scholarly journals Cold War binaries and the culture of consumption in the late Soviet home

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Reid
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Content Type ◽  
War Narratives ◽  
Material Environment ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
Oral History Interviews

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to challenge Cold War binaries, seeking a more nuanced understanding of popular experience of change in the Soviet Union’s last decades. This was a period of intensive modernization and rapid transformation in Soviet citizens’ everyday material environment, marked by the mass move to newly constructed housing and by changing relations with goods. Design/methodology/approach – To probe popular experience and changing meanings, the paper turns to qualitative, subjective sources, drawing on oral history interviews (Everyday Aesthetics in the Modern Soviet Flat, 2004-2007). Findings – The paper finds that qualitative changes took place in Soviet popular consumer culture during the 1960s-1970s, as millions of people made home in new housing amid the widespread media circulation of authoritative images representing a desirable modern lifestyle and modernist aesthetic. Soviet people began to make aesthetic or semiotic distinctions between functionally identical goods and were concerned to find the right furniture to fit a desired lifestyle, aesthetic ideal and sense of self. Research limitations/implications – The problem is how to conceptualize the trajectory of change in ways that do justice to historical subjects’ experience and narratives, while avoiding uncritically reproducing Cold War binaries or perpetuating the normative status claimed by the postwar West in defining modernity and consumer culture. Originality/value – The paper challenges dominant Cold War narratives, according to which Soviet popular relations with goods were encompassed by shortage and necessity. It advances understanding of the specific form of modern consumer culture, which, it argues, took shape in the USSR after Stalin.

Democratic Fantasies vs. Cold War Realities

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Laurence R. Jurdem
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
White House ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
National Review ◽  
The World ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

The strain of Black Nationalism that existed within the United Nations also worried conservatives as they monitored the evolution of events in Southern Africa. In their intense desire to rid the world of communism, other issues, such as race, were either marginalized or ignored. The chapter analyzes the three publications’ view of race as it relates to the issue of Rhodesia during the height of the Cold War. In ignoring the suppression of an entire race of people, Human Events and National Review contrasted what they perceived to be a stable, anticommunist, biracial society with the militarism and lawlessness that they argued defined the 1960s and 1970s. While the two conservative publications viewed Rhodesia as a model of biracial success, Commentary focused on the Carter administration’s dismissive attitude about the dangers of Soviet encroachment within the African hemisphere. The Right argued that the Carter White House, in its refusal to endorse Rhodesia’s 1979 parliamentary elections due to a lack of representation of militant nationalist groups, and its belief in the policy of détente, continued to send a message of American weakness and indifference to totalitarianism around the world.

How the hungry ghost mythology reconciles materialism and spirituality in Thai death rituals

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rungpaka Amy Hackley ◽  
Chris Hackley
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Death Rituals ◽  
Material Wealth ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Death Ritual ◽  
Visual Semiotics ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Cultural Contradictions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of Asian consumer culture by exploring how hungry ghost death ritual in the Buddhist world reconciles spiritual asceticism and materialism. Design/methodology/approach – This is an interpretive study that incorporates elements of visual semiotics, ethnography and qualitative data analysis. The native-speaking first author interviewed local ritual leaders of the Pee Ta Khon festival in Dansai, Thailand, while both authors witnessed examples of other Buddhist death rituals in Thailand and visited temples and markets selling death ritual paraphernalia. Data include translated semi-structured interview transcripts, field notes, photographs and videos, the personal introspection of the first author and also news articles and website information. Findings – The paper reveals how hungry ghost death ritual resolves cultural contradictions by connecting materialism and spirituality through consumption practices of carnival celebration with feasting, music, drinking, costumes and spirit offerings of symbols of material wealth, such as paper money and branded goods. Research limitations/implications – Further research in the form of full ethnographic studies of the same and other rituals would add additional detail and depth to the understanding of the ritual in Asian consumer culture. Originality/value – The paper extends existing qualitative consumer research into death ritual into a new area and sheds light on the way managers must locate Asian marketing initiatives within distinctively local contexts.

