Since deciding on a project for my assignment I have been monitoring Sarah’s consumption of what I have categorised as her ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ these are from such a wide range which can start at simple food and drink and ends at novelty phones and houses. I have also recorded what she would like to buy, but only when mentioned as a passing comment, for example; whilst on an outing with Sarah- she was viewing houses to live in next year. We were stood outside a normal, whitewashed, three windowed, house with nothing particularly outstanding to see from the outside, I decided to reserve my judgment until we had seen inside. During our wait for the landlord to arrive, Sarah enthusiastically decides ‘I really like it’ I told her I thought it would make sense to wait for the landlord to show us inside before we make a decision, she confounded me by responding with ‘no, its what’s on the outside that counts’ I believe this shows two theories of consumer analysis, firstly the idea that has been put forward where a consumer identifies themselves through what they buy (Joanna Latimer) ‘Persons draw upon materials of worth to the culture they occupy to reveal and make explicit their distinction. Others consume these distinctions in the making up of their identities’ so this would mean that Sarah would believe, if the house looks good from the outside and Sarah is a tenant of the house, it is a good outlook on her identity and who she is. Secondly wanting to have something as a status marker (Theodor Adorno) ‘The price of commodities or goods, defines and dominates social relations in capitalist societies’ this is derived from the Marxist view that what you buy shows how much labour you produce and therefore what status you belong to.’ Now it isn’t Sarah’s labour that is buying the house, but it is her parents labour, and I believe that according to this theory the representation of status or labour that buying a house would give Sarah’s parents, is inseparable form her own status.
When visiting Sarah and her flat mates at their accommodation it is possible to see where Sarah can gain authority of power over certain other subjects through different means e.g. gender relations, culinary skills and so on. The flat happens to be a male dominated flat with a ratio of four men to two women but as Sarah’s partner and I are usually found to be hanging around the flat this obviously increases the male influence found there. But even though Sarah finds herself in a minority, gender-wise, she has either knowingly or by chance found out how to favour herself through this situation. Whether it is cooking a meal- a friendly gesture, but also one that leaves the consumers of the meal ‘indebted’ to her, or letting her partner stay at the flat using her room as a place of residence, Sarah has almost through no fault of her own, gained ‘unassigned’ power. (Max Weber) ‘In domestic groups where men hold the authoritative positions and have the legitimate rite to make decisions binding on others, women may hold unassigned power, that is, this means of gaining compliance with their actions through withholding food and sexual services’. So because of this ‘unassigned’ power, people like Sarah’s partner knows not to get on the wrong side of Sarah, and even I myself should follow his lead seeing as if I intend to ‘lounge’ at the flat and not make the journey home I would be in the need of some sustenance during the day.
Sarah comes form a predominantly white, middle class, suburban background. And it is generally thought that it is through this and her upbringing that Sarah’s personality and perspectives are formed. But in contradict to this point I believe that television has influenced most of Sarah’s life and background, more so than the average person is influenced. I believe Sarah finds solace in the world behind the TV, how the TV programmes show her tragedies and drama, yet somehow everything ends up fine, a most common phrase of Sarah’s ‘it’ll be reet’ meaning ‘it doesn’t matter everything will turn out fine.’ Also since coming to university her indulgence of the TV has increases more so, with nothing to do in between lectures and work, the flat mates watch TV to fill the gaps and are addicted to all the soaps, game shows, reality TV, sitcoms and the like. In each category there is many different programmes but all with the same message or hook being beamed out to their audiences e.g. Hollyoaks cliffhangers or Noel Edmonds tension building. Sarah knows this is all for her entertainment and there are slight exaggerations in TV obviously to make it interesting, but this means that if Sarah watches anything informative; like the news, or a conspiracy documentary, Sarah would be find it customary to take it on face value as a basic fact and be ignorant to the sometimes bias views of news readers or slight exaggerations of conspiracy theorists. (Dominic Strinati)‘society has become subsumed within the mass media. It is no longer even a question of the media distorting reality, since this implies there is a reality, outside the surface simulations of the media, which can be distorted’. Also with all this watching of TV comes the adverts of course, I worry how much these adverts affect Sarah, she would like to buy a product even if it is not aimed at her, or if the product is in the advert but not even what the advert is selling e.g. Sarah has seen the advert for a Mach Three razor with its shiny, razor sharp body, and heard the empowering narration of all the attributes it has and now she would like to purchase one, even though the target audience is male and the use is for facial hair. Another advert that advertises a certain type of alcohol has the humorous use of a novelty phone during the advert, now Sarah wishes to have a novelty phone for the house next year. This lifestyle just goes to show how TV can be so controlling yet subtle, can define a lifestyle and construct an identity, but not just any identity one that lets society live of you and makes u happy to do so. My next quote on Bernays (1965: 439) and Filene’s (1931: 271) ideas of consumerism, which I believe offers a thorough explanation of Sarah’s views and lifestyle in general.
