Consumption and the Body
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7078832 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Faye Linda Wachs (0000-0003-3081-0998, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Publication date | 2007-02-15 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | OTHER |
| Venue | The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosc104 |
| OpenAlex | W4237086875 |
| ISBN | 9781405165518 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
The relationship between the body and material culture in the post‐industrial world is defined through consumption. How one experiences the body, manages corporeal identity, participates in social rituals as an embodied subject is, to a great extent, commodified. Changes in perspectives on the body are intertwined with the advent of consumer culture and the concomitant development of mass media and advertising. The growth of production during the industrial era necessitated a corollary growth in consumption. Markets for the expanding array of goods and services being produced were constructed through the attachment of meaning to consumer goods. The growth of markets driven by advertising profits resulted. The appropriation of meanings for advertising promotes what is termed the “floating signifier” effect (Baudrillard 1975) or the shift in the use value attached to objects such that any meaning or quality can be associated with any object. The body acts as both a carrier of these multiple and shifting meanings and a means for expression as the body becomes what Featherstone (1991) refers to as the “visible carrier of the self
Advertising · Aesthetics · Appropriation · Art · Business · Commodification · Consumption (sociology · Economics · Embodied cognition · Goods and services · Identity (music · Market economy · Meaning (existential · Object (grammar · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
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