Consumer culture is a form of material culture facilitated by the market, which thus created a particular relationship between the consumer and the goods or services he or she uses or consumes. Traditionally social science has tended to regard consumption as a trivial by-product of production.
What are the 5 factors influencing consumer behavior?
What are the 5 factors influencing consumer behavior? 1. Psychological Factors. i. Motivation. When a person is motivated enough, it influences the buying behaviour of the person. ii. Perception. Consumer perception is a major factor that influences consumer behavior. iii. Learning. iv. Attitudes and Beliefs. i. Family.
What are examples of consumer behavior?
Other topics in consumer behaviour
- Risk perception and risk reduction activities. ...
- New product adoption and diffusion of innovations. ...
- Brand-switching. ...
- Channel-switching. ...
- Impulse buying. ...
- Affect: Emotions, feelings and mood. ...
- Customer loyalty. ...
- Customer citizenship behaviour. ...
- Internet consumer behaviour. ...
- The role of aesthetics and visual fluency in relation to consumer choice. ...
What is the definition of global consumer culture?
in the spirit of arnould and thompson’s (2005) definition of consumer culture, i define global (local) consumer culture as a social arrangement in which the relations between lived culture and social resources, and between meaningful ways of life and the symbolic and material resources on which they depend, are globally (locally) conceived and …
What is consumer mentality?
What is the Consumer Mentality? The consumer mentality is simple and most can agree it typically has a negative connotation to it. But what does it really mean to have this mindset? I think there are two parts to the consumer mentality. To me, part one is about owning and having material items or constantly consuming the latest and greatest.
What's an example of consumer culture?
It is a culture that is centered around the consumption of goods rather than other things, like religion or values. A perfect example to highlight consumer culture is the rise of the car in the 1950s. World War II was over and people were moving in droves to the suburbs. They needed cars to commute to their jobs.
What did consumer culture do?
Consumer culture describes a lifestyle hyper-focused on spending money to buy material goods in a capitalist economy, a culture often attributed to the United States of America.
Is consumer culture a good thing?
Benefits of consumerism Consumerism drives economic growth. When people spend more on goods/services produced in a never-ending cycle, the economy grows. There is increased production and employment which leads to more consumption. The living standards of people are also bound to improve because of consumerism.
When did consumer culture begin?
While people across many different civilizations and time periods have always purchased and consumed goods, the modern concept of consumerism is best understood to have begun in the late 1600s in Europe.
What impact does a consumer culture have on people's lives?
Consumer culture gives us the tools to express who it is we are, but while doing so it simultaneously reinforces an economic system in which the individual's ability to be free or to choose is, ironically, constrained.
What is consumer culture in the 1920s?
Consumerism in the 1920s was a state where individuals were encouraged to buy goods in increasing quantities. It was defined by an impulsive desire to spend money. People were caught up in the idea of how only rich people owned a lot of goods - driving a purchasing frenzy.
How did consumer culture change in the 1920?
Consumption in the 1920s The prosperity of the 1920s led to new patterns of consumption, or purchasing consumer goods like radios, cars, vacuums, beauty products or clothing. The expansion of credit in the 1920s allowed for the sale of more consumer goods and put automobiles within reach of average Americans.
How did consumer culture lead to the Great Depression?
Consumer spending plummeted, factories slowed down production, and companies fired workers. The wages of those still employed were cut, making it hard for people to support their families. American consumers lost their homes to foreclosure and lost (or sold) many of their possessions.
What is media culture?
In cultural studies, media culture refers to the current Western capitalist society that emerged and developed from the 20th century, under the influence of mass media. The term alludes to the overall impact and intellectual guidance exerted by the media (primarily TV, but also the press, radio and cinema), ...
Why are consumer decisions made?
Consumers decisions are made based not only on the economic concept of the utility material goods provide but also from their symbolic value in terms of the search for one's self and place within the context of society and group identity. In other words, the products consumers purchase are part of creating a story about who they are and whom they identify with.
How does symbolic consumption relate to identity?
Scholars view symbolic consumption as a social construct. A product is effective as an expression of identity only if the group shares a perception about the symbolic meaning of a product. These meanings are conveyed to consumers through advertising, magazines and television.
What is the alternative term for mass culture?
Another alternative term for media culture is "image culture.".
How has media culture been compared to the role of religions in the past?
It has been considered as taking the place of the old traditional religions. The waves of enthusiasm and fervent exaltation for a given product, a characteristic consumerist phenomenon, has been compared to the "ecstasies ...
What is corporate media?
Corporate media "are used primarily to represent and reproduce dominant ideologies.". Prominent in the development of this perspective has been the work of Theodor Adorno since the 1940s. Media culture is associated with consumerism, and in this sense called alternatively "consumer culture.".
What is consumer culture?
