Criticism on Consumer Culture

Criticism on Consumer Culture

Question # 01

The conformity is the term used in the context of consumer culture for showing and analyzing the pattern of habits which normally complies the trends of the specific time period. More specifically conformity is the compliance of existing consumer culture. By definition consumer culture is the set of social arrangement in which set of specific consumption behavior is prevalent in all places and times. In consumer culture tendency towards matching, social emulation and imitation is expressed by the means of marketplace choices which are accompanied with the inclination of individuality, differentiation and distinction (Trentmann, 2004).

The era of 1950's and 1960's witnessed the peak of cold war and the clash between ideologies of capitalism and communism was evident in every aspect of life and same case was with consumer culture. The American culture or in broad term capitalistic culture was more prevalent and most of the people in eastern Germany used to use products that represented consumer culture of American origin. The American entertainment industry especially movies and music had significantly increased the scope of consumer culture and the use of American culture was very common in communists dominated states like East Germany (Poiger, 2000).

In 50's and 60's era the government was having firm control over the pricing of products and services that were offered in the market for consumption. The government was having all the rights to develop policies for the regulation of products and services. Every individual has different set beliefs, values, norms, rituals and other interlinked cultural aspects; therefore, each of them react in a different way to any specific product or service. The introduction of Disneyland was entirely based on the concept of consumerism in which the government played an active role in developing formal regulatory agencies for ensuring ...