Book - Material Culture in the social world'
pg 17: Discusses material culture as being a feature of late modernity.
FURTHER READING: Marx's analysis of relations of production and the importance of material culture identified by MAUSS and the tradition of anthropology (study of human behaviour and sociology)
VEBLEN
Conspicuous consumption of the leisure class (Veblen 1953 [1899])
Offers a way of responding to the social significance of material objects.
Pg. 18: no longer defined by skills
Veblen situates objects within a cultural life that distinguishes those classes.
'Because this expenditure does not serve human life of human well-being on the whole ' (Beblen 1953:78)
PIERRE BOURDIEU - 'Distinction 1984 [1979] explores how peoples taste in French culture of the 1960's were related to their social standing.
Explores different between 'taste' as a sense and 'taste' as a set of cultural preferences and aesthetic judgements.
Cultural orientation (taste) is embedded in the routine practises of social being, such as (pg 20.):
"Automatic gesture or the apparently insignificant techniques of the body - ways of walking...talking - and engage the most fundamental principles of construction and evaluation of the social world, those which almost directly express the division of labour ( between the classes, the age groups and the sexes) or the division of the work of domination, in divisions between bodies...the sexual division of labour and the division of sexual labour..."
(Bourdieu: 1984 466)
Bourgeoisie, the commodity, proletariats
_ Control of the means of production in private hands
- Markete where labour power is bought and sold (inc humans - almost commodities)
- Production of commodities for sale
- Use of money as a means of exchange
- Competition / meritocracy
'Best suceed' etc
Stature in society , to be at the top, its a competition
Base and superstructure
Base > Determines content and form of > super structure
> Superstructure > reflects form of legitimises> base
Educator > instrcuts (form of education) Work > instructs (act although its normal, marxist reading into education)
Panopticism
- Conformity
- Being watched subconsciously makes you act in a certain way
Panopticism as a form of consumerist (behaviour?) manipulation.
Case study - Ikea, see short cuts, follow crowds (docile bodies?)
False consciousness
Idea of spectacle
Semiotics - Signs signify a meaning and cultural code, objects mean something more. The study of how things mean, not what things mean - Cultural code.To read culture in the same way we read language. Fashion is a cultural code. A 'punk like' attired man - a rebel subverting. Image of man in tie and suit - societys consensus - smart, status, business, societies view. Tie - purely symbolic - no function.
Commodity fetishism
Fetisise commodities
Something that gets in the way of something else, used as a substitute
Trainers taking appearance of 'cool' , you being 'cool' mediated by trainers
Potential Bibliography:
Research Williamson, J, Decoding advertisements
This will help me to gain a better understanding of how advertisements work in making people think a certain way, in creating an unconscious need and want for a product. It will outline the elements of design which do so.
Freud - "The unconscious aggressive forces of human nature could be erupt in crowds"
This will give me some theories and case studies on human behaviour within a group and how factors can affect it. It will provide evidence for my essay title.
Commodity fetishism (marx, capital Vol.1)
The affect advertising has on us, and how we relate to products and we feel they represent something and us.
Marx concept of base / super structure
Base (economic)
Forces of production - Materials, tools, workers, skills, etc
Relations of production - Employer, class, master, slave etc
Superstructure
Social institutions - Legal, political, cultural (art , design, education) Can be traced back to issues of class, gender/racial politics, everything bears this stamp
Forms of consciousness - Ideology
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
Capitalism (the society were in) produced laws, culture, law, politics, education which reflects the capitalist attitude
Base > Determines content and form of > super structure
> Superstructure > reflects form of legitimises> base
Educator > instrcuts (form of education) Work > instructs (act although its normal, marxist reading into education)
Super structure > Education, family, religion, mass media, politics > Base - Relations of production, means of production
Super structure - maintains and legitimates the base
Base - Shapes the structure
Reading - Marx, (1857) "contribution to the critique of political economy' :
In conclusion:
Society produces our life's, not us, the accident of our birth produces what were are going to be. Where we are in life we are forced into relations and situations, these relations which reflect the society we live in. the base determines the superstructure, which determines our consciousness ( to rebel, to take it as normal etc) our society condition everything, philosophy, interaction etc. Social being dtermines our consciousness. Change the base> change our attitudes, arts and culture.
