Lecture 1- Consumer Culture Flashcards
What is Consumer Culture Theory (CCT)?
The symbolic, ideological, and cultural meanings of consumption and how consumers co-create meaning within market systems.
What is the CCC course’s approach to consumption?
It treats consumption not as passive use of goods, but as culturally embedded, identity-driven, and socially constructed behavior.
Graeber’s Critique of Consumption
It’s a problematic and overly broad term that flattens rich human activities (like identity work, self-expression, play) into a narrow economic concept.
Why is “consumption” linked to destruction?
In capitalism, the ultimate sign of ownership is being able to destroy something. Consumption (like eating) becomes a metaphor for owning through destruction and internalization.
How is consumption typically framed in capitalist ideology?
As a passive, recreational activity done outside of productive work hours.
Why does Graeber want us to rethink the word “consumption”?
It masks the diversity of human behavior, limits critical thinking, and supports a capitalist framework of ownership and depletion.
We will study that consumption is link to:
- how humans reflect and construct’s identity
-Mediates social relationships - Reinforces or challenges power structure in society
Consumer vs. Prosumer
C: Passive recipient of goods or services
P: Active participant who consumes and produces
