Consumer Culture and PostmodernismIf a society is postmodern, it must prioritize the consumption of resources in everyday life. In this view, mass media advertising and market dynamics lead us to a constant search for new fashions, new styles, new sensations, and new experiences. In this volume, Featherstone examines the idea of a postmodern society. He 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 and relates these to the actual nature of contemporary consumer culture. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism will interest academics and professionals in the areas of sociology, social theory, cultural studies, economics and anthropology. "Several of Mike Featherstone's chapters address topics that are immediately recognizable to marketing researchers. . . . In exploring these issues the author reveals a strong grounding in sociological theory and research, leading to some penetrating interpretive insights about contemporary consumer life. Uncovering the sociocultural significance of these particular consumption developments is Featherstone's chief concern. . . . He does an admirable job." --Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science "Featherstone neatly integrates recent ideas, models and writings concerning consumer capitalism, postindustrialism and postmodernity. . . . The author has taken great pains to develop (his) ideas clearly and to make the esoteric accessible to the literate." --Cooperative Economics News Service ". . . [Featherstone's book] can be recommended. . . . A worthwhile effort to open up a relatively undeveloped field." --Peter R. Grahame, Bentley College in Massachusetts ". . . precisely the sort of text which is necessary to read to escape from our productivist preconceptions. . . . The text must be recommended wholeheartedly to all those in industrial relations who wish to have their noninstitutional lives illuminated for them." --British Journal of Industrial Relations "Of great value to social scientists seeking a guide to the growing literature on the intersection of these two processes, which can no longer be considered peripheral concerns of contemporary sociology." --Humanity and Society |
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Contents
Definitions and Interpretations s | 1 |
2 Theories of Consumer Culture | 13 |
Towards a Sociology of Postmodern Culture | 28 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown
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academic aesthetic aestheticization of everyday argued artistic and intellectual audiences avant-garde Baudelaire Baudrillard Baudrillard 1983a become bohemias Bourdieu carnivalesque central centres changes cities common culture consumer culture consumption contemporary countercultures critics cultural capital cultural intermediaries cultural specialists de-control discussion disorder distinction economic effect Elias emergence emotional emphasis enclaved entails example experiences fashion field focus gentrification global groups Hence high culture images interdependencies interest Jameson knowledge late capitalism leisure lifestyle Lyotard mass culture meaning meta-narratives Metrocentre middle class Mike Featherstone modern museums nineteenth century notion particular perspective petite bourgeoisie Pierre Bourdieu popular culture postmoder postmodern architecture postmodern culture practices question R.H. Williams range refer regarded rock music role Scott Lash sense shift signs Simmel simulations social sociology specialists in symbolic structure style stylization symbol specialists symbolic hierarchies symbolic production taste television tendencies theory tion tradition urban wider Zukin
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Consumer Culture and Postmodernism Theory, Culture and Society Series Volume 6 of Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society |
| Author | Mike Featherstone |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications, 1991 |
| Original from | the University of Virginia |
| Digitized | Apr 14, 2008 |
| ISBN | 0803984146, 9780803984141 |
| Length | 164 pages |
| Subjects | › › Reference / Consumer Guides Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural Social Science / Sociology / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |