From Work to Consumption. Transatlantic Visions of Individuality in Modern Mass Society

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREAS WIRSCHING

AbstractThis essay deals with the ambiguous and contradictory relationship between labour, consumption and individuality in modern mass culture. This relationship has been conceptualised rather differently in American and European visions of individuality. In recent years, the long-lasting tradition of European (and especially German) scepticism towards the consumer society, which was nourished by conservative, (neo)liberal and Marxist influences, has retreated in favour of a more general acceptance of modern consumerism. While labour has not been replaced as the most important means of economic and cultural participation, the social construction of personal individuality is seen to take place through an ever-increasing multitude of means of consumption. The article analyses this profound process of cultural change and at the same time reflects upon the opportunities and limits of the current scholarly paradigm concerning the consumer society.

Rural History ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Kielbowicz

For rural Americans, the debate over establishing a parcel post evoked all the hopes and anxieties associated with the expansion of mass society at the turn of the century. Parcel post, today an accepted and seemingly inconsequential government service, was originally seen as a linchpin in the emerging industry of mass culture. The media of mass communication advertised products and ran stories acclimating readers to a consumer society, thereby encouraging demand for mass-produced goods that were distributed, finally, by parcel post. Opponents of parcel post foresaw a decline of small towns, a centralization of production and distribution, a disruption of the ‘natural’ relations among labor, retailers, and consumers, and the aggrandizement of urban culture. At the other extreme, proponents claimed that parcel post would increase consumer choice, reduce the cost of living, and bridge the widening chasm between urban and rural life. Thus, the simple act of carrying a parcel from Chicago to a farmer's lane became freighted with a panoply of issues agitating the nation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Kyrchanoff Maksym W. ◽  

War is one of the most popular topics in modern mass culture. The author analyzes the features of the perception of war in modern science fiction cinema. The purpose of this article is to analyze the representation of war in American science fiction as a form of historical memory in mass culture. The author uses inventionism methods to analyze the images of war in the film production of mass culture as “invented traditions” of the consumer society. The range of perception of war and military experience in popular culture is analyzed. Modern global film industry and national film industries regularly address military themes in the world or national contexts, producing films that actualize military experience of nations and states. The film industry segments that specialize in the production of science fiction and fantasy films also do not ignore the military theme. It is supposed that popular culture offers a variety of images of war, including militarism, violence, military collective trauma, and military political psychosis. The author believes that military theme in popular culture arose as a result of reflection on real military conflicts, and the creators of the pop-cultural project could reject the war or idealize it. The author believes that military science fiction in modern American mass culture actualizes the values of pacifism or militarism as reflections of the left or right preferences of the creators of such cultural product for the consumer society. Science fiction films actualize various forms of war, including global military clashes, civil conflicts, aggression, intervention and genocide. Popular culture is becoming the main sphere of existence of the memory of war because military conflicts of science fiction series can be perceived in the consumer society as more real than the historical wars of the past. Military images of mass culture are supposed to actualize various forms of war memory, including memory as trauma, memory as marginalization, and memory as nostalgia which idealize war.


Skhid ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-42
Author(s):  
Liudmyla Ovsiankina ◽  
Tetiana Kuprii

The article is dedicated to revealing the specific features of fashion as a system of cultural and aesthetic values, as well as a contradictory social phenomenon which plays an important role as a symbolic regulator of mass society. The purpose of this article is to study the mechanism of creation of the sign and symbolic world of fashion, new models and patterns of behavior, evident and hidden functions of fashion in the era of globalization.  Attention is focused on the fact that fashion, as one of the central phenomenon of the modern world, has become an industry based on the principle of rationality, for the production of original trends, in line with the trends and challenges of modern times. It reflects social reality, and people who actively contribute to changing its fashion patterns set in motion models of social reality. It is the sociological study of fashion that can contribute to its most adequate description and explanation. This is due to the fact that the process of spreading and changing fashion patterns is characterized by the value attitude of people both to things and to other people. The result of such an attitude is the social division of people into groups. A fashionable thing, which is desirable for a person, at the same time becomes for him a desirable image of the social status and interpersonal relations to which a person aspires. The article analyzes modern fashion in terms of symbolic conditionality and symbolic reality characterized by features of sociality, temporality, ambivalence and spectacularity.  The main attention of authors of the study is devoted to the analysis of the specific behavior of a human-consumer, for whom the sign and symbolic world of fashion is not only a means of self-expression, but also an opportunity to fill the spiritual vacuum and feel a lost sense of stability.  Attention is also focused on the importance of solving the problem of ethics of responsibility of modern fashion, which is the determinants of all relations in the sphere of contemporary consumer society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-140
Author(s):  
S. V. Storozhuk ◽  
◽  
I. M. Hoian ◽  