One can have an ideology, system of ideas and beliefs (e.g Christianity, conservatives)
Ideology - The way in which a system of ideas masks, distorts a way of thinking about the world, which covers ove glass/gender/race discriminations. Legitimises over certain classes/races - false consciousness - exploited
Through buying, consuming we make ourselves poorer through buying, never gain status in society.
Commodity fetishism (marx, capital Vol.1)
Fetisise commodities
Something that gets in the way of something else, used as a substitute
Trainers taking appearance of 'cool' , you being 'cool' mediated by trainers
Adbusters & cultural jamming
'Buy nothing day' etc
techniques - do something to a piece of work / object to alter message. E.g - `billborad - used to give a message - Distort this - its still a strong message.
Look at youtube videos
Panopticism
- Conformity
- Being watched subconsciously makes you act in a certain way
Michel Foucault - Interested in the mechanism for discipline, Panopticon secluding people to be on their own, the way in which its a metaphor for the way society controls its citizens, an allergy of how we're controlled in our day to day lives. Panopticon symbolises our day to day lives. Figure for how we're controlled
With her book, 'Decoding advertisements', Judith Williamson explored and analyses what can be 'seen' in advertisements. Believing it's an "inevitable part of everyone’s lives…" stating that you don't even have to be 'directly involved in the media, it's all around us". That image within our urban surroundings are 'inescapable'. She states that advertisements have their own independent reality, becoming separate from the material medium, which carries it. She agrees that its main function is to sell things, but that it has another, to create structures of meaning. In order to sell us something advertisers make the properties of a product 'mean' and connote something to us.
"Advertising sets up connections between certain types of consumers and certain products."
Using signifiers and what is signified to create the connection. "Taking the sign for what it signifies, the thing for the feeling." (Williamson, J, 'Decoding advertisements', 1978).
"People are identified by what they consume rather than what they produce."
We are no longer an image of our skills but by our materials and commodities. She states we are made to believe we can rise or fall within society by what we can afford, and can't, obscuring actual class basis. Class difference has lost meaning. Apparently we can now purchase our place in society. As we feel a need to belong, the mass media provide this 'Place to belong' to an extent.
Within a consumerist society, we are impaled by constructed false needs
ADAM ARVIDSSON
'Branded consumer good are ubiquitous and have achieved a perhaps unprecended importance in the lives of some consumers groups."
"Companies give increasing importance to their brands as marketing tools"
"Brands thus represent the additional value of the informational content of commodities."
"this can be relations between the brand and it's distribution between the brand and it's customers and between the consumers themselves in terms of brand communities and the importance of brands for personal identity."
300 Word evaluation - an overview of her opinion towards advertising
With her book, 'Decoding advertisements', she explores and analyses what can be 'seen' in advertisements. Believing it's an "inevitable part of everyones lives..." stating that you don't even have to be 'directly involved in the media, it's all around us". That images within our urban surroundings are 'inescapable'.
Williamson states that advertisements have their own independent reality, becoming separate from the material medium which carries it. She agree's that the main function is to sell thing, but that it has another, to create structures of meaning. In order to sell us something advertisers make the properties of a product 'mean' and connote something to us.
She suggests that advertisements provide a structure, transforming the language of objects to that of people.
"Advertising sets up connections between certain types of consumers and certain products."
Using signifiers and what is signified to create the connection.
"Taking the sign for what it signifies, the thing for the feeling."
Williamson believes people and objects become interchangeable, advertising is selling more than just good, but by providing a structure, in which people and goods are interchangeable, are selling people, themselves.
"People are identified by what they consume rather than what they produce."
We are no longer an image of our skills but by our materials and commodities. She states we are made to believe we can rise or fall within society by what we can afford, and can't, obscuring actual class basis. Class difference has lost meaning. Apparently we can now purchase our place in society. As we feel a need to belong, the mass media provide this 'Place to belong' to an extent.
Overall Williamson sums up advertising as giving good a social meaning.
Reference - Williamson, J, 'Decoding Advertisements', 1978
SEMIOTICS
What is semiotics?
A science of studying signs - Something that gives a meaning in culture.
The study of how things mean, not what things mean - Cultural code.
To read culture in the same way we read language.
Fashion is a cultural code. A 'punk like' attired man - a rebel subverting. Image of man in tie and suit - societys consensus - smart, status, business, societies view. Tie - purely symbolic - no function.
