Consumer Culture and Postmodernism (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)

By Mike Featherstone

Book Overview

If a society is postmodern, it must prioritize the consumption of resources in everyday life. In this view, mass media advertising and market dynamics lead us to a constant search for new fashions, new styles, new sensations, and new experiences. In this volume, Featherstone examines the idea of a postmodern society. He explores the roots of consumer culture, how it is defined and differentiated and the extent to which it represents the arrival of a "postmodern" world. He examines the theories of consumption and postmodernism among contemporary social theorists and relates these to the actual nature of contemporary consumer culture. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism will interest academics and professionals in the areas of sociology, social theory, cultural studies, economics and anthropology. "Several of Mike Featherstone′s chapters address topics that are immediately recognizable to marketing researchers. . . . In exploring these issues the author reveals a strong grounding in sociological theory and research, leading to some penetrating interpretive insights about contemporary consumer life. Uncovering the sociocultural significance of these particular consumption developments is Featherstone′s chief concern. . . . He does an admirable job." --Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science "Featherstone neatly integrates recent ideas, models and writings concerning consumer capitalism, postindustrialism and postmodernity. . . . The author has taken great pains to develop (his) ideas clearly and to make the esoteric accessible to the literate." --Cooperative Economics News Service ". . . Featherstone′s book] can be recommended. . . . A worthwhile effort to open up a relatively undeveloped field." --Peter R. Grahame, Bentley College in Massachusetts ". . . precisely the sort of text which is necessary to read to escape from our productivist preconceptions. . . . The text must be recommended wholeheartedly to all those in industrial relations who wish to have their noninstitutional lives illuminated for them." --British Journal of Industrial Relations "Of great value to social scientists seeking a guide to the growing literature on the intersection of these two processes, which can no longer be considered peripheral concerns of contemporary sociology." --Humanity and Society

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803984154
• ISBN13: 9780803984158
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Revised edition is helpful

For the last edition, Prof. Featherstone added a new preface and a new last chapter. These new additions are quite strong and make the book updated for current debates. One will not find fancy theoretical concepts to focus on but the author emphatically points out a sociological understanding of postmodernism. In that sense, it works. The reader is urged to think about the sociological validity of postmodern theories. Since most of the chapters were written at least 15 years ago, the literature seems to be old but the discussion is still up to date and as i said in the beginning the author informs us about the recent literature on the field in his additions for the last edition...

Just because you're not an academic doesn't mean your dumb!

Well written. Written by an academic but not necessarily only for academics. Worth the effort.