A Study On Consumer Culture

The west society has already transformed from the society which is led by producing to the society which gives priority to consuming, and the essential characteristic of the consumer society is the forming of the commercial symbolic system. The reserch about the"comsumer culture"is to emphasize that the symbolisation commodity world and its structural principle means a key position to the modern society. To the cultural dimension of economy, symbolisation cross and the use of material products reflects not only the real value,but also a role which plays the"communicator"; in the economic aspect of the cultural product, the cultural product and goods affect the life style with the maket principle such as commodity supply,needs, capital accumulation, competition and monopoly.The whole text includes four chapters, analyzes and talks about consumer culture from the consuming society , consuming target ,consuming experience and consuming ideology these four aspects, and gives prominence to such a point of view: consumption is a active mode to establish relation, consumption has become a complete lifestyle; so consumer culture is also the target of ideology analyzing, in the distribution of image , body , knowledge , power and so on, it is acknowledged as the market mechanism agency and the establishing of human status.The first chapter is the emerging, reason and the characteristic analyzing of"consuming society". Seeing from the power of the capitalism origination and the corresponding morality system, the protestant ethic and hedonism affect the producing culture and the consumer culture which is needed to the capitalism's development respectively, and the latter one become the leading role of the modern society increasingly, it reflects that the chance for human to control and master the consumption will increase sharply. The traditional production is over, and the consumption becomes a new productive activity, the meaningful consumption is a kind of systematized symbolic operation. The mass media affect the cultural form of this leading role, as the leader of the goods selling, the mass media make the consuming attractiveness direct or indirect, the direct one is fostering the masses to the consumer by the"information ways"such as advertisement, and the indirect one is expressing a kind of fine life ways through the entertainment stars these"consuming models".In this meaning, the consumer are not only a part of the commodity market, but also a part of"emotion market". Consumerism except that everyone is the curious consumer and at the same time they are also the target of the desire. The popular culture makes the commodity consuming course human。The second chapter talks about the"consuming target", the material existence and the immaterial meaning. Immaterial consumption is the basic character of consumer culture, it includes the goods meaning, commodity aura and the symbolic value. All the society become meaningful because of the using of the goods, the"organic relevance"between human and the commodity is also the essential factor of the consuming society's analyzing, the definition of commodity's fetishism means an important enlightenment to understanding the consumer culture, it can explain the most important aspect of the relationship between the consumer and the commodity, and how do the businessmen make the desire target. The relationship of the commodity's worship and love is composed of the spectacles, the symbol and the meaning. In the consuming action, to establish status by the visual representational and the image dealing is an important stimulus factor. As the consuming target's commodity, it is composed of the use value and the exchange value, and the more important one is that"symbolic value"plays an increasingly important role between the commodity and the consumption. And then, consuming target can not be understood from the definition of the detailed needs, it should only be interpreted from the fluctuant symbolic system, this fluctuant symbolic system has an eternal energy to inspire human's desire. So consumption become the reason of our existence, it is a kind of complete practice of idealism.The third chapter researches about"consuming experience". On the one hand, consumption culture is the token of modernity, by connect with the space with strollers, the space with shopping practice, the modernity of consumer culture is represented in street scene, commerce space, the vision explore and the shopping illusion of the consume subject. Consume space in itself is merchandise world with its logic, by recept dimensional meaning production and the power of capital accumulate for space recombine, we could comprehend the scene of the consume principal part gets touch with merchandise, and also the character of consume itself. Consume experience is not only a series of shopping occasion, but also one kind of psychosis. On the other hand, from the practice of the aesthete forepart to the aestheticization of everyday life and image consume nowadays, we could realize the postmodernity of consume culture . on the understanding that post-modernity put up some kind of vanward consciousness at the antagonizing to modernity forepart, that this kind of vanward consciousness becomes weaker and weaker in post-industrial society and consumer society, and ultimately integrates consume culture and commodity esthetics. In this kind of society, the borderline of art and living is broken through, and the difference between practicality and image is also disappeared. Natural life shows itself in an aesthetic mode. That means simulational simulacrum culture or postmodern culture presents itself, consuming experience is not astoundment, corrupt,or anxiety, instead, it is one kind of hallucination, large charge, and a kind of self-hallucination. The multiformity of merchandise'modality and the rheologist of merchandise'image are all decide that the self-identity of consume principal part and society role is instantaneous, multilayer, ultra-real.The forth chapter researches about"consuming ideology". The transformation from produce culture to consume culture, that means that the idiographic content and the representation of ideology production are all changed radically. The consume society is the discipline society, the ideology of consume is the representation system of power relation. On the relations of power , the ideology of consume gives up that kind of power, which is superincumbent repressive, manipulative, and regnant. Power comes into being in the relations of different kinds of things at any moment, it becomes into the necessary for the consumers, at the same time it becomes a kind of power which consist in the consumer consciousness universally; this power is not passive, it is not a negativity power that suppresses us, instead it is creative and pleased, it makes consumers agree allodially and cooperate the communication mechanism of consume knowledge and words. At representation systerm , there is a logical mode of consumer ideology, the image of consumer culture is based on a predictability of self-fulfillment. image has been a practical instrument to individual consumer, for the merchandise self and the symbol self it has figured is a sort of ambulatory self in it self, that means, by making oneself to be exhibited as one kind of symbol of aesthetic merchandise, consumers could achieve making thereselves feel more happiness and less sadness in not only physiological but also psychological, at the same time, they organize, explain and systematize this experience, then grow up the enjoyment and self-pride that accord with self characteristic. This is the cahoot between consume subject and social system, this is not the crisis of civilization, but the societal collective movement which is more agile, more multilayer, more individual, and also be in the fashion. Advertising language unites vision image with symbol skillfully, offer a sort of experience to audiences to share and a consulting systerm to dialogize and to intercommunion. A great deal of existent vision image dominate the customers to understand the bodies in consumer culture, the inherent logic of consumer culture rest with cultivating ungratified requirement for image consume, this makes individual more sensitive with appearance and body setting out. In consumer society, the adoration to female body have gained peerless condition, culture industry, consumerism and media transmit make female enter into a new phase—commercialization and democratization phase.