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

by Mike Featherstone (Author), Mike Featherstone (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2007

  $65.57

  The first edition of this contemporary classic can claim to have put 'consumer culture' on the map, certainly in relation to postmodernism. This expanded new edition includes:

  • a fully revised preface that explores the developments in consumer culture since the first edition
  • a major new chapter on 'Modernity and the Cultural Question'
  • an update on postmodernism and the development of contemporary theory after postmodernism
  • an account of multiple and alternative modernities
  • the challenges of consumer culture in Japan and China.

  The result is a book that shakes the boundaries of debate, from one of the foremost writers on culture and postmodernism of the present day.

• Used

  Paperback
  1990

  $3.39

  Implicit within claims that society itself is in some sense postmodern is an argument about the priority of consumption as a determinant of everyday life. In this view, mass media advertising and market dynamics lead to a constant search for new fashions, new styles, new sensations and experiences. Material goods are consumed as `communicators'; they are valued as signifiers of taste and of lifestyle. This volume examines the viability of this portrait of contemporary society. Mike Featherstone 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 such as Bourdieu, Baudrillard, Lyotard and Jameson and relates these to the actual nature of contemporary consumer culture.