Consumer culture is a form of material culture facilitated by the market, which thus created a particular relationship between the consumer and the goods or services he or she uses or consumes. Traditionally social science has tended to regard consumption as a trivial by-product of production.
When did consumer culture come to prominence?
Consumer culture came to sociological prominence in the 1990s and 2000s as scholars came to recognize that consumption was significant for its own sake. This reflected broader trends such as the “Cultural Turn” and the increased focus on the cultural dimensions of post-modernity.
What is Sassatelli's contribution to consumer culture?
In one of the most comprehensive of the key textbooks on consumer culture, Sassatelli presents a rich interpretation of the diverse range of theoretical approaches to consumer culture. One of the achievements of her contribution is to balance the needs of a range of disciplines, including sociology, history, geography, and economics.
What is the key barrier to consumer choice?
Gabriel and Lang argue that the key barrier to consumer choice is money. For them contemporary society is notable for its fragmented volatility. The book considers the consumer in various guises, including that of chooser, identity-seeker, and victim and the proposition is that the more social institutions, such as industry or politicians, try to control the consumer the more unmanageable he or she becomes.
What is Featherstone's contribution to the sociology of material culture?
Specifically, Featherstone highlights the emergence of postmodernity, which is effectively characterized by a situation in which individuals lives appear to be more controlled by structural processes and yet freer at one and the same time.
What consumer culture involves
Oxford Bibliographies describes consumer culture as “a form of material culture facilitated by the market, which thus created a particular relationship between the consumer and the goods or services he or she uses or consumes.” It’s not about the act of consumption itself, but rather the status that’s associated with consumption and the inequalities that this creates..
Creating change
So, what can we do to bring about change? I don’t think there’s an issue of inevitability when it comes to individual responses to consumerist messaging. The tendency to focus on extrinsic or intrinsic goals and values probably has a lot to do with one’s upbringing.
Sources
Dittmar, H. (2007). The Costs of Consumer Culture and the “Cage Within”: The Impact of the Material “Good Life” and “Body Perfect” Ideals on Individuals’ Identity and Well-Being. Psychological Inquiry, 18 (1), 23-31.
Why is consumer culture closely tied to capitalism?
Consumer culture is closely to tied capitalism, because it is driven by money. What distinguishes it, though, is that it is not focused so much on the power of money as it is on the happiness that can be attained through buying and owning personal property.
What are the two perspectives of consumer culture?
2 Viewpoints. A consumer culture can be viewed both positively and negatively. Proponents say that people are happier and more productive when their wants and needs are met, and that buying and owning things is a means to that end. The opposing viewpoint is that consumerism is wasteful and greedy and encourages consumption for its own sake.
Why does consumerism lead to more purchases?
Purchases lead to more purchases, as supply and demand play themselves out naturally. Consumerism also dictates that it is not the producers of goods who determine what a society should consume, but rather the free-thinking consumers. That is to say, a product will not exist if no consumers are interested in buying it.
What is the relationship between consumerism and materialism?
5 Materialism. Consumerism is often closely tied to materialism, particularly by its critics. Materialism is a philosophy that puts the importance of physical objects before the spiritual. When societies care less about their internal well-being than their personal possessions, the result is almost always materialism.
Is the United States a consumer culture?
The United States is the most obvious example of a consumer culture, but ancient Egypt and ancient Rome could also be considered consumerist societies. Consumerism is usually identified with wealthy countries. When the Industrial Revolution made mass consumption possible, consumerism came to be seen as an effective political option to sustain a healthy, balanced economy.
What is consumer culture?
Generically, consumer culture is a social arrangement in which the buying and selling of goods and services is not only a predominant activity of everyday life but also an important arbiter of social organization, significance, and meaning.
Where did consumer culture originate?
According to the perspective of Neil McKendrick and his associates (1982), consumer culture began in eighteenth-century England with the commercialization of fashion precipitating a mass change in taste. According to these historians, the new predilection for style fueled a demand for clothing that was mass-produced through technical innovations in the textile industry and mass-marketed through innovations in printing technologies that afforded wide-scale advertising.
What is consumerism in economics?
It is a moral doctrine, a means for demarcating social status, a vehicle for economic development, a public policy, and a social movement. Consumerism is defined here as the collection of behaviors, attitudes, and values that are associated with the consumption of material goods. Materialism is another perspective that is prevalent in consumer ...
What are the two attributes of consumer culture?
Defining Consumer Culture. There are many definitions of consumer culture. To begin, consumer culture should not be confused with two of its attributes: consumerism and materialism. According to Yiannis Gabriel and Tim Lang (1995), consumerism has at least five distinct connotations.
How is television related to consumerism?
Television also may be related to consumerism by influencing viewer perceptions of the world (e.g., cultivation theory). Finally, television may simply reflect the existing consumer culture. Regardless of the mechanism, perhaps the most prevalent media messages for consumer socialization are television commercials.
