Consumer Culture Is Central to Understanding Contemporary Identities Essay

As the title suggests, this essay is going to discuss, to what extent does consumer culture affect contemporary identities. In today’s society consumer culture is everywhere and we would probably not be able to survive without it. It became such an important part of our lives that some people even build their carrier around it. Most businesses in modern societies, all around the world work as successfully as they do, simply because people became consumers and they buy their products. This essay is first going to look at why this change of attitude occurred and how exactly it brought about consumer culture. This will lead us onto how exactly consumer culture works and how it affects consumers. To answer the question fully, we will also look at the two view points on this matter. First we are going to discuss arguments which support the view that consumer culture creates modern identities. Secondly, arguments supporting the view that consumer culture is far less important than in the development of one’s identity. Before the question itself is addressed, some background needs to be drawn about this issue. To be objective about this matter, it should be pointed out straight away that consumer culture is not the key aspect affecting contemporary identities. There is one very simple explanation to why this is true. Humans have been around for a much longer period of time than consumer culture and were successfully developing their identities even before consumer culture came about. Therefore it is definitely true that in the past, there were other things creating our identities sufficiently enough. The definition of identity which Jodi Davis finds the most fitting is â€Å"My identity is determined by a complex mix of thingsâ€Å". The question however concentrates on contemporary identities. So is it possible that consumer culture managed to take over the power of all the other aspects of the creation of identity in the past 200 years? Some believe that the answer to that question is yes. In fact, Bauman argues that â€Å"The roads to self-identity, to a place in society, to a life in a form recognisable as that of meaningful living, all require daily visits to the market place†. Similarly, Featherstone states that â€Å"criteria for the good life revolve around the desire to enlarge one’s self, the quests for new tastes, and sensations, to explore more and more possibilities†. (Featherstone, pg 67) Therefore many people would be happy to say that in today’s society, consumer culture has an enormous effect on our identities. To some extent, this is true. Jagger even believes that â€Å"we become what we consume†. (Jagger, pg 45) To explain why this is true, the term â€Å"floating signifiers† needs to be explained. It refers to the fact that these days, all products and brands have a certain meaning/story behind them. People buy them because of these images they carry with them, rather than the actual use of the product. This leads us to the use vs. exchange value question. It could be argued that this was one of the main changes which caused consumerism to expand so much. Basically Use vs. Exchange conflict refers to the fact that at a certain point, people stopped buying goods for their use value and started buying them for their exchange value. Material goods are used as communicators, not utilities. (Featherstone, pg 84) Today, consumerism has reached such level of success, that people no longer buy things because they need them, but because they like this image that products give them. â€Å"Consumption, then, must not be understood as the consumption of use-values, a material utility but primarily as consumption of signs. †(Featherstone, pg 85) This way, the things we buy, create our identity, because people judge us based on what the products we use say about us. In today’s society of strangers, it is the only way to judge a person at the first sight. So for example if someone was to drive a Ferrari, people would think of him as a successful individual. This assumption would be based on the fact that to be able to afford this kind of car, the individual must be very rich. Also the brand itself gives him the image of a young successful man. This shows that automatically, without even speaking to people or getting to know them, they already judge us based on our appearance. Obviously we all want to be liked and accepted by others so we try to fulfil their expectations of us. We attempt to â€Å"live up to (but not above) the standards attached to the ‘social category’ into which we were born†. (Bauman, pg 27) These standards are also however determined by the media. Beauty ideals are set by TV, commercials and celebrities. They determine what’s â€Å"cool† and what isn’t. For example celebrities often act as beauty idols, so many women strive to look like them. This inner need to ulfil society’s expectation forces them to buy products which promise to make them look like a celebrity. Whoever does not at least attempt to fit in within these standards, or even worse, tries to do the opposite, might be stigmatised for it. For example over the past 80 years, it became very popular for women to shave their legs. It became so popular that nowadays, women who don’t do it are usually highly stigmatised. This all roots in consumerism, because the initial reason why it became popular was to force people to spend money on razors- which were until then unnecessary. Trying to fulfil these expectations creates our identity in a way. In most cases consumption of goods only affects our external identity but in some extreme cases it may even start to affect one’s internal identity. For example certain brands portray certain groups of people. So if one was to shop at Gucci or Chanel, one is expected to act a certain way. These brands carry the image of a very traditional, well behaved and upper class individual. So anyone wearing Gucci or Chanel strives to live up to the standards of these brands. That way one is already is changing his behaviour as well as his appearance, which is affecting not only his/hers external, but also internal identity. So really, when we think about it, the identity other people think we have, judging by our appearance, is very artificial and fake. This is because it is only created by the products we use, not by us ourselves. But then again, we choose which products to buy and it is us who decides how to look for other people so whatever we wear or look like, it is a bit personalized by our taste and other choices we make. Campbell brings up an interesting point in his book. He says that consumer culture develops our identity because since there is now such an enormous choice of products, it gives consumers opportunity to define their taste. They are able to decide what they like and what not. Also, since shopping malls are so anonymous, customers can try on anything they like, just to see how that â€Å"role† would fit them. This also helps them to find the image of themselves which they want to portray to other people. (Campbell, pg 159) However others believe that consumer culture is far less important than other factors in the development of one’s identity. Jodi Davis divides identity into external and internal. External is â€Å"cultural classifications (nationality, race, religion and gender) as well as societal characterizations (family, career, and position or title)†. Whereas internal is â€Å"natural gifts, strengths, capabilities; the intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual characteristics that comprise our uniqueness and innate talents and abilities; our basic orientation toward the world around us, our learning styles, how we process and organize information, and other predisposed tendencies and characteristicsâ€Å". Davis, pg 7) As we can see, there are a lot of things which define a person’s identity. And we were to look at them individually; we would notice that we were actually already born with most of the crucial aspects of our identity and therefore are not able to change them. Our appearance is one of the very few aspects of our identity, which one can alternate. Therefore if a person is not happy with his overall identity, one of the few ways in which he can change it is through consumerism. In fact consumerism and advertising often aim to make the customer feel like this. As the ads intimidated that anything natural about the customer was worthless or deplorable, and tried to make him schizophrenically self conscious of that notion, they offered weapons by which people could eclipse themselves†. (Ewen, pg 48) If a person dresses a certain way and uses certain products, he may be able to convince some people that he fits the standards set by media. As mentioned before, this is thanks to the fact that every product we buy tells people something about us. The image the product portrays might not be true, but just the fact that a person uses that product makes people believe it. Even though the second part of this essay attempts to support the idea that there are other factors affecting contemporary identities more than consumer culture, we should not forget its importance. The fact that consumer culture helps us to change the only changeable part of our identity makes it, in my opinion, even more crucial. Consumer culture is actually very significant when it comes to understanding contemporary identities. It is its products, which create the image we try to portray to other people and that way fit into society.

