Topic: Consumerism and Photography
Consumer societies emerged in the context of modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the rise of mass production in the wake of the industrial revolution and with the consolidation of populations in major urban centers that tookplace in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries throughout much of the industrialized world. In a consumer society, the individual is confronted with and surrounded by a vast assortment of goods. As urban centers expanded in the nineteenth century and systems of mass transit were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people began to live increasingly mobile lives, traveling by trains to cities and through urban spaces on mass transit …show more content…
Old products are sold with a new look, added features, a new design, or simply new slogans and ad campaigns. Initially, online consumerism promised to eliminate the necessity of bearing overhead costs of a physical retail space (a store, a mall) for the sale of goods to consumers (while at the same time adding significant amounts for shipping to consumers). Yet it has also emerged simultaneously with the expansion of global chain stores, such as the Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Barnes and Noble, and many others, as well as the success of big-box retailers and massive discount stores such as Costco and Wal-mart. Many aspects of these patterns of consumption are not wholly new, though; online consumerism recalls the nineteenth- and the early-twentieth-century practice by which those people living in rural areas relied on mail-order catalogues to purchase many of their goods. “Window shopping” world of consumer fantasy that urban dwellers could experience in their walks by department stores and that suburban dwellers engaged in through trips to the local mall. Shopping was transformed from a mundane task, in which the consumer purchased unbranded bulk goods by standing at a counter and asking a merchant for them, into an
Consumer societies emerged in the context of modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the rise of mass production in the wake of the industrial revolution and with the consolidation of populations in major urban centers that tookplace in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries throughout much of the industrialized world. In a consumer society, the individual is confronted with and surrounded by a vast assortment of goods. As urban centers expanded in the nineteenth century and systems of mass transit were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people began to live increasingly mobile lives, traveling by trains to cities and through urban spaces on mass transit …show more content…
Old products are sold with a new look, added features, a new design, or simply new slogans and ad campaigns. Initially, online consumerism promised to eliminate the necessity of bearing overhead costs of a physical retail space (a store, a mall) for the sale of goods to consumers (while at the same time adding significant amounts for shipping to consumers). Yet it has also emerged simultaneously with the expansion of global chain stores, such as the Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Barnes and Noble, and many others, as well as the success of big-box retailers and massive discount stores such as Costco and Wal-mart. Many aspects of these patterns of consumption are not wholly new, though; online consumerism recalls the nineteenth- and the early-twentieth-century practice by which those people living in rural areas relied on mail-order catalogues to purchase many of their goods. “Window shopping” world of consumer fantasy that urban dwellers could experience in their walks by department stores and that suburban dwellers engaged in through trips to the local mall. Shopping was transformed from a mundane task, in which the consumer purchased unbranded bulk goods by standing at a counter and asking a merchant for them, into an