“Why Hasn’t This Teacher Been Shot?” Moral-Sexual Panic, the Repressive Right, and Brazil’s National Security State

2012 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
Far Right ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
National Security State ◽  
The Military

Abstract This article takes up the story of right-wing mobilization before and during Brazil’s military government of 1964–1985. Understanding the regime’s violent countersubversion requires analysis of the ideology that framed it. This ideology flourished among a long-neglected group of far-right intellectuals and organizations that had considerable influence in successive military administrations and worked to define subversion—the military state’s ever-invoked enemy—in terms chiefly moral and sexual. Scholars have noted that defense of “Western Christian civilization” peppered the vague rhetoric of Cold War autocrats throughout Latin America. Yet inattention to the Right per se and to those considered extremists has impeded our understanding of the specific values bound up in such visions of the West and hence of the centrality of morality and culture in countersubversive thought. This article argues that rightists, some of them radical, echoed past conservatisms by linking morality, sexuality, and subversion in ways that gained increasing influence in the 1960s and 1970s.

Culture and the multinational advertising agency: the rise and fall of Mojo-MDA, 1964-1991

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-172
Author(s):  
Robert Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Growth Strategy ◽  
Advertising Agencies ◽  
Advertising Agency ◽  
Agency Staff ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Oral History Interviews

Purpose This paper aims to trace the emergence, rise and eventual fall of Mojo-MDA. Established as a creative consultancy in 1975, Mojo embarked on an ambitious growth strategy that would see it emerge as Australia’s first multinational agency. By examining the agency’s trajectory over the 1970s and 1980s, this paper revisits the story of an Australian agency with boundless confidence to develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic role played by corporate culture in the agency's fortunes. Design/methodology/approach This study uses reports and features published in the Australian advertising trade press, along with other first-hand accounts, including oral history interviews and personal correspondence with former agency staff. Findings By identifying the forces and influences affecting Mojo-MDA’s outlook and operations, this paper demonstrates the important yet paradoxical role that corporate culture plays in both building and undermining an agency’s ambitions and the need for marketing historians to pay closer attention to it. Originality/value This examination of an agency’s inner machinations over an extended period presents a unique perspective of the ways that advertising agencies operate, as well as the forces that drive and impede them, at both national and global levels. The Mojo-MDA story also illustrates the need for marketing and business historians to pay close attention to corporate culture and the different ways that it affects marketing business and practices.

scholarly journals Teaching Democracy: Folkways Records and Cold War Education

2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-81
Author(s):  
Rachel C. Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Private Organizations ◽  
Political Conversation ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Media ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

By the waning years of the 1940s America had lost much of what remained of its postwar optimism as fears of Communism came to dominate the national political conversation. Left-leaning citizens had particular cause for disillusionment as politicians continued to trample many vestiges of New Deal programs and ideals in their rightward trek. The passage of the antilabor Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace's abysmal failure at the polls in the 1948 election hammered more nails into the coffin of leftwing activism. What ultimately caused the Old Left to retreat from mainstream political discourse was, of course, the new ideological war that loomed on the horizon. While U.S. foreign policy focused on containing Communism abroad, local and federal governlnent agencies and civilian vigilante groups rallied to fight suspected communists at home, Government agencies and private organizations compiled lists of alleged subversives, such asRed Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Televisionthat the right-wing publicationCounterattackreleased in 1950. The attacks on those in the media and government were well documented, as news sources reported the trials of iconic groups like the Hollywood Ten and televised the Army-McCarthy hearings. At the same time that anticommunists focused on rooting out subversives in the State Department, organized labor, and the entertainment industry, they also turned their attention to education. Many political leaders, both liberal and conservative, viewed education as the “key factor” in securing American victory in the Cold War; as a result, between the end of WWII and the 1960s, anticommunists devoted an unprecedented amount of scrutiny to public schools, administrators, and teachers.

Импортная вещь и дух консюмеризма: потребительские аспекты выездного туризма в ссср

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-218
Author(s):  
Igor Orlov ◽  
Игорь Орлов ◽  
Aleksei Popov ◽  
Алексей Попов
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Psychological Barriers ◽  
Economic Man ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Permanent Increase

In the post-Stalin period, in the USSR, there was a permanent increase in the amount of Soviet tourists who traveled abroad. These trips acquired a great popularity and a prestige among Soviet citizens, and became a channel for the illegal, or semi-legal, infiltration of foreign goods into the USSR. Despite financial, customs, administrative, and psychological barriers, as well as ideological pressure, Soviet tourists abroad acted within the concept of an “economic man” seeking to import as many things as possible. To fulfill this consumer mission, in the 1960s-1980s, Soviet tourists created a set of “shadow” consumption practices which this article examines in detail, as well as the Soviet government’s responses to combat them. The imported goods and the resulting non-Soviet consumer culture ("spirit of consumerism” or “virus of consumerism”), the article concludes, undermined the concept of Soviet superiority central to the Soviet propaganda during the Cold War era.