The hatchet essays

The hatchet essays This book is about a young teenage boy named Brian Robeson. He was on a plan by himself with a pilot, but he didnt know his name is was Jake or Jim. He was on the plane going north to visit his dad because his mom and dad got a divorce and during the winter he would live with his dad and summer with his mom but this summer he was going to see his dad. But then he looked at the pilot and he didnt look so well he was rubbing his chest and then suddenly the pilot fell and was having a heart attack and was dieing and being a thirteen year old boy he got scared and then he tried to solve the problem and tried to radio for some help but was not sure how to work the radio and then he started to talk to some one but he didnt remember how to fly the plan or anything so he was in trouble and then the next thing he knows the plan crashes and it hits some kind of lake or ocean. The boy got out of the plan and went for land and there is were he decided to stay and wait for help to get there but he was not sure if they would come, because they might not know where he is, also how long would it take for them to go and find him and to save him. He knows that his dad will come for him or some thing so he stayed there. He built a shelter and made a fire and made a good boy that he might find a rabbit or something and he did find many rabbits and some other big animals but his little boy could not take one of them on they would kill him. So then as it got colder he made a better shelter and made a little pond out side of his little shelter and in side of this new shelter he built a fire that kept him very warm. He did have many problems, he had his little shelter attacked by a big bear and the bear took all of the food and damaged his shelter very bad and it also hurt Brian badly too. He didnt know what to do so he just lay there and he lived. After this he needed to find a way to get some kind of defense and he had to do it fas...

