Mid-Term

Question 1

Weber’s Iron Cage

Answer 1

Idea that nobody knows scientific things they do on day to day activities; The world is disenchanted
–Modern people are more believers of magic than savage man
–materialization of rationality
trapped inside cubicles

Question 2

Day Dreaming

Answer 2

“Day dreaming make an irreversible difference in how people feel about the lives they lead.”
—-We daydream about something we think is perfect
—-Dissatisfaction once you get item
—-The fact you can’t get something you want more
its about how one feels driving the car or with that thing…..
“Sell them their Dreams, people don’t buy things to have things.” —New York Hat

Question 3

David Childester

Answer 3

religion: what does religion do, rather than
human person in a human place
give people a reason and how to be human
provides mediators and mediation

Question 4

Golden Selfridge

Answer 4

---built 12 story retail palace 
Expand department stores 
Started London Department Store 
---He wanted to see objects 
---You don't have to buy just look and see what you want 
-New Idea about space
-Visionary 
Wrote book-- The Romance of Commerce

Question 5

Marshal Parish

Answer 5

Created Commercial Advertisements
`Favorite with the American Public by 1925
Art Parrish Created —-King Cole- Art for hotel
“It is the unobtainable that appeals,”- Parish

Question 6

Developing Consumer Culture: Women

Answer 6

—-Shopping was domestic freedom
Selfridges
—-Safe Haven
Women can conjure and be free from their lives outside the house
—-Women Jobs
Middle Class women has respected jobs as Department Store workers
—–Freedom from self-denial and self-sacrifice

Question 7

David Childester

Answer 7

religion: what does religion do, rather than
human person in a human place
—give people a reason and how to be human
provides mediators and mediation

Question 8

Uncle Scrooge

Answer 8

——–Money bin–swim in the money— metaphor was about size and depth of wealth—This was because if you had a swimming pool you were rich
—–Hoarding gold and silver (wealth)
——- tied to ghosts because he is not investing
No investment in labor or anything else he is going to be doomed
——-Representation of protestant ideals
earned every cent of his own money

Question 9

Boredom

Answer 9

Being bored is taught
Babies are very bored unless they are constantly simulated
When one stops they become bored
Boredom is from consumerism
consumerism is what helps one not become bored

Question 10

Children commercials

Answer 10

Highly simulated
Makes world one is in more boring than the one they are watching on the tv
Becomes disconnect between reality and virtual world

Question 11

Zygmunt Bauman, “Consuming Life,” Journal of Consumer Culture

Answer 11

Consumer society more preoccupied with consumer goods, compromising meaningful work
Capitalism reproduced by changing wage relation
Labor bought by capital
Constantly recommodified
Society reject subjectivity that is not monetizable
All agents = commodities, consumer goods

Question 12

-Alexis de Toqueville, “Of Individualism in Democratic Countries,”

Answer 12

• —-“Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows and to draw apart with his family and his friends so that after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.
• —Among democratic nations new families are constantly springing up, others are constantly falling away, and all that remain change their condition; the woof of time is every instant broken and the track of generations effaced. Those who went before are soon forgotten; of those who will come after, no one has any idea: the interest of man is confined to those in close propinquity to himself. As each class gradually approaches others and mingles with them, its members become undifferentiated and lose their class identity for each other. Aristocracy had made a chain of all the members of the community, from the peasant to the king; democracy breaks that chain and severs every link of it.

