Everyday life is always someone but, what is composed on it is always social and cultural. This means that creating yourself and your own world is to produce unique reality and the whole list of what repetitive and widely available. Our houses look alike, each of us every day take the same steps. We eat, walk and sit in similar way. However, these similarities are misleading because this kind of identity always refer into separate entity which is part of the moral structure by an individual. For instant Madonna has a very different everyday from my everyday. She probably gets up early goes to gym or dancing club, has a photo shoot, autographs souvenir for funs. My everyday is getting up in the morning, taking children to school and then going to university. It seems that we have very different lives and this daily activities propose something fixed about our everyday life, perhaps she takes children to school too. In fact her present everyday life might not be so far off from mine.
Rita Felski in the ‘’Invention of Everyday Life’’ , argued that we all share one common culture that is both individual and universal and we are not so different from those who have conflicting everyday lives. ’Everyday life is democratic because it recognizes the paramount shared reality of a mundane, material embeddedness in the world. Everyone from the most famous to the most humble, eats, sleeps, yawns, defecates; no one escapes the reach of the quotidian. Everyday life in other words does not only describe the lives of ordinary people but, recognize that everyday life contains an element of ordinary. We are all ultimately anchored in the mundane’’ (p.16) Felski’s point seems to be that no matter who you are, your social position, country, skin colour. We are all required to participate in the same aspects of everyday life as everyone else.
Media:
The mass media today is part of everyday life". Media has a connection all over the world, it is a mass communication technique that entertains, informs and influences people.
Today, the media have become inseparable part of reality. Have a huge impact on people and the specified communities. Not only are organizing life, but it leads to the creation of many changes in our intellectual, emotional and social sphere. Looking at myself as its everyday recipient. I noticed that I can’t start my day without listen to radio or watching the news. I would like to know what the weather will be like and what I can dress. While drinking coffee I check my emails and at the same time I visit Facebook to see what is going on in the world. I make some phone calls and I contact my family and friends through Skype. I received and respond to text messages. While on the bus I listen to music and again I check my emails on my phone. When listening to music on the bus I am disconnecting myself from outside world. For some people, this might be a sense of comfort as Michael Bull writes in ‘’the dialectic of walking: Walkman use and the reconstruction of the site of experience’’ The Walkman initially appears to constitute a form of company for her whilst she is alone in public and I such it provides her with a sense of immediacy and intimacy .. Listening to the Walkman whilst alone constitute company and familiarity..[They] colonize space for these users and can also transform they mood, orientation, and the reach of their experience’’ (205-206)
The role of the media in my everyday life is significant and vast. It could be because I was born in era surrounded by technology. When I was ten years old my parents bought me a computer and since then I can’t imagine my life without it. Therefore, I have become dependent if not addicted to, our media sources for information, entertainment and social interaction. I am quite shocked how much time I spent on both my phone and computer. Media have become part of my life and I realized that without them I want be able to communicate with my family and friends overseas. What is more, I want be able to pay my bills or even do my coursework.
Nevertheless, some people would think that such a global network with continuous media use is the best growth for a social or informational network. However, technology can be separating. Though using your mobile to keep in touch with people by text feature or keeping in contact via social networking sites can make you more prompt to maintain range of relationship, however such relationships subjected themselves in doubt about the quality and the personal or verbal contact.
Marxists' believe that the media create a stimulation of needs and aspirations through their advertisements and this need for commodities produces more money for the capitalists in the world. Media promotes capitalist products. From a Marxists perspective the mass media is the promotion of an ideology of the ruling class. In their eyes the multi-nationals own the media and use it to influence society into brands and lifestyles which they see as 'normal.'(Chandler 2000)
Henri Lefebvre writes that mass culture produces images for distortion of the true face of everyday life and thus forms a world of illusory and apparent. At the same time, however, the author stresses that the fictional and delusiveness mass culture is a response to a real social need: the desire for liberation from alienation, in which a man throws into everyday life and work. Various forms of mass culture fill free time, offering man relaxation, relieving the tension, relaxation and sedation. Such a release from everyday life can be achieved only through the idealization of that every day, which is why mass culture transforms reality into fiction.
Is it possible to justify mass culture - a growing phenomenon of human needs? Is the world of appearances rather than substitutes and release of alienation, becomes a new source of alienation?
Everyday life can therefore be considered as a kind of gigantic and constantly growing archive of gestures induced to buy, all kinds of
Mass culture grows out of human needs. Many people treat it as a facilitator from reality, a way of spending free time. Certain standards and trends are for this type of people mainstay of everyday life, give them a sense of security and self-realization. Popular culture can be a bond connecting people with similar interests, beliefs or way of life.
On the other hand, mass culture makes many people own views replaces ready diagrams drawn from newspapers, radio and the Internet. It is no wonder that it is a source of alienation for those who do not want to give up its dictates.
People find themselves in the products of mass culture, such as creativity goes to a mass audience. The recipient feel connected with other people - they can share experiences, curiosities or just talk to them. The products of mass culture are widely available. Media promote them, because they know that it is an easy way to make money. Besides, mass culture is assumed to be primarily geared for sale and profit.
If pop culture is not the result of human needs, how to explain interest in her? The greatest desire of man is not to be alone, and mass culture can provide it to him.
