M98MCWeek 2

Advertising and Consumer Culture

The 1980s and BeyondJohn Keenan

john.keenan@coventry.ac.uk

Last week – one thing you learned

Shun Li learned

Tissa Faith learned

I learnt advertising involves lots of signs

Brenda Bogonuo learnedadvertising is about making the consumer anxious and unhappy with their lifestyle

and it sells dreams

Dian Cao learned

Shiwan Chen learned

Ismail Elnour learned

the concept of different ways of seeing

Jian Du learned

Na Wang learned

Mary Ighorhiuni learned

Faizul Khan learned

persil from 1980s to 21st century what changes is human behaviour

Wei Li learned

Campaign Details

• In groups

Theory check-up

Read• Understains • Words in Ads • Freedom • Captains of Consciousness• Decoding Advertisements

Watch Century of the Self and Ways of Seeing

Today

• 19th Century• 1950s – birth of consumer culture• 1980s – consumer culture takes over• Lifestyles• Hedonism• Commodification• Postmodernism 1 – the break-up of the sign

Culture

3 definitions –Raymond WilliamsHigh, popular, a way of life

A structure of feeling Raymond Williams

Consumer Culture

Shiyan Lu 2014:

Growth of Consumer Culture

• Capitalism/Enlightenment 16th-17th Centuries• Massification – alienation 19th Century• The affluent worker 1950s

The 1980s

• The 1980s, Neoliberalism and the Commodification of Everything

• Postmodern Culture and Consumption – you know you’ve been Tango-ed

Key Terms

KeynesianNeoliberalismLifestylesHedonismCommodificationPostmodernism – the break-up of the sign

The Jerk

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are freeJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

Captains of Consciousness

mindcasting

pp. Posting a series of messages that reflect one's current thoughts, ideas, passions, observations, readings, and other intellectual interests.

.

* http://www.wordspy.com/words/mindcasting.asp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/09/facebook-users-union-demands-payment?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.facebook.com/advertising/

Be Like No Other

Pseudo-individuality Adorno

Who is our captain?Who is your captain?

I consume, therefore I am

Me

What else do I consume?

TV charactersplaces

filmseducation

books

Food (object/meaning)

other cultures

musicians

“False needs”

• Raymond Williams• Advertising: The

Magic System (1962)• Because of

advertising we live in fantasy

We are what and how we produce and consume

CultureThe Nineteenth Century

UrbanisationMigrationUprooted mass

Richard Hoggart

“an all-pervading culture”

Read: The Uses of Literature

Shared working-class life in the 1930s

Superstition - touch wood, black cats

Attitude - family, neighbour

Fixed gender roles

wife - corner shop, clothes line,

husband - work, pub

Language - mam, our Alice

Food - chops, chips

You’ve never had it so good (Harold MacMillan, UK prime-

minister)

Goldthorpe et al, 1968-9The Affluent Worker

Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive

John Berger 3.39

Watch: John Berger Ways of Seeing

Sigmund Freud

Edward Bernays

‘constantly moving happiness machines’Herbert Hoover29/4/2002 The Century of the Self

Century of the Self8.33

1970s - Keynesian• financial and oil crises bring social unrest

1980s• Rise of new economic and political doctrines– Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan

1990s• Demise of contrasting ideologies– Fall of the Berlin Wall– Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Neoliberalism

The 1980s

Key ideas•Culture•Thatcherism (UK) Reagan (US)•Lifestyles•Hedonism•Display•Individualism•extravagance

Music

Fashion

Leisure

Dance

Films

TV

Hair

Greed is Good

Lifestyles

Gold BlendYuppie

Lifestyles in Advertising

Read: David Gauntlett

Hedonism

‘modern hedonism is characterized by a longing to experience in reality those pleasures created or enjoyed in the imagination, a longing which results in the ceaseless consumption of novelty’ Lury, 1997: 73

Read: Lead us into temptation

‘People now work...not just to stay alive, but in order to be able to afford to buy consumer products. The goods which are advertised serve as goals and rewards for working... consumption has taken off into an almost ethereal, or hyper-real, symbolic level so that it is the idea of purchasing as much as the act of purchasing which operates as a motivation for many in doing paid work’

Bocock, 1995: 50

Work

Why else would you work?

DEBATE: WHAT ALTERNATIVES ARE THERE TO HEDONISM?

2. The postmodern condition

What do you know?

‘the game of sign consumption is an integral part of the ‘society of the spectacle’ Lury, 1997: 69

Postmodernism 1 – sign not goods consumption

Baudrillard

‘all needs are socially created’ Lury, 1997: 68

‘the logic of production is no longer paramount; instead the logic of signification is all-important’ Lury, 1997: 69

‘The audience is increasingly made up of a media-literate generation, its members, rather than seeking the truth, in turn self-consciously mimic the media – they adopt the persona of fictional characters as a way of expressing themselves, they discuss their personal lives as analogies with the story-lines of soap-operas, and talk in catch-phrases of celebrities and the slogans of advertising campaigns. They know when they’ve been Tango-ed’ Lury, 1997: 70

Postmodern Consumption 2 - knowing

‘it makes no sense to criticize people for being insufficiently materialistic; instead, we should submit to the magic of advertising as a playful code’ Lury, 1997: 71

‘Objects are no longer related to in terms of their practical utility, but instead have become empty signifiers of an increasing number of constantly changing meanings. There is an overproduction of signs and a loss of referents’ Lury, 1997: 71

Postmodern Consumption 3 – fluid signified

‘Rather than people using objects to express differences between themselves... people have become merely the vehicles for expressing the differences between objects’ Lury, 1997: 71

Postmodern Consumption 4 – the consumed individual

‘the final triumph of capitalism...meaning is a sham...reality flickers like a television screen’ Lury, 1997: 71

Postmodern Consumption 5 - hyperreality