Question 13

Karl Marx, selections, (“Estranged Labour”, The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret”)

Answer 13

–With private ownership in this economic system
Society divides into two classes: property owners,
property-less workers
4 alienations
1) estrangement of worker from product of his work
2) estrangement of worker from activity of production
3) worker’s alienation from “species-being”/human identity
4) estrangement of man to man (worker to capitalist)

—–The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret
Social relations within capitalism exists between commodities, not workers but products of their labor

Question 14

Max Weber, “The Spirit of Capitalism”

Answer 14

• –According to Weber, when capitalism does prosper, it does so because people have embraced and internalized certain values.
• These values, and not just human nature, make capitalism possible. Capitalism cannot then simply be a necessary step in the world’s development, because in order for it to emerge, particular values must be present. Weber thus leaves space for the importance of ideas and culture in the history of human development. Relies heavily on the writings of Ben Franklin.
• —Time = money

Question 15

Grant McCracken, “The Making of Modern Consumption,” Culture and Consumption

Answer 15

Evolution of consumer society; 16th century to present
—3 major milestones in development of consumption (social and cultural)
—-1) Consumer boom of 16th century England
Queen turns power of goods into political power; Fierce social competition; Spend money and acquisition of goods; Change social relations, culture
—2) 18th century, modern consumerism born; Social competition explodes; More frequent; Growth of markets, expanded choice of commodities
—3) 19th century, modern shape of consumers
—-Consumer experiences
—-Marketing techniques
—-Department store
—-Mass consumption

Question 16

Helen Sheumaker, “The Commodity of Self: Nineteenth-Century Human Hair Jewelry,” Commodifying Everything, ed Susan Strasser

Answer 16

Trinket made from human hair
—-Stylish from late 18th century to early 20th century
-Authenticity
—–Personal, sentimental commodity
Symbolized sincerity of wearer’s emotions
Contradictions of sentimentality and commodification
Makers of hair jewelry reconcile consumer demand
Producers, distributors challenged by caring for perishable merch

Question 17

Rydell and Kroes, “Harbinger of Mass Culture: World’s Fairs,”
—-Buffalo Bill in Bologna, Reader

Answer 17

World fairs play big role in expanding mass culture
American mass culture extends everywhere
Advanced network of culture industries that served promote American values

Question 18

Leach, Land of Desire, Introduction and chap. 1-2

Answer 18

about how mass CONSUMERISM and DEPARTMENT STORES came to be.
—–“In no other time in their history…had merchants more freedom to do what they pleased with the property or the property of others.”
—-his book encapsulates the concept of mass consumerism…..This book shows a step by step process for such buying by the public.
“acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness”

Begin marketing goods, make money;Create set of symbols, signs; Constant seeking, growing expression
—–Facades of Color, glass, and light
Use color, glass light to create, aggravate desire
Shop windows everywhere
Turn shopping into voyeurism

Question 19

Department stores:

Answer 19

Starting in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century department stores were a revolutionary new idea that allowed people to be immersed in consumer goods increasing desire and exposure for all types of goods.

Question 20

Commodity Fetish:

Answer 20

Proposed by Karl Marx Commodity Fetishism
—–social relationships involved in production as economic relationships among the money and commodities exchanged in market trade.

“Giving meaning to meaningless objects”

Question 21

Patent Medicines:

Answer 21

Selling magical transformations. Religious journals were the first to introduce patent medicines in order to sell objects that promote good physical and spiritual health. One of the first goods that were advertised to people. Ex: “wizard oil”

Question 22

Window Displays:

Answer 22

This creates the communication between objects and humans. Glass draws a person in, but does not let you touch it. It is the forbidden desire that makes us what it more.

Question 23

The Fetish:

Answer 23

Man-made objects with supernatural powers. Disenchantment of an animistic worldview in favor of the idea of western science. The fetish is suppose to be a s substitute for the divine. Ex: 1980s Joe Green & coke commercial “Have a coke and a smile”

Question 24

Abundance:

Answer 24

The overflowing availability of divine grace. Example would be department stores. The coat theory, A man had a nice coat and all of a sudden he needed all new furniture in his house to match his nice new coat.

Question 25

Marlboro man:

Answer 25

The Marlboro man was the face of Marlboro cigarettes after the company decided to change the target audience from women to men. This was a perfect example of branding and how it affects people’s drive to consume. Compare this to the soap advertisement where the brand creates a desire to buy.

