Consumer Culture and PostmodernismSAGE, 1990 M12 7 - 192 pages Implicit within claims that society itself is in some sense postmodern is an argument about the priority of consumption as a determinant of everyday life. In this view, mass media advertising and market dynamics lead to a constant search for new fashions, new styles, new sensations and experiences. Material goods are consumed as `communicators'; they are valued as signifiers of taste and of lifestyle. This volume examines the viability of this portrait of contemporary society. Mike Featherstone explores the roots of consumer culture, how it is defined and differentiated and the extent to which it represents the arrival of a `postmodern' world. He examines the theories of consumption and postmodernism among contemporary social theorists such as Bourdieu, Baudrillard, Lyotard and Jameson and relates these to the actual nature of contemporary consumer culture. |
Contents
Definitions and Interpretations | 1 |
Chapter 2 Theories of Consumer Culture | 13 |
Chapter 3 Towards a Sociology of Postmodern Culture | 28 |
Chapter 4 Cultural Change and Social Practice | 50 |
Chapter 5 The Aestheticization of Everyday Life | 64 |
Chapter 6 Lifestyle and Consumer Culture | 81 |
Chapter 7 City Cultures and Postmodern Lifestyles | 93 |
Chapter 8 Consumer Culture and Global Disorder | 110 |
Chapter 9 Common Culture or Uncommon Cultures? | 127 |
Chapter 10 The Globalization of Diversity | 142 |
Chapter 11 Modernity and the Cultural Question | 147 |
| 182 | |
| 198 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
academic aesthetic aestheticization of everyday argued artistic and intellectual audiences avant-garde Baudelaire Baudrillard become Bourdieu carnivalesque central centres century changes China cities common culture concept consumer culture consumption contemporary counterculture critical cultural capital cultural intermediaries cultural sphere Culture & Society discussion economic Elias emergence emotional emphasis enclaved entails ernism example expansion experience fashion Featherstone flâneur forms gentrification global groups Habermas Hence high culture Ikegami images interest Jameson Japan knowledge lifestyle Lyotard mass culture means metanarratives middle class Ming Dynasty modernity modes Norbert Elias notion particular petite bourgeoisie popular culture postmod postmodern architecture postmodern art postmodern culture practices public sphere question R.H. Williams range refer role Scott Lash sense shift signs simulations social sociology specialists in symbolic structure style sumer symbol specialists symbolic hierarchies symbolic production taste tendencies theory tion Tokugawa tradition tural ture urban Weber Western