How did media influence consumer culture?
From the beginning of consumer culture, the media, particularly print advertisements, were used to help inculcate demand for newly mass-produced goods. Stuart Ewen (1976) maintains that before the advent of mass production, industry had produced for a limited, largely middle-and upper-class market. However, with the revolution in production, particularly Fordism (i.e., the use of the assembly line to mass-produce consumer goods), industry required an equivalent revolution in consumption. The mechanism of mass production could not function unless markets became more dynamic, growing horizontally (nationally), vertically (into social classes not previously among the consumers), and ideologically. The media were used to encourage people to respond to the demands of the productive machinery. Ewen identifies "captains of consciousness," industry leaders and advertising executives, as the chief architects of the new social structure that privileged the consumption of mass-produced materials.
When did the consumer revolution start?
Another historian, Rosalind Williams (1982), claims that the consumer revolution began in late-nineteenth-century France, when the pioneering efforts of French retailers and advertisers transformed Paris into a "pilot plant of mass consumption" through the Paris expositions of 1889 and 1900.
What is consumer culture?
The term consumer cultures refers to a theory according to which modern human society is strongly subjected to consumerism and stresses the centrality of purchasing commodities and services (and along with them power) as a cultural practice that fosters social behaviors. The history of consumer cultures can be traced back ...
When did consumer culture start in Europe?
According to these perspectives, it is possible to highlight an onset of consumer cultures in Europe from the period between the 17th and the18th centuries when a profound shift of the economic system occurred due to European colonial expansion.
How many periods of consumerism are there?
The history of consumer cultures can be traced back and linked to particular periods of discontinuity. The international historiography tends to identify three different periods in the history of consumerism in the last three centuries:
How did the circulation of new products affect the European economy?
The circulation of new products, such as sugar, tobacco and chocolate, not only brought a major change in the European mode of production but it also gave impulse to a process of appropriation of such goods as they were available on the market. The consumers approached the market in a variety of ways, strongly influenced by their geographical belonging, gender, social position, religious beliefs and cultural tendency. The consumer cultures that were initiated by the circulation and consumption of these new goods are the product of a process of production of everyday life where the main subjects are the consumers who appropriate the goods. Therefore, we can think about consumer cultures, in part, as contributing to the process of identity formation.
When did the second phase of the Americanization of culture begin?
a second phase in the second half of the 19th century with the appearance of the first department stores where practices of shopping were initiated; a third phase starting in the 1950s with the achievement of a mass society, the construction of an Atlantic market and the beginning of the process of Americanization of culture.
Is the formation of consumer cultures strictly connected to a system of power that periodically redesigns the map of world relations?
This said, it is impossible not to recognize that the formation of consumer cultures is strictly connected to a system of power that periodically redesigns the map of world relations.
Consumer as Sovereign
The theory of the consumer as a sovereign is also known simply as consumer sovereignty. Consumer sovereignty is a conventional economic view stating that the preferences of the consumer are what drives the production of goods and services.
Consumer as Oppressed
If the consumer sovereignty theory states that consumers have all the power, the consumer as oppressed theory is just the opposite. This theory falls under the category of traditional sociological theories because it focuses more on social impacts and morality than it does on pure economics.
Empirical View
The empirical views of consumer culture are done though a lens that filters out the moral and sociological implications of consumer culture and focuses on the evidence of the market conditions. This views looks at how the production and consumption of goods in the modern marketplace are what drives society.
Overview
Labor
After this consumer culture developed, the life of workers changed forever.
Before the Industrial Revolution, home was a place where men and women produced, consumed, and worked. The men were high valued workers, such as barbers, butchers, farmers, and lumbermen who brought income into the house. The wives of these men completed various tasks to save money which include…
Types of culture
According to Social scientists Berger, Aaron Wildavsky and Mary Douglas suggest that there are four political cultures, which also function as consumer cultures: hierarchical or elitist, individualist, egalitarian, and fatalist."
1. An elitist, is a person who believes that a system or society should be ruled or dominated by an elite.
Mass market theory
Over the years, people of different age groups are employed by marketing companies to help understand the beliefs, attitudes, values, and past behaviors of the targeted consumers. Target marketing creates a more effective advertisement than the normal data gathering strategy that is commonly used.
A quote by Shah states that "The sophistication of advertising done methods and techniques ha…
Life of a worker
The life of a worker was a challenging one. Working 12 to 14-hour days, 6 days a week, and in a dangerous environment. The worst part was the infrequency of pay or not being paid at all. At times, employers paid their workers in script pay, or non-U.S. currency, or even in-store credit.
See also
• Consumer Culture Theory
• Mass-Market Theory
• Consumerism
• Consumer Choice
• Consumer Protection