Question 26

Peddlers:

Answer 26

sellers that would go from town to town selling patent medicines, etc.; always depicted as suspicious and as con artists, notoriously depicted as Jewish too

Question 27

Tradecards (Garvey):

Answer 27

the first form of advertising, dominant form of color in the household (were like paintings, first to use chromolithography); advertised desire, physical pleasure of things, and prepared for a culture of consumerism; taught people to expect satisfaction from consumption

Question 28

Angel in the House:

Answer 28

industrial work put pressure on women in the house; women were supposed to be the “angel at home” because work sucked; dominant ideology at this time from a male perspective, women’s purpose is man’s purpose (love); ironic because need to empower women to keep men’s businesses growing

Question 29

Kleptomania:

Answer 29

“shopaholism”; the medical word for shopaholic (women), believed that they must be “mentally ill” to steal that they should see a doctor; but only upper class women - because of their status they were always defended in court by lawyers and referred to a doctor, but poor women were jailed.

Question 30

Ads

Answer 30

: Advertising is a system of linking commodities to humanly meaningful experiences. Images… implied narrative, what is happening, words, colors, sound/cutting/movement, framing devices. Element… what the ad suggests, implies, seems to entail, leads the viewer to, argues.

Question 31

Branding:

Answer 31

It gives meaning to a meaningless object

Question 32

Title: Fables of Abundance

Author: Jackson Lears

Answer 32

Summary: Author Jackson Lears connects advertising and commerce to other aspects of culture and explains how they developed together. The book begins with a contrast of the Old World’s conception of abundance as a sign of Earth’s fecundity, often personified as female, with the modern age’s focus on efficiency, with managerial methods associated with men.
Early peddlers were seen as exotic and tempting. Exchange with them was perilous, both because of the fear of being cheated and because the glamour of the marketplace detracted from supposedly proper values. Advertising was highly personal, based on the individual peddler. As advertising began to reach broader markets, it could still use the appeal of the exotic because many products were being introduced into new markets. Advertisers found it difficult to shake the stigma of the untrustworthiness of peddlers, particularly because patent medicines used advertising heavily.
Female images in advertising became those of consumers rather than producers, and factories rather than the land were presented as the source of plenitude. Advertising in the early twentieth century began to focus on cleanliness and efficiency, mirroring concerns of society as a whole. Managerialism entered the home as women were expected to be managers and to solve household problems efficiently (through buying goods), and leisure became a way of building up energy and preserving efficiency in the workplace.
How it relates to other readings and the class: Lear’s book connects to the central theme of abundance and the development of consumer society. With the introduction of advertising

Question 33

Ladies Home Journal:

Answer 33

Specifically for rising middle class women. Targets specific audience while also providing jobs for women. Incorporates mass media and consumerism. Covers/articles display the ideal life a woman should strive for. Also includes paper doll section to breed young children to want more (i.e. not just want the dress in pink but also in blue).

Question 34

Title: The Admin in the Parlor
Author: Garvey

Answer 34

Summary: How did advertising come to seem natural and ordinary to magazine readers by the end of the nineteenth century? The Adman in the Parlor explores readers’ interactions with advertising during a period when not only consumption but advertising itself became established as a pleasure. Garvey argues that readers’ participation in advertising, rather than top-down dictation by advertisers, made advertizing a central part of American culture.
—Department Stores- creating new habits of looking.
–Intertwining of advertising and fiction → create stories that will draw attention and turn readers into consumers
–Trade Cards & Scrapbooking- Play with advertising materials offered the arrangers, probably mainly children and adolescent girls, and attractive new mode of self-expression, even as it trained them as future consumers and naturalized the developing discourse of advertising
Scrapbooking → suggested that the consumer had a closer relationship with a distant manufacturer than with the familiar grocer
Chromolithography - able to print in color cheaply

Question 35

Jackson Lears perfectionist project

Answer 35

The perfectionist project
Body = another item to maintain to codes determined by ideologies of the given time
All its components = perfectionist project