Transcript consumer culture

Extra Credit Assignment (10 points)
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Bring in 2-3 advertisements from the
newspaper, magazine, or a printed ad from
on-line.
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Make sure to put your name and class
day/time on the back of the adverstisement.
Exam Question:
1.
Using examples from the film The Overspent
American, explain how the dominant culture in
American society can be considered a consumer
culture. What beliefs, values, norms, and
symbols support a consumer culture and how?
What role does the mass media play in a
consumer culture and how does the mass media
socialize us into social categories of difference
like gender & race/ethnicity?
Lecture Five
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
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It unifies us because we all participate in it
It differentiated us because sub-cultures are
reflected in our visible consumption
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
Can you think of any
shopping rituals?
The Functions of Consumption
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In a consumer society consumption has both
manifest and latent functions (refer to pg 19 in Introductions)
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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
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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Products that are visible to others are the
ones that we tend to buy with latent functions
in mind
Let’s look at some products and
think about the manifest and
latent functions…
Cadillac Escalade SUV
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What are the Manifest and Latent Functions?
Chanel Lipstick
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What are the Manifest
and Latent Functions?
Apple iPod
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What are the Manifest
and Latent Functions?
Overspent American
By Juliet Schor
Overspent American
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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
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
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?
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The stimulus package that was just passed is
focused on increasing consumption behavior
in our society. Do we need a consumer
culture to support and economy based on
consumption?
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
Consumer Society
Consumer Culture
Consumption Competition
Consumption
Based
Economy
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
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
Representations of Social Life
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The sociologists Erving Goffman says that
presentations of social interaction – such as
those in advertisements and TV - are equally
important in the socialization process as
actual events and social interaction
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Models are posed so that when we see their ads
we interpret them as we would glimpses of social
behavior
Goffman: Gender Advertisements
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In a study conducted by Goffman he examined
what advertisements in general tell us about
gender in our society
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What he found is 5 categories of “symbolic
representations of behavior” for gender
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Functional ranking – men are presented as more
functional and active
Relative size – men are larger and take up more of the
frame in the ads
Ritualization of subordination – women are often in
positions of subordination to men
The Feminine Touch – women are seen as delicate and
fragile
Family – women are associated with children and family
What do Ads today tell us about gender?
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Look at the following advertisements and see
if you can find any of Goffman’s five
“symbolic representations of behavior”
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As socializing agents, what do
advertisements today tell us about what it
means to be a man or woman?
Magazine Ads and Gender
What is the focus?
Watch the following Ads on You Tube
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Coors “Wingman”
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=POiA8BJ9Psc
Heineken Keg
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=l-NfrBgYIEQ
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