The 1932 March of the Veterans Bonus Army

The 1932 March of the Veterans Bonus Army The Bonus Army was the name applied a group over 17,000 U.S. World War I veterans who marched on Washington, D.C. during the summer of 1932 demanding immediate cash payment of the service bonuses promised to them by Congress eight years earlier. Dubbed the â€Å"Bonus Army† and â€Å"Bonus Marchers† by the press, the group officially called itself the â€Å"Bonus Expeditionary Force† to mimic the name of World War Is American Expeditionary Forces. Fast Facts: March of the Veterans Bonus Army Short Description: 17,000 World War I veterans occupy Washington, D.C., and march on the U.S. Capitol to demand payment of promised military service bonuses.Key Participants:- President of the United States Herbert Hoover- U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur- U.S. Army Major George S. Patton- U.S. Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley- District of Columbia Police Department- At least 17,000 U.S, WWI veterans and 45,000 supporting protestersLocation: In and around Washington, D.C., and the United States Capitol groundsStart Date: May 1932End Date: July 29, 1932Other Significant Dates:- June 17, 1932: U.S. Senate defeated a bill that would have advanced the date of payment of bonuses to the veterans. Two veterans and two D.C. police officers die in the ensuing protest.- July 29, 1932:   On the order of President Hoover, through Sec. of War Hurley, U.S. Army troops commanded by Maj. George S. Patton attack the veterans forcing them from their encampments and effectively ending the crisis . A total of 55 veterans were injured and another 135 were arrested.Fallout:- President Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election.- Roosevelt immediately reserved jobs for 25,000 WWI veterans in his New Deal program.- In January 1936, WWI veterans were paid over $2 billion in promised combat bonuses. Why the Bonus Army Marched Most of the veterans who marched on the Capitol in 1932 had been out of work since the Great Depression began in 1929. They needed money, and the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had promised to give them some, but not until 1945 a full 27 years after the end of the war they had fought in. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act, passed by Congress as sort of a 20-year insurance policy, awarded all qualified veterans a redeemable â€Å"Adjusted Service Certificate† worth an amount equal to 125% of his wartime service credit. Each veteran was to be paid $1.25 for each day they had served overseas and $1.00 for each day they served in the United States during the war. The catch was that the veterans were not allowed to redeem the certificates until their individual birthdays in 1945. On May 15, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge had, in fact, vetoed the bill providing for the bonuses stating, â€Å"Patriotism, bought and paid for, is not patriotism.† Congress, however, overrode his veto a few days later. While the veterans might have been happy to wait for their bonuses when the Adjusted Compensation Act passed in 1924, the Great Depression came along five years later and by 1932 they had immediate needs for the money, like feeding themselves and their families. The Bonus Army Veterans Occupy D.C. The Bonus March actually began in May 1932 as some 15,000 veterans assembled in makeshift camps scattered around Washington, D.C. where they planned to demand and wait for the immediate payment of their bonuses.   The first and largest of the veterans’ camps, dubbed â€Å"Hooverville,† in as a backhanded tribute to President Herbert Hoover, was located on Anacostia Flats, a swampy bog directly across the Anacostia River from the Capitol Building and the White House. Hooverville housed about 10,000 veterans and their families in ramshackle shelters built from old lumber, packing boxes, and scrapped tin  from a nearby junk pile. Including the veterans, their families, and other supporters, the crowd of protesters eventually grew to nearly 45,000 people. Veterans, along with the assistance of the D.C. Police, maintained order in the camps, built military-style sanitation facilities, and held orderly daily protest parades. The D.C. Police Attack the Veterans On June 15, 1932, the US House of Representatives passed the Wright Patman Bonus Bill to move up the payment date of the veterans’ bonuses. However, the Senate defeated the bill on June 17. In protest to the Senate’s action, the Bonus Army veterans marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building. The D.C. police reacted violently, resulting in the deaths of two veterans and two police officers. The U.S. Army Attacks the Veterans On the morning of July 28, 1932, President Hoover, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the military, ordered his Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley to clear the Bonus Army camps and disperse the protesters. At 4:45 p.m., U.S. Army infantry and cavalry regiments under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, supported by six M1917 light tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, assembled on Pennsylvania Avenue to carry out President Hoover’s orders.   With sabers, fixed bayonets, tear gas, and a mounted machine gun, the infantry and the cavalry charged the veterans, forcibly evicting them and their families from the smaller camps on the Capitol Building side of the Anacostia River. When the veterans retreated back across the river to the Hooverville camp, President Hoover ordered the troops to stand down until the next day. MacArthur, however, claiming the Bonus Marchers were attempting to overthrow the U.S. government, ignored Hoover’s order and immediately launched a second charge. By the end of the day, 55 veterans had been injured and 135 arrested. The Aftermath of the Bonus Army Protest In the 1932 presidential election, Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Hoover by a landslide vote. While Hoover’s militaristic treatment of the Bonus Army veterans may have contributed to his defeat, Roosevelt had also opposed the veterans’ demands during the 1932 campaign. However, when the veterans held a similar protest in May 1933, he provided them with meals and a secure campsite. To address the veterans’ need for jobs, Roosevelt issued an executive order allowing 25,000 veterans to work in the New Deal program’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) without meeting the CCC’s age and marital status requirements. On January 22, 1936, both houses of Congress passed the Adjusted Compensation Payment Act in 1936, appropriating $2 billion for the immediate payment of all World War I veterans’ bonuses. On January 27, President Roosevelt vetoed the bill, but Congress immediately voted to override the veto. Almost four years after they had been driven from Washington by Gen. MacArthur, the Bonus Army veterans finally prevailed. Ultimately, the events of the Bonus Army veterans’ march on Washington contributed to the enactment in 1944 of the GI Bill, which has since assisted thousands of veterans make the often difficult transition to civilian life and in some small way pay back the debt owed to those who risk their lives for their country.

