Consumer Culture and Postmodernism

Author: Mike Featherstone
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2000-05-01
Features: In many chapters of this book, I also reveal my concern about a series of confusing issues arising from the rise of postmodernism. In these chapters, I not only attempt to study postmodernism as a cultural movement initiated by artists, intellectuals, or other cultural experts but also explore how strict postmodernism is connected to the broader cultural changes that can be termed postmodern daily life experiences and practices. The book begins with consumer culture, comprehensively discussing the characteristics of postmodern society and the impact of consumer culture on it, while also examining the ideas of theorists such as Bourdieu, Baudrillard, Lyotard, and Jameson. The author points out that consumer culture is the driving force of postmodern society, and the postmodern consumption characterized by symbols and images leads to the dissolution of distinctions between art and life, academia and popular culture, culture and politics, and the sacred and the secular. It also gives rise to cultural capitalists such as symbol producers and cultural intermediaries. The dissolution created by consumption not only forms postmodern society into a homogeneous and uniform whole but also legitimizes the pursuit of lifestyle uniqueness, even rebellion and subversion.