Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Sociology - Consumption and Advertising, grade: 1,3, University of Paderborn (Kulturwissenschaft), language: English, abstract: This term paper is set out to investigate in what aspects consumerism forms an identity and to what degree it affects modern society. In order to gather information and data, this research project will look at different Instagram accounts and groups, like "richkids__official" or "women_luxurys_life". How do they advertise certain products and in what way do these people represent themselves within a particular picture. Simultaneously, this term paper will explain the consequences of consumerism on businesses, society in general and people’s mental health. Sources that will be needed to answer these questions, are going to be Yiannis Gabriel and Tim Lang’s "The Unmanageable Consumer. Contemporary Consumption and its Fragmentations" from 1995, in which the different functions of a consumer are thoroughly explained and analysed. In addition, J.D. Forbes’ "The Consumer Interest", published 1987, defines different sections in which consumerism influences society. Using these sources and explanations, this research project will try to answer the question of how consumerism forms an identity, and to what degree it thereby affects society. "I’m just a girl standing in front of a photo asking it to be Instagram worthy." The quote above is a re-written version of Notting Hill’s famous sentence "I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her". Comparing these situations, it can be interpreted as though the "re-written girl" just wants to have a photo worthy for Instagram in order to be loved. Therefore, this quote tells more about society than just a girl wanting to look pretty online. Nowadays, almost every person, who is able to go online, has at least heard or even registered on one or more social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A challenging new theoretical approach to the study of consumption and identity.

This book argues that the last four decades have seen profound and important changes in the nature and social location of religion, and that those changes are best understood when cast against the associated rise of consumerism and neoliberalism. These transformations are often misunderstood and underestimated, namely because the study of religion remains dependent on the secularisation paradigm which can no longer provide a sufficiently fruitful framework for analysis. The book challenges diagnoses of transience and fragmentation by proposing an alternative narrative and set of concepts for understanding the global religious landscape. The present situation is framed as the result of a shift from a National-Statist to a Global-Market regime of religion. Adopting a holistic perspective that breaks with the current specialisation tendencies, it charts the emergence of the State and the Market as institutions and ideas related to social order, as well as their changing rapports from classical modernity to today. Breaking with a tradition of Western-centeredness, the book offers probing enquiries into Indonesia and a synthesis of global and Western trends. This long-awaited book offers a bold new vision for the social scientific study of religion and will be of great interest to all scholars of the Sociology and Anthropology of religion, as well as Religious Studies in general.

The fact that we inhabit a consumer society has incredibly far-reaching implications. Working through the often controversial ideas of the consumer society's most influential theorists, Jean Baudrillard and Zygmunt Bauman, this book assesses the ways in which consumerism is reshaping the nature and meaning of the city. It examines the nature of consumption and its increasing centrality to post-modern society by; *considering the development of consumerism as a central facet of social life *demonstrating that social inequalities are increasingly structured around consumption *uncovering the hidden consequences of consumerism *pondering the meaning of lifestyle *revealing how the nature of reality is changing in an age of globalization. Employing a sustained and engaging theoretical analysis, the book ranges across a variety of sometimes unexpected topics. It represents an impassioned plea for everyone interested in the social life of cities to take the notion of the consumer society - and the arguments of its major theorists - seriously.

In Social Psychology and Theories of Consumer Culture McDonald and Wearing present a critical analysis of social psychology from the perspective of classical and contemporary theories of consumer culture.

Revisiting the Politics of Consumption (The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Series

This book analyses ‘zero-waste’ (ZW) as an emerging waste management strategy for the future, which considers waste prevention through innovative design and sustainable consumption practices. Drawing on a diverse range of case studies from Australia, Bangladesh, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, and the USA, this book explores why urban waste management systems still remain a major challenge for almost all cities around the world. Rejecting waste as an ‘end-of-life’ problem, Atiq Zaman and Tahmina Ahsan instead consider waste prevention through the ZW model, in which resources are utilized and consumed with minimum environmental degradation. In addition, the authors give extended discussion on why embracing the ZW concept will be beneficial for the circular economy (CE). Providing a strategic zero-waste framework and an evaluation tool to measure waste management performance aimed towards ZW goals, this book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policymakers with an interest in waste management, sustainable consumption, urban planning, and sustainable development.

The Age of Capitalism, Consumer Culture, and the Collapse of Nature in the Anthropocene argues that the stability of post-industrial, postmodern society is threatened by the convergence of three distinct, yet interrelated, crises: environmental degradation, capitalist economic development, and the primacy of consumption and self-absorption as the basis for economic development at the expense of community and social relationships. Jack Thornburg contrasts advanced modern society with indigenous cultures in terms of nature and conceptions of the communal self. The complex nature of capitalist-oriented society has influenced how individuals conceptualize themselves. The outcome, the author contends, is a competitive society in which individuals are alienated living in uncertain times. One consequence of these crises (all of which derive from the Enlightenment and the concomitant appearance and evolution of capitalism) has been the destruction of a worldview balancing and connecting well-being with prosperity of the natural world. Money and materialism cannot buy happiness as capitalist narrative asserts. Thornburg claims that the happiness sought by individuals seeking meaning through consumption can only be realized by reintegrating nature with the human spirit.

This seminal book develops a new perspective on the debate concerning the Europeanisation of private law. The theory is both realistic, building on existing experience, and normative as it focuses on the future. It outlines 'good' Europeanisation in which legal sources can be used across borders; hence the free movement of legal ideas. At its core, is the analysis of the legal consequences of growing societal uncertainty and increasing use of micro-politics, leading to a situation where the law develops through small narratives rather than according to a coherent master plan. The inevitable rule of law concerns around such a development, have to be addressed by transparent legal reasoning. The author masterfully illustrates how this can be achieved in decision-making across Europe, drawing on arguments which are both substantive and authoritative in nature. He shows how all legal actors, including decision-makers and scholars, are morally responsible for the choices made. This is a fascinating intervention in the field of European private law by one of its leading authorities.