Culture of Consumption

We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind-- mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.
--J. G. Ballard


Photo of billboard "detourned" by E. Heroux

  • TO STUDENT WORK
  • To more quotations about consumption
  • Reference material available. Sign 'em out from me.
  • To notes on the readings from our book.
  • To 1st Essay Options (assignment suggestions).


    REFERENCE MATERIAL AVAILABLE

    1. Mythologies by one of the founders of modern semiotics, Roland Barthes, is a brilliant series of little "readings" of French pop culture, originally published in the 1950s. Barthes is still ahead of us though. One of these essays, on "Toys" is in our anthology. Other readings of striptease, wine, Einstein's brain, wrestling spectacles, soap-powder, margarine, etc., are the intellectual equivalent of a good laugh. They still provoke reflection today. An afterword summarizes Barthes' semiotic theory of cultural artifacts.

    2. Gender Advertisements by prolific sociologist Erving Goffman. Each chapter (below) is profusely illustrated with actual magazine ads. In fact, most of this book simply reproduces ads with male and female characters in them as evidence of Goffman's incisive commentary on the signs of:
      Gender Display
      Relative Size
      The Feminine Touch
      Function Ranking
      The Family
      The Ritualization of Subordination
      Licensed Withdrawal

    3. Adbusters Quaterly (a "Journal of the Mental Environment"). This issue of the magazine contains "subvertisements" --or, advertisements that have been artfully detourned. The results are enlightening. Articles are too.

    4. UTNE READER, two issues related to consumption:
      #35--"All Shopped Out and No More to Spend? How to know when enough is enough."
      #49--"Commercial Break: Freeing ourselves from the consumer culture"
      Both issues contain 6 interesting articles.

    5. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. A collection of well-researched essays on the historical impact of media. Particular chapters and essays of interest are on "Image Technologies & the Emergence of Mass Society," "Radio Days," "TV Times," and "New Media & Old in the Information Age."

    6. Two very useful sources from Stuart Ewen:
      Channels of Desire: Mass Images & the Shaping of American Consciousness
      Captains of Consciousness: Advertising & the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture
      Excerpts from these two books are in our packet. If you want more, especially for a 'diachronic' (or historical) research paper, come in and sign these out.