(Stewart Ewen) ‘“The mouthpiece of America” (Bernays) spoke frankly of the role and purpose of consumerizing the population. The attempt to create a national unified culture around the social bond of the consumer market was basically a project of broad “social planning” (Filene) industry, Filene argued could “sell to the masses all that it employs the masses to create” but such a development would require a selected education which limited the concept of social change and betterment to those commodified answers rolling of the conveyor belts “mass production demands the education of the masses” Filene axiomized “the masses must learn to behave like human beings in a mass production world”’. These theorists were most probably talking about American industrialisation and consumerism, but it is with such an influence of American media and culture in the U.K that we find such a market for almost everything media related, and our society as well has been ‘educated’ in the same way. ‘”Education” for Filene became the process of building a culture built on the basis of “fact finding” just looking at the given facts about what is being produced rather than questioning the social basis those facts lay was what modern education should all be about. Education should be a process of acclimatizing and adjusting the population to that world of facts to make it their own.’ I believe Sarah has unsuspectingly been ‘educated’ in more or less the exact way described above but she is not the only one, in fact the majority of the population has had no power over what influences them and no detailed education in how it affects them and the people around them. There are many views that contradict this view, that explain cultural materialism as something that can form naturally and is already in the human mind before being ‘educated’ about it. This is related to the ‘nature or nurture’ argument, are we in control of our own influences and how we influence others? Or are we all subject to whatever brush we have been painted with? If the same thing happens to different social groups will they all react in the same way? A lot of theorists seem to agree with this statement. Marvin Harris seems to believe that social structure and materialism and be linked to Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’-natural selection. (Harris) ‘The principle of techno-environmental and techno-economic determination. Similar technologies applied to similar environments tend to produce similar arrangements of labour in production and distribution, and that these in turn call forth similar kinds of social groupings, which justify and coordinate their activities by means of similar systems of values and beliefs. Translated into a research strategy, the determination of the above assigns priority to the study of the material conditions of sociocultural life, much as the principle of natural selection assigns priority to the study of differential reproductive success.’ I can understand where the links to how this idea works the same as natural selection, but to put in context with Sarah, it does not work as a cultural analysis, yes it is possible to say that it is her social and personal influences that have helped structure her as a person, but it can not be wholly because of just these influences, there are things that ‘techno-environmental’ and techno-economic’ influences don’t even come near, like a parents love, or the concern for another human being, a traumatic past or any other of the hundreds of life affecting factors. I believe Harris’ theory would only work as a generalisation- a simplified understanding of a culture, but not a specific cultural analysis on how one is influenced to act in a consumerist and materialistic society.
I do not believe that Sarah has ever been grounded or for that matter even shouted at by her parents, not that she should seem like the type of girl who would give her parents cause to shout at her, I only make this comment because I myself come from a disciplined childhood and I know for a fact it has affected the person I am today and my relationship with others around me, just like a non-disciplined childhood would have an affect on Sarah relationship with her parents and others around her, for example, the unquestionable fondness Sarah has for her parents- everybody loves their parents but not everyone likes them this leads me to my next point; that Sarah does the generally uncommon thing for a student and goes home almost twice a month –most of the time coming back with a cupboards worth of food. Sarah is very much like her mother in her ‘laze faire’ attitude to almost anything, and finds comfort in her father, an elegant, educated and pertinent figure in Sarah’s life who she turns to in ‘times of need’. But with Sarah going home every other week I believe she has not gained the independence which most university students seek and it is because of this that ‘times of need’ are as weekly as ‘daddy, I am cooking an egg that’s two days past its sell by date, is that ok?’ I find most of these situations humorous, seeing as with a quick ask around the flat, or simply checking on the Internet would suffice for a good enough answer- instead of maybe interrupting her father’s busy lifestyle.
To conclude, after explaining to Sarah what it is exactly I saw her as in a specifically analytical model way, Sarah showed complete understanding and confirmed what I thought from the beginning, she obviously knows about being influenced and how most of the above is what affects her life, but she also knows that there is more to it than that, which o totally agree on. As I mentioned before it is impossible to categorise everyone into different styles, just because of what they wear, what class they come from, what experiences they have had and what actions they take- cultural, visual and social interpretations can not define everything, and try as we must we can not simplify people into type and class, but it will do as a simplified explanation, if we were exactly what we were analysed as, I do not believe I would be so close to most of my friends and family.
Bibliography
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Ewen, S., 2006. Assembling a New World of Facts. In: Martyn J. Lee, ed. The Consumer Society Reader 2006, pp 188.
Harris, M., 2004. Cultural Materialism. In: Jerry D. Moore, 2nd ed. Visions of Culture. AltiaMira Press, 2004, pp 206-7.
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