An exploration of environmentally-conscious consumers and the reasons why they do not buy green products

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 804-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micael-Lee Johnstone ◽  
Lay Peng Tan
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Urban Centre ◽  
Environmentally Conscious ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Green Consumption ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how and why environmentally conscious consumers rationalise their non-green purchase behaviour. Design/methodology/approach – Seven focus groups were conducted. A total of 51 people, aged 19-70 years, participated in the study. Theoretical thematic analysis was used to organise the data as various themes emerged. Findings – Through application of neutralisation theory, this study identified additional barriers to green consumption. Two new neutralisation techniques emerged, namely protecting (maintaining) one’s sense of self and consumer attachment to the brand. These techniques recognise the impact consumer culture has had on consumers. Research limitations/implications – The study took place in an urban centre hence the views of the participants may be different from those who live in rural centres; low-income consumers were under-represented; and more male participants would have been desirable. Social implications – Despite its limitations, this study reveals that consumers will rationalise their decisions in order to protect their self-esteem and self-identity. Until green becomes a social norm, consumers will continue to place individual goals over collective goals. Understanding this rationalisation process is important if marketers and policy makers want to encourage behavioural change. Originality/value – This study makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of the green attitude-behaviour gap. It provides fresh insights into how environmentally conscious consumers vindicate their non-green consumption behaviours and how marketers and policy makers can overcome these challenges. It also identifies two new neutralisation techniques and extends the theory to a consumer culture context.

Global consumer culture: consequences for consumer research

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos J. Torelli ◽  
Jennifer L. Stoner
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Consumer Research ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Psychological Approach ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Globalized World

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to comment on the conceptual framework highlighting the reinforcing nature of global consumer culture. Design/methodology/approach The approach is conceptual with illustrative examples. Findings The authors integrate the conceptual framework that highlights the reinforcing nature of global consumer culture with recent findings about the psychology of globalization. Specifically, the authors bring attention to the perceptual, cognitive and motivational consequences of globalization, as well as its effects on consumer identification. The authors illustrate how this integration provides insights for better predicting consumer behavior in a globalized world. Research limitations/implications One key aspect of globalization is the creation of multicultural spaces in contemporary societies. Taking a psychological approach, the authors discuss how consumers respond to the process of culture mixing at the heart of globalization. This has consequences for marketers’ global endeavors and provides a nuanced understanding of consumer behavior in a globalized world. Originality/value The paper integrates a novel framework with recent findings about the psychology of globalization, opening avenues for future research on global consumer cultures.

Mind Bending, Mental Seduction and Menticide: Brainwashing in British Spy Dramas of the 1960s

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Burton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Thought Control ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
Mind Control ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cultural Fantasy

Brainwashing assumed the proportions of a cultural fantasy during the Cold War period. The article examines the various political, scientific and cultural contexts of brainwashing, and proceeds to a consideration of the place of mind control in British spy dramas made for cinema and television in the 1960s and 1970s. Particular attention is given to the films The Mind Benders (1963) and The Ipcress File (1965), and to the television dramas Man in a Suitcase (1967–8), The Prisoner (1967–8) and Callan (1967–81), which gave expression to the anxieties surrounding thought-control. Attention is given to the scientific background to the representations of brainwashing, and the significance of spy scandals, treasons and treacheries as a distinct context to the appearance of brainwashing on British screens.

Nasser's Gamble

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Original Material ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Arab Spring

This book draws on declassified documents from six countries and original material in Arabic, German, Hebrew, and Russian to present a new understanding of Egypt's disastrous five-year intervention in Yemen, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser later referred to as “my Vietnam.” The book argues that Nasser's attempt to export the Egyptian revolution to Yemen played a decisive role in destabilizing Egypt's relations with the Cold War powers, tarnishing its image in the Arab world, ruining its economy, and driving its rulers to instigate the fatal series of missteps that led to war with Israel in 1967. Viewing the Six Day War as an unintended consequence of the Saudi–Egyptian struggle over Yemen, the book demonstrates that the most important Cold War conflict in the Middle East was not the clash between Israel and its neighbors. It was the inter-Arab struggle between monarchies and republics over power and legitimacy. Egypt's defeat in the “Arab Cold War” set the stage for the rise of Saudi Arabia and political Islam. Bold and provocative, this book brings to life a critical phase in the modern history of the Middle East. Its compelling analysis of Egypt's fall from power in the 1960s offers new insights into the decline of Arab nationalism, exposing the deep historical roots of the Arab Spring of 2011.

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