Consumer Culture: From Modern to Postmodern

Author: Yang Kui
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: This book adopts a unique interdisciplinary perspective to focus on the issue of consumer culture. The author conducts research on the origins and different developmental stages of consumer culture, analyzing its characteristics and its social and ideological foundations. At the same time, it also elaborates on the history, current status, and future of Chinese consumer culture. The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 consists of two chapters, which theoretically define consumer culture and modern and postmodern concepts, laying the basic research framework for the book through theoretical analysis.
Part 2: Consumer Culture in the Pre-modern Period focuses on analyzing the overall characteristics of pre-modern consumer culture from the perspective of economic and social development in the pre-modern era. It proposes that the limitations of industrial development in the pre-modern period led to countries influenced by the Protestant ethic forming a consumer culture characterized by thrift, simplicity, and corresponding consumer goods and practices.
Part 3: Modern Consumerist Culture is divided into three chapters, analyzing the economic and social conditions that gave rise to consumerist culture, the influence of media, and the overall characteristics of consumerist culture. It argues that consumerist culture, characterized by the pursuit of hedonism and absolute material possession, emerged with the decline of the Protestant ethic and the rise of Fordist production methods, with modern media playing a significant role in its formation. Consumerism is the main feature of modern consumer culture and the second stage of Western consumer culture.
Part 4: Postmodern Consumer Culture is a result of the development of postmodern theory and an important component of postmodernism. The entire part is divided into three chapters, exploring postmodern consumer culture from perspectives such as the origins of postmodern theory and postmodern consumer culture, the role of media in its formation, and the impact of globalization on postmodern consumer culture. It further analyzes the development trends of postmodern consumer culture.
Part 5: Chinese Consumer Culture is based on an analysis of the evolution and development of Western consumer culture. It conducts a historical exploration and current analysis of Chinese consumer culture, ultimately clarifying the development direction of Chinese consumer culture and the role that media should play in its development. It argues that in the context of economic globalization, Chinese consumer culture must both internationalize and maintain its unique characteristics. Only by starting from China's actual conditions can Chinese consumer culture achieve healthy development.