The article shows that the modern mass interest in the occult is conditioned, on the one hand, by the world crisis, the lack of stable and reliable foundations for self-determination and human orientation in the world, and on the other – by the formation of impersonal man and the establishment of mass society. The lack of a stable worldview, universal values, ideals and social standards, and, at the same time, unwillingness to pose and solve complex socio-cultural problems, is the main reason why modern (postmodern) people choose occult ideals and norms that do not require deep reflection, however, they provide them with a sense of belonging to the universe. Most of them are offered by the modern mass culture industry. Although its products are of great concern to traditional Christian values and virtues, we have no reason to give them an unequivocally negative assessment at the moment, at least given that they offer models of The article shows that the modern mass interest in the occult is conditioned, on the one hand, by the world crisis, the lack of stable and reliable foundations for self-determination and human orientation in the world, and on the other – by the formation of impersonal man and the establishment of mass society. The lack of a stable worldview, universal values, ideals and social standards, and, at the same time, unwillingness to pose and solve complex socio-cultural problems, is the main reason why modern (postmodern) people choose occult ideals and norms that do not require deep reflection, however, they provide them with a sense of belonging to the universe. Most of them are offered by the modern mass culture industry. Although its products are of great concern to traditional Christian values and virtues, we have no reason to give them an unequivocally negative assessment at the moment, at least given that they offer models of The article shows that the modern mass interest in the occult is conditioned, on the one hand, by the world crisis, the lack of stable and reliable foundations for self-determination and human orientation in the world, and on the other – by the formation of impersonal man and the establishment of mass society. The lack of a stable worldview, universal values, ideals and social standards, and, at the same time, unwillingness to pose and solve complex socio-cultural problems, is the main reason why modern (postmodern) people choose occult ideals and norms that do not require deep reflection, however, they provide them with a sense of belonging to the universe. Most of them are offered by the modern mass culture industry. Although its products are of great concern to traditional Christian values and virtues, we have no reason to give them an unequivocally negative assessment at the moment, at least given that they offer models of social relations that due to testing by various occult organizations, may receive a public request, or be rejected.


wisdom ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-154
Author(s):  
Maria BAYNOVA ◽  
Polina PALEKHOVA ◽  
Alexander PETROV ◽  
Ariadna PETROVA

The article presents a philosophical and sociological analysis of processes of cultural globalization, development of consumer society and fashion industry in Russia. Authors analyze the social foundations of cultural globalization. The article examines the influence of cultural globalization on the process of distribution of symbols of new mass culture. The article analyzes the peculiarities of the development of the fashion and entertainment industry in the modern Russian society. The article also examines the specific impact of the processes of marketization and the displacement of national cultures in the system of modern societies.


Paragraph ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-291
Author(s):  
Carolin Duttlinger

This article argues that attention and distraction form a central concern of Benjamin's writings on literature. Individually and in conjunction, they underpin processes of textual production and reception, yet their relationship is fluid and subject to historical change. In this respect, Benjamin's exploration of the interplay of attention and distraction in writers such as Leskov, Baudelaire and Brecht also leads to more general reflections about the social, cultural and psychological shifts brought about by industrialization and modern mass culture. Benjamin's writings on literature trace developments which he also explores in relation to film. And echoes of his ‘literary history of attention’ can also be found in both his own critical approach and his self-reflexive comments on the process of writing.


1956 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 38-39
Author(s):  
Ralph Patrick

Like Dr. Ryan, I too hesitate to speak for my profession. But I would like to record substantial agreement with the main points in Ryan's stimulating paper: that anthropology and sociology complement and reinforce each other. And I would like to place my exclamation point beside Ryan's insistence that modern mass society be viewed in the context of the total range of societal variation. This view offers, it seems to me, the only promise of a widely comparative science of society which will yield successively more accurate generalizations about the nature of human social organization, rather than specific statements about the social organization of Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. In such a comparative frame of reference, anthropology and sociology can find their proper place in the search for generalizations about the nature of human culture and human social structure.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-47
Author(s):  
Jeroen Salman

This article demonstrates the social and cultural significance of eighteenth and nineteenth century Dutch penny prints – one of the first mass media in European history. By using a combination of media and cultural historical approaches (Henry Jenkins, John Fiske) and an anthropological perspective (Eric Hobsbawm) it asserts that, contrary to common notion, penny prints were not just part of a commercialized, conformist mass culture, but existed as a form of social resistance and protest as well. This new insight is based on the analysis of the adaption and publication history of the eighteenth-century French criminal hero Louis Dominique de Cartouche, the equivalent of the English highwayman. Give the multiple, multilingual representations of this narrative – in pamphlets, songs, biographies, prints, paintings and movies – the pervasiveness of Cartouche can be regarded as a remarkable cultural phenomenon. This interdisciplinary and long-term analysis also demonstrates that popularization processes were more dynamic and multifaceted than often perceived. In the case of penny prints about Cartouche more conformist periods alternated with more rebellious periods.


2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 214-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellis Cashmore ◽  
Andrew Parker

Sporting celebrities are not regularly discussed within the broader realms of sociological debate. Yet that is not to say that their identities cannot offer insight into wider patterns of cultural change. Indeed, it is our contention within this paper that the reverse is true: that analyses of the autobiographical details of contemporary sports figures represent key sites through which cultural change can be viewed. To this end, we take one sporting icon of the present time, soccer star David Beckham, and assess his popular cultural image in terms of its contribution to debates surrounding identity, consumption, and the social construction of masculinities. Our central thesis is that while Beckham affords all the hallmarks of celebrity status, his identity remains both fluid and negotiable in accordance with the role and audience he seeks to address and the ends he seeks to achieve.


1992 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
pp. 1186-1186
Author(s):  
Garth J. O. Fletcher

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