Do you give yourself a break

Do you give yourself a break Pressure! When you are job seeking, or running a business, or possibly both, you might put a lot of pressure on yourself to keep working; take the next action step; schedule your life better; stop procrastinating; or some combination of all these things. Achieving results does require action, and there are 24 hours in a day last I checked, so it is valuable to get things done reliably and frequently. But continuously? No matter how much we might like to think we can keep going and keep doing, sometimes we just need a break. The Release Valve Where I often go for down time is Viroqua, Wisconsin, a town in the country about 100 miles from my home in the city of Madison. A little artistic oasis surrounded by farm country, Viroqua boasts a food coop and holistic healing center. I go there because, for just a couple of days, I achieve a sense of timelessness. One activity guaranteed to produce that timeless space is picking berries. I get up early and walk to the raspberry patch and there is nothing but me and the colors of ripe and ripening fruit. One berry at a time, one prickle at a time, I zone out until my collection container is full. While picking, I don’t know whether minutes or hours go by. I am present. I am happy. Achieving Timelessness It’s not always berries that get me to that state. This trip I reached a similar state by spending time with a three-year-old. But picking fruits and veggies reliably transports me into timelessness. Sometimes I engage with the aliveness of apples, snap peas, or clover flowers. I am fortunate to know several families in the area, all of whom grow edibles and have wild berries on their land. I also have a small garden myself, complete with one lone blueberry bush, several fully grown broccoli heads and a burgeoning zucchini plant- but it’s not quite the same as a garden in the country. This latest trip to Viroqua was the start of my â€Å"birthday week† and it was as perfect as it gets. Topping it off, as mentioned above, was the opportunity to read stories to my friends’ 3-year-old girl (she will be reading to me pretty soon!). I also relaxed and unwound with a few sessions of bodywork from some amazing healers, David and Susan Breitbach (see www.wiseworldseminars.com to learn more). And the work gets done The miraculous thing about these trips is that although I spend what seems like hours picking berries and snap peas, and hours driving, and more hours with body workers David and Susan, I always get my work done. It just doesn’t feel stressful to do it. Then I return home, fortified to take more action steps and get results that bring in more monetary income than a bowl full of berries. Do you take care of yourself? Do you give yourself a break (at least once/year on your birthday)? What gives you that prized sense of timelessness that fuels you for your action items to come? And if you don’t give yourself this gift, what are you waiting for?

Set of rules to run a superlative business Essay

Set of rules to run a superlative business - Essay Example One may be the exchange of currency that is foreign exchange system, which allows the raise in amount by buying a low rate currency, and selling at time it raises its value. Bonds may also help to get spare amount as they works as lottery tickets that never go waste if not won. But paramount to earn equity in market is investing amount by buying shares of other emergent companies and selling them at the profit. There are now a day many sock reporting tools that helps the businessman to know about the stock history, and other fundamental data at the end of the day. By technical and fundamental analysis they helps to pick the stocks. Moreover, many different online sites are available for the same purpose. They help business people by showing the reports after analyzing different companies in form of equity research. The mortgage is the amount an investor earns as a profit on the property bought. That is, for instance, businesspersons bought a property in a non- establish location which in few years gets establish in a manner that property bought about 1 hundred dollars can be sold at price 100times more. Though this is the profit earned Property dealers are operating through hundreds of subsidiaries in the business market. These equity offices later converted into real estate management. Now these real estate offices have grown in size through strategic acquisitions. It is found by the equity office properties trust company profile in U.S. that Equity Office Properties own 125 office buildings in about 15 metropolitan areas as target markets. As same to Stocks, Mortgage may also measured by some different tools, may be come calculators that allow calculating the actual equity. It may also helps to propose a new investment by calculating the surplus in equity. These calculators only estimate the equity as actual equities depends on the market fluctuations on the property. Some known equity property offices does not only deal with the land but also build some extraordinary buildings and sell or rent them. They utilize property with developments not internationally but works for locals as well. These developments gives best to their customer and allow collecting funds directly and taking advantage of the marketplace widely. These developments by equity property offices ensure the ability and trust for the development. They attract the already customers for a reliable future and growth opportunities yet brings more new customers with different innovative deals. Reasons for Equity Creation Equity is the alternative for financing offered only to engineering and construction companies. This expanded the engineering and construction business with an economic escalation by equity investors giving a financial success to the companies. The Companies invest for three to seven years to earn profit via institutions, businesses and other wealth individuals. These equities are good for the business who are not ready to close their business but their business may get shut down later if no investors for owing equity are there. Following are few reasons, which clearly shows why the equity is a prominent alternative for financing. Extensive Investment Necessity of lives makes people earn more. When people don't get the enough money to fulfill their requirements they invest their money in the businesses. Equity companies invest more than

