Paper details:
Topic : “Today the value of brands is based on values, commitments and forms of community sustained by consumers. This way, brands are mechanisms that enable a direct valorisation of people’s ability to create trust, affect and shared meanings: their ability to create something in common” (Arvidsson, 2005, p. 235-6).
- Critically evaluate this statement with reference to relevant theory and specific examples of fashion consumption.
FASHION, TASTE AND CONSUMER CULTURE
The unit introduces you to the role and significance of consumption, and, more specifically, the consumption of fashion in contemporary society. It provides an overview of the main theories and concepts that have informed debates on consumer culture. Issues about consumer choice and manipulation will be discussed.
The unit also examines the concepts of taste, ethics, sustainability, and the connections between them by, for example, distinguishing between the specific practice of ‘ethical consumption’ as a means of tasteful distinction or as a medium for moral/political action.
The unit offers you the opportunity to reflect on your position as a consumer in contemporary culture, looking more specifically at the importance of the fashion system and fashion commodities in consumer society. Understanding of the historical and cultural advent of consumer culture will also help you build and further strengthen the critical and professional skills necessary to your engagement with the field of fashion and the logic of consumption that informs it.
ASSESSMENT AND PROJECT BRIEF
A 3,000 word essay presented in an academic format, excluding reference list. Answer one of the following questions:
“Today the value of brands is based on values, commitments and forms of community sustained by consumers. This way, brands are mechanisms that enable a direct valorisation of people’s ability to create trust, affect and shared meanings: their ability to create something in common” (Arvidsson, 2005, p. 235-6).
Critically evaluate this statement with reference to relevant theory and specific examples of fashion consumption. Make it clear which essay question you are answering by providing the essay question at the beginning of your assignment
MARKING CRITERIA FOR ASSESSMENT
- a critical awareness of debates concerning fashion and consumption (subject knowledge);
- an evaluative engagement with, and understanding of, relevant academic literature (research);
- critical and analytical skills (analysis);
- research and writing skills, including the ability to construct an argument and
apply theoretical models as analytical tools and the ability to write an essay in an appropriate academic form (communication and presentation).
READING
Week 1 - Consumerism versus consumption: historical and contemporary issues
► Bauman, Z. (2007) Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity.
► Ritzer, G. and Jurgenson, N. (2010) ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 10(1), pp.13-35.
Week 2 – Consumption as manipulation: the emergence of consumer culture
► Featherstone, M. (2007) ‘Theories of Consumer Culture’ in Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. 2nd ed. London: Sage.
► Ritzer, G. and Jurgenson, N. (2010) ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 10(1), pp.13-35.
Week 3 – Consumption as communication: conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption
► Calefato, P. (2014) Luxury: Fashion, Lifestyle and Excess. London: Bloomsbury (read the Intro and Chapter One).
Week 4 – Consumption, taste and class struggle
► Bocock, R. (1992) 'Consumption and Lifestyles', in Bocock, R. and Thompson, K. (eds.) Social and Cultural Forms of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 120-149.
► Sassatelli, R. (2007) Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics. London: Sage, pp. 91-111.
Week 5 – Emotions and experiential consumption
► Edwards, T. (2000) ‘Rapture or Torture: The Contemporary Nature of Shopping’, in Contradictions of Consumption: Concepts, Practices and Politics in Consumer Society. Buckingham: OUP, pp. 106-127.
► Fiske, J. (2011) ‘Shopping for Pleasure’, in Reading the Popular. 2nd ed. London/NY: Routledge, pp. 10-33.
► Rafferty, K. (2011) ‘Class-based emotions and the allure of fashion consumption’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 11 (2), pp. 239-260.
Week 6 – Consumer culture and the media: advertising, branding and celebrity
► Arvidsson, A. (2006) Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture. London: Routledge (Introduction & Chapter 1).
► Arvidsson, A. (2005) ‘Brands: A critical perspective’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 5 (2), 235- 258.
► Church-Gibson, P. (2012) Fashion and Celebrity Culture. London/New York: Berg, pp. 1-50.
► Iqani, M. (2018) ‘Consumer Culture and the Media’ in The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture. London: Sage, pp. 275-289.
Week 7 - Globalisation/localisation of consumption
► Bruzzi, S. and Church-Gibson, P. (eds.) (2013) ‘Part One: Shopping, spaces and globalisation’ in Fashion Cultures Revisited: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. London/NY: Routledge.
Week 8 – Ethical consumption and sustainability
► Crewe, L. (2017) The Geographies of Fashion: Consumption, Space, and Value. London: Bloomsbury Academic (chapter 3 & 4).
Week 9 – The politics of consumption: community, citizenship and consumer agency
► Portwood-Stacer, L. (2012) ‘Anti-consumption as tactical resistance: Anarchists, subculture, and activist strategy’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 12 (1), pp. 87-105.
Week 10 – The politics of consumption: community, citizenship and consumer agency
► Miles, S. (2015). ‘Young People, Consumer Citizenship and Protest: The Problem with Romanticizing the Relationship to Social Change’ Young. 23(2), pp.101-115.