However, every stick has two ends and mass culture can also be a cause of alienation. If someone listens to pop music, go to the cinema on a purely commercial films and raves alternative art can meet with rejection. Such a person may be considered to be worse, because it is not wise enough to form an alternative taste.
Popular culture can be a cause of alienation. But you cannot treat it as something worse, because it grows out of human needs. It is the simplest form of entertainment, which everyone at some time desire.
Making love with food:
So far the purchases were associated with screw capitalism consumption. However, it turns out that shopping is also a way of showing love.
Anthropologist Daniel Miller has found love in the supermarket. His discovery refers to a special kind of shopping - food supply. So those everyday household primarily habits. For a year they shopped and talked with residents of one street in London. One of his conclusions was that choosing the right products are showing your household love and care. Women said, for example: "My husband eats badly, he likes bacon, and I buy him something healthier. Therefore, I love him and I do not want him to put on weight’’. Shopping, do not make fun. You have to do it every day. No matter what strategy to take once again you will need to go get milk and bread to the store. Because it is such a mundane commercials often appear magical worlds and that potatoes pop out of uniforms and a dog, a cat and a hamster comment purchases their state.
And if our world does not look like you guys are annoying and the women gathered up? Exactly so. He is, smart, has a tummy, and she knows what's going on and how to make the world a better place. Women do daily mini-consumer research. They ask if it tastes. Hit something on the promotion and considering whether to throw it into daily eating habits, whether grab or not. Women described by Miller are very clever, analyse the market, know the promotions and purchasing strategies.
We have a simple life. However, when we buy for other stress is twofold. We worry, whether it will be healthy and testy .Men quite often defend the fact that they hate shopping .Yeah, but look at the man's car buyer. This is just amok, this process may take years. This is such a hunt, moreover, every now and then we hear about his Mercedes , hunt promotion.
Miller also introduces a very interesting concept of rarity a pleasures of something extra. Rarity is a reward for the effort of shopping. This could be a candy bar, ice cream, favourite tea. Women at Miller say they cannot send her husband to the store, because he brings the same antiquity, its purchases are not rational.
In England, women did not let their husbands to do shopping because they spend too much. 60 % may make purchases only in the company of women, and two thirds of women totally took over the home shopping.
This would fit with the Miller research. He also pointed to a particular type of joint purchases which are shopping - courting. The first joint shopping is a huge field of negotiations. This is my favourite milk, and this is my coffee, I eat only bitter chocolate. By learning to recognize the other person not only her past, her sensitive places on the body, but you also get to know her consumer habits. If you want to live in harmony. Otherwise delightful breakfast will turn into a nightmare, because instead of butter you will spread the sandwich with the margarine. We are people who build their identity by product brands, because it is the way that Western civilization is constructed. Chandlers not only keeps the body alive, but also serves to build social relationships.
Particularly interesting is the relationship between mother and child. Miller says that the child takes the place of a partner, who was the subject of devotion and care. Never until now in civilization, was the child not so important. Mothers are puzzled how to select the menu, what clothes to buy, what toys to choose. Many mothers do their shopping especially for their children. One of the ideal models for human consumption is embedded in the concept of naturalness. In other words, the child knows what’s best for him, what and when to eat, when he/she want to sleep. Our role is not to disturb him/her. This means that we give up our dreams, habits or even work. According to Miller, at the beginning it was important deity. Then, under the influence of secularization the place of deity took man, whom in turn dethroned feminism. However, more interestingly, the scheme has not been interrupted. Dedication and attention to women transferred to a child who has become the new deity.
Conclusion:
The everyday life has infinitive variety: it is suggestive and vague, it can be distancing or jolly. Everyday life could happen by chance or it might be acquainted and routinized. Your life can be grey or merry and pleasant. It's up to you what life you want to lead. It does depends on you what sort of life you want to lead, because everyone is different surrounded by diverse people and environment thus have dissimilar experiences. However, we all breathe the same air and we all have a need for eat and sleep. We might have conflicting views and different visions on life because each of us is an individual unit.
References:
Rita Felski (1999) ‘’The invention of everyday life’’NO.39,pp15-31 available via SyD and the web.
Henri Lefebvre (2005)[1971] Everyday life in the Modern World,Transl. Sacha Rabinovitch, New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction Publisher, extract from Philip Wander (2005) ‘’Introduction’’,pp.vii-x and pp.xiv-xvi [full intro pp.vii-xxiii] and Lefebvre p.187-8
Michael Bull (1999) ‘’The dialectics of walking: Walkman use and the reconstruction of the site of experience’’ in Jeff Hearn and Sasha Roseneil 9eds) Consuming Cultures: Power and Resistance, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Macmillan, extract, pp.205-206 [full article pp.199-220]
Daniel Chandler. (2000). Base and superstructure. Available:
Daniel Miller (1998) ‘’Making love in the supermarket’’ in Daniel Miller a Theory of Shopping, Cambridge, Polity Press, pp.15-23.[also reprinted in Ben Higmore (ed) The everyday life Reader,London, Routledge] Plus Ben Highmore’s introduction, pp.339-340
Roch Sulima (2000). Antropologia codziennosci. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Univerytetu Jagiellonkiego. 194.
Everyday Life Extraordinary and Ordinary
by
rose_roza (student)