THE CENTURY OF THE SELF
THE CHANGE IN TIMES - BETWEEN 1920 AND PRESENT IN CONSUMERISM
Notes taken:
History of consumerism
The century of self
Those in power have used Freuds theory to control the crowd in a mass democracy
Bernas
Influence great as Freud was his uncle
First person to take frauds idea to manipulate masses
How american corporations make people want things they don't need to; unconcious desires
New political idea on how to control masses
inner selfish desire - satisfying, making people happy thus docile
All consuming self - dominates us today
'Happiness machines'
Freuds ideas used to be hated
The idea of being examined and tested in was embarrassing and to be a threat. People in society at the time were taught not to express emotion or inner feeling, so to be asked to do so was outrageous.
Self created empire would have fallen into pieces.
Phychoanalyis, looking at dreams
Feelings we repressed because they were dangerous
Dr Ernest Jones
An unconscious barrier we have, to letting the unconscious emerging
Edward Bernays
America announced war on germany
employed to promote war aims to press
Was skillful in promoting idea internationally
To be a safer democracy
A hero of the masses
Bernays began to wonder, if it was possible to do the same kind of persuasion (propaganda) for peace
Publics relations officer
America mass industrial society
Bernays was determined to find way to manage and alter way the crowds thought and felt.
Manipulating unconscious
Pat jackson - public relations advisor
Information drives behaviour
what would play to peoples Irrational emotions
CASE STUDY
Freud set out to experiment with the minds of the popular classes; to pursued women to smoke. At the time, it was thought as taboo for women to do so. Cigarettes were seen to represent the penis, to be of power. If a women were to smoke, she would metaphorically have power. During a parade, several women hid cigarettes under their clothing, to be given a signal whilst in the parade. The group of women gave the idea to onlooking press that they were in fact suffragettes making a stand for freedom. An already prepared message, of more independence. The iconic reference of the statue of liberty a suitor as a woman holding a torch. Freud had made women smoking suitably acceptable through the use of this iconic figure. The idea that irrelevant objects, such as a cigarette, can be represented by how you are seen by others, was a new idea.
To sell it to your emotions, not just a purchase, engaging emotionally and personally in object. Emotionally connect to a product of service
Used to buy things for need, as necessities, promoted in functional terms this began to change.
Corporations wanted to get on ball, transform way people thought about products
Needs to desire culture, to be trained to want new things before old have even been consumed Mans desires must over shadow his needs.
EDWARD BERNES - Real person who brought forward physcholigcal theory of how we are going to appeal to the masses (corporances )
1920's
Mass consumer pursuation
Bernes glamorised advertisements
Practise of product placement in movies - Dresses starts in clothes and jewellery from other companies
Cars as male dominance
Fashion shows in fashion stores
1927 American journalist
" A change has come over our democracy, it is called consumptions. The american citizens first importance to its country is no longer citizen, but consumerism. "
Bernes - 'The mind of the crowd.'
Freud
"The unconscious aggressive forces of human nature could be erupt in crowds" (eg mobs)- he became a pessimist and sadistic
'Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most of the relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves' - Berger ways of seeing
Commodity fetishism (marx, capital Vol.1)
Fetisise commodities
Something that gets in the way of something else, used as a substitute
Trainers taking appearance of 'cool' , you being 'cool' mediated by trainers
'Advertising doesn't sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel' (Jeremy Bullmore
'Advertising design, in persuading people to buy things they don't need, with money they don't have, in order to impress others who don't care' - Papenek (1971)
'The whole process is wrapped up not just in finding out what people want but, importantly, in telling people what they want.' - All design is political, part one.
'Design serves to communicate the world view of the initiator.' Thus design is political
Design is an agent of ideology in that it communicates for political intentions
'We are fed an image of how we should act or look by the visual images and objects around us, which are produced by those with access to the means of communication' - Ideology - them and us
'We are driven to seek happiness not by acquiring things that are useful, but by surrounding ourselves with signs that we are fulfilled.'
Within Marx's 'The fetishism of commodities' he summarises that peoples labour, as a aspect of their humanity has become a commodity, to be bought and sold. We are able to purchase labour, and exchange it although an object, not in fact, a person. In effect instead of seeing relationships between people, we see relationships between things. We have a capitalist way of treating 'goods' this way.
Michel Foucault - Materialsim and Education
' it is not the consciousness of men that determine their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence which determines their consciousness.'
Marx, 1971: 20-21
John Berger
'Creates a false desire to gain a symbolic association and therefore perpetuates false needs.'
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