we are what we buy
We are what we buy Ryan (Shizhe Ruan) 9067614
We live in a modern world where full of mass consumption, after industrial revolutions, the new technology allowed productive forces to be improved significantly as the development of history. Companies gained the ability to quickly produce a great deal of material items. In order to make profits via these products or services they offered, they persuade people to purchase them by adopting different marketing means. As a result of technologically and financially prosperity, and of course the marketing force, a material consumption culture had been created and we can simply argue that we cannot live without consumption nowadays, it is not only about buying of what we need, its influence had extended to the identities of our-self due to that the power of marketing allows consumers to gain the signs of success, achievement, prosperity and so on, through their consumptions. Actually, we not only construct our identities based on what we purchased, but we use others’ consumption to infer their identities.
So how exactly the consumption can be part of our identities? From the point of views of consumers, they find that the sphere of consumption becomes more wide-ranging and greater in terms of freedom and control, thus they are willing to construct “meaning ”in their life over consumption experiences .( A. Firat and Nikhilesh Dholakia, 1998, 129p ). The meaning attached to the products that they bought represent the identities for themself , consumers use the certain qualities contained in the products to send the message to others that they also own these qualities, meanwhile, they use these messages that they receive
We live in a modern world where full of mass consumption, after industrial revolutions, the new technology allowed productive forces to be improved significantly as the development of history. Companies gained the ability to quickly produce a great deal of material items. In order to make profits via these products or services they offered, they persuade people to purchase them by adopting different marketing means. As a result of technologically and financially prosperity, and of course the marketing force, a material consumption culture had been created and we can simply argue that we cannot live without consumption nowadays, it is not only about buying of what we need, its influence had extended to the identities of our-self due to that the power of marketing allows consumers to gain the signs of success, achievement, prosperity and so on, through their consumptions. Actually, we not only construct our identities based on what we purchased, but we use others’ consumption to infer their identities.
So how exactly the consumption can be part of our identities? From the point of views of consumers, they find that the sphere of consumption becomes more wide-ranging and greater in terms of freedom and control, thus they are willing to construct “meaning ”in their life over consumption experiences .( A. Firat and Nikhilesh Dholakia, 1998, 129p ). The meaning attached to the products that they bought represent the identities for themself , consumers use the certain qualities contained in the products to send the message to others that they also own these qualities, meanwhile, they use these messages that they receive
Bibliography: 1, Trentmann, F., 2006, The making of the consumer: Knowledge, Power, and Identity in the Modern world, Oxford and New York, Berg Publisher. 2, Du Gay, P., 1996, Consumption and Identity at work, London, Sage. 3, Bowlby, R., 2000, The invention of Modern Shopping, London, Faber and Faber. 4, Fuat Firat, A. , and Nikhilesh Dholakia, 1998, Consuming People, USA and Canada, Routledge. 5, http://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/dec/19/highereducation.uk2 accessed by 27-11-13 6, http://www.6eat.com/Info/2011/6/11/274202.htm accessed by 27-11-13 7, http://www.zibosky.com/kj/987427.shtml accessed by 1-12-13 8, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sold/201309/we-are-what-we-consume accessed by 2-12-13.