Changes within Consumer Culture over the Centuries It is undeniable that changes have occurred in a variety of realms within the civilized world. After all, it is a point of pride to continue to evolve and refine processes past their predecessors. With this in mind, it is not surprising that the realm of consumer culture has also been defined by rapid changes based on the consumer and the sellers alike. In fact, some would say that this change was so defined that it can be thought of as happening in overlapping waves. The first wave being described as a tendency to see the consumer market as a mass, which lead to targeting the audiences as if they, the white/middle class Americans, were one in their desires and needs. From this point, a second
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From Cohen, we learn that within niche marketing there was an issue of segregation that was considered to be too close to the previous discrimination episodes experienced by certain races, genders, and social classes in the previous mass market targeting. “As market segmentation gave capitalists and rebels a shared interest in using consumer markets to strengthen—not break down—the boundaries between social groups, it contributed to a more fragmented America,” which was not conducive (Cohen 331). “Mass consumption ironically also propelled Americans away from the common ground of the mass towards the divided, and often unequal, territories of fragments, accentuating in the process everything that made these places different from each other” and consequently causing tensions (Cohen 331). Banet-Weiser adds a second dimension to this shift when she adds evidence that “the cultural economy of advanced capitalism, ever more rapid innovation in technology and user interactivity, and the explosion of brand culture have shaped a commodity activism quite different from consumer cultures of the 1950’s and 1960’s” (Banet-Weiser 37). Commodity activism is the key to this shift to the third wave and will be explored heavily below when considering how consumer culture has shifted and
From Cohen, we learn that within niche marketing there was an issue of segregation that was considered to be too close to the previous discrimination episodes experienced by certain races, genders, and social classes in the previous mass market targeting. “As market segmentation gave capitalists and rebels a shared interest in using consumer markets to strengthen—not break down—the boundaries between social groups, it contributed to a more fragmented America,” which was not conducive (Cohen 331). “Mass consumption ironically also propelled Americans away from the common ground of the mass towards the divided, and often unequal, territories of fragments, accentuating in the process everything that made these places different from each other” and consequently causing tensions (Cohen 331). Banet-Weiser adds a second dimension to this shift when she adds evidence that “the cultural economy of advanced capitalism, ever more rapid innovation in technology and user interactivity, and the explosion of brand culture have shaped a commodity activism quite different from consumer cultures of the 1950’s and 1960’s” (Banet-Weiser 37). Commodity activism is the key to this shift to the third wave and will be explored heavily below when considering how consumer culture has shifted and