Advertising media selection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Advertising media selection - Essay Example Advertising will provide the Starbucks the opportunity to maintain a competitive advantage in coffee market,as well as maintain the brand value.Successful advertising is based on media plan,goals of the advertising,the target audience and the budget and time span. The facts preceding the need for the media plan and advertising include the concern for growing coffee retailers thus increased competition, and due to the recent concentration on expansion, the management is concerned about potential brand devaluing. Therefore, the media plan offers potential solutions to these two key issues, by providing a way to maintain critical market position, and brand value.The chosen media to use in placing the advertising include television, radio, newspaper, direct mail, and outdoor billboards. Television, radio, newspaper, and billboards will offer the opportunity to reach a wide and anonymous audience, which will especially be achieved by using the major daily newspaper, The Seattle Times, the n one major radio stations KUOW-FM 94.9, and one major television stations. The direct mail will provide niche media focusing on a particular target audience, which is persons aged 25-50 years from middle/upper middle class. The heartbeat of any media campaign is the media outlet, because even if the message is well constructed and meaningful, without a delivery system that can attain the required impact the campaign becomes a waste of company money and time (Kelley and Jugenheimer 3). Considering this, the chosen media outlets have the required impact in reaching to a large audience. ... Advertising Goals This encompasses the need for the message noting that the chosen message should "attract, inform, entertain, promote, convince, and sell the product" to the audience, hence should be attractive and interesting (Kelley and Jugenheimer 5). Setting the advertising goals provides the marketing team the opportunity to ensure the message will meet all its requirements. The advertising focuses on capturing a market segment for the Starbucks coffee products aged 25-50 years from middle/upper middle class families. The reasons for targeting this market segment are their potential to spend on branded coffee on an affordable market compared to up-scale branded market coffee. Further, advertising will enable the coffee house retain the brand value and create customer confidence by showing despite the extensive expansion, the kiosk is still able to provide quality coffee products as the tradition. In addition, advertising will capture the concern of increasing retailers in coffee, which is significantly eroding the customer base, making it important to have a market niche, and build towards maintaining it. Target audience The advertising will target the general populace, but offer a special emphasis on persons aged 25-50 from middle/upper middle class, who may not target the upper-scale retail shops but are willing to have brand coffee, such as provided by the Starbucks. The selling line will focus on showing this group that although coffee in upper market may be expensive; they can have the same excellent quality at a cheaper price that they can afford. The target audience will consider working people thus target them in the morning and evening. Marketing Strategy The advertising will start with a

Mobilising Creativity and Innovation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Mobilising Creativity and Innovation - Essay Example 1996). In my previous work experience, I was a support worker in customer service, handling customer orders and fielding customer complaints. My domain-relevant skills were proficiency in utilising the electronic computer systems at the firm and excellence at understanding the procurement process along the value chain. In the creative process, I was able to draw on these talents and knowledge bases to come up with innovative service solutions. In this organisation, the service team was not provided with a well-developed training model illustrating best practices for handling customer support issues. Hence, the management team relied on our own creative ideas to ensure that customer’s perceived a rapid response, quality of service, and ability to fulfil their service needs. When first working within the organisation, I was substantially motivated through intrinsic factors, with a genuine enjoyment for the work and the challenge of dealing with diverse and sometimes difficult customer segments. However, over time, with a track record of providing creative solutions to customers, my motivation for creative output began to deteriorate and I was unable to come up with imaginative solutions in difficult service situations. The problem was that I was receiving no external accolades for superior performance and a track record of customer satisfaction. Careful self-reflection indicated a substantial problem: I was heavily reliant on extrinsic motivators to remain motivated toward the creative task in the long-term. The organisation maintained a social norm where it was commonplace for managers to criticise new ideas and there were ample political problems throughout the organisational model, which was identified by Woodman, Sawyer and Griffin (1993) as being barriers to the creative process. However, having been initially motivated intrinsically, I should have been able to overcome these social and organizational-environmental problems