Essay About Notion Of The Consumer Society And New Role Of Consumption Activities

Coca-Cola the official Drink
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suburb, had made Coca-Cola the official drink of the community. For $600,000 per year
the company will exclude Pepsi and other soft drinks from official buildings and put up
drink dispensers and advertisements all over the city. The city council initiated the deal,
saying it was an alternative to higher taxes.99
Many people use the notion of the consumer society in order to describe the current
type of social organization in the developed world. This is not only because we live in a
world full of things, which we obviously do. Almost 24 hours a day we are surrounded
by consumer objects, and lots of leisurely activities we engage in can also be characterized
as consumption. But the most decisive step in the construction of consumer society
is the new role of consumption activities. In most of the modern time period, it has been
peoples role in a production context that has been decisive for our social identity. The
impact of our self-consciousness as workers, farmers, professors, artisans, etc. cannot be
underestimated. But in recent decades we have seen a trend towards an increasing role
for consumption patterns and style in peoples identity formation. With the increase in
consumption possibilities and the multiplication of styles and fashions, consumption has
to some extent been cut off from its old connections to those production-defined roles.
The plethora of goods and their varieties in range and styles has to a still higher degree
made consumption choices statements about our personality, our values, aspirations,
sympathies and antipathies, and our way of handling social relations.
Modern consumer culture is thus characterized by consumption-based identities, but
other related features of a consumer society include many of the other topics discussed
in this book: more and more aspects of human interaction available through the market,
shopping as leisure activity combined with the variety of shopping possibilities including
the new temples of consumption, the shopping centres, easier access to credit, the
growing attention to brand images