to the sociologist Thorstein Veblen
in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class
“conspicuous consumption is…a heightening
or reaffirmation of social status.”
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In other words, the choices regarding the goods
we consume are related to how those goods will
heighten our status in society
Products that are visible to others are the ones
that we tend to buy with latent functions in mind
The Functions of Consumption
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In a consumer society consumption has both
manifest and latent functions
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A manifest function is an intended or expressed
outcome
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The manifest function of goods is the intended purpose
A latent function is an unintended or unexpressed
outcome
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The latent function of goods is the one that gains meaning
only in the social context and social interaction
Let’s look at some products and
think about the manifest and
latent functions…
Consumer Society
Consumer Culture
Consumption Competition
Consumption
Based
Economy
The Functions of Consumption
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In a consumer society consumption has both
manifest and latent functions
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A manifest function is an intended or expressed
outcome
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The manifest function of goods is the intended purpose
A latent function is an unintended or unexpressed
outcome
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The latent function of goods is the one that gains meaning
only in the social context and social interaction
Your Ads
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1.
For each ad you picked, answer the following
questions:
What is the manifest function of the product
advertised?
2.
What is the latent function associated with the
product in the ad?
3.
What reference group is the ad appealing to?
4.
Do you think the ad focuses more on the latent or
manifest function?
Are We Prisoners of Socialization?
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Socialization is powerful, but we have a ‘self’
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We can examine and find common cultural message
about what it means to be valued in American
society, but as individuals we can (and do) chose to
accept or reject those cultural ideas
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We are unique individuals and we are actively involved in
the construction our own identities
This is how cultural change happens – we recreate culture
when we start to redefine our values, beliefs, and norms
Society shapes individuals…but we also shape
society