POSTMODERNISM AND THE VALUE OF THE CONSUMER PRODUCTS: ARE THE NEW FASHION DOLLS A BAD INFLUENCE ON CHILDREN? A NETNOGRAPHY ON BARBIE VS. BRATZ VS.

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1 POSTMODERNISM AND THE VALUE OF THE CONSUMER PRODUCTS: ARE THE NEW FASHION DOLLS A BAD INFLUENCE ON CHILDREN? A NETNOGRAPHY ON BARBIE VS. BRATZ VS. AUTHOR: AMELIA-MARILENA PRISACARU SUPERVISOR: STEEN MICHAEL HEJNDORF Scope: 123, 732 characters, excluding spaces, including footnotes, amounting to pages Aarhus School of Business Department of Language and Business Communication 1

2 ABSTRACT Purpose The purpose of this paper is to find out whether postmodernism has had any effects on the consumer products available on the market by analyzing a discussion thread of the largest Harry Potter online community. In this thread, people from all over the world discuss whether Barbie and Bratz dolls are sending the wrong message and offer a bad example for the children who play with them. In order to find out the answer, a netnographic study was conducted on the online community previously mentioned. As secondary goals, this paper aims to investigate whether the characteristics and consequences of postmodernism are visible in online communities. After a thorough research of the specialized literature, a classification of the consequences and characteristics was made, and then explained in the context of the online community. Methodology For methodology a netnographic approach was chosen as described by Kozinets. The method was used as it is unobtrusive and utterly postmodern. The contemporary consumer is so complex and unpredictable that it seems foolish to sit him down for an interview or a questionnaire in order to find out what they think. Netnography offers much more reliable sources of information as the consumer is in discussion with others same as him, thus doesn t feel the need to lie or answer some questions the way they think the interviewer wants them answered. The method follows the five steps recommended by the author: entrée, data collection and analysis, interpretation, research ethics and member checks. Each step in turn provided valuable insight as well as the answer to the research questions. Although the last two parts were excluded for objective reasons, they proved to be of less importance at the end, although perhaps having them would have provided the study with more credibility. 2

3 Findings The case study has shown that indeed the people in the analyzed community believe that the new fashion dolls, the Bratz, are worse than the old Barbie dolls, and the majority says they wouldn t buy such toys for their children. The reason is that they promote false values such as materialism and promiscuity in a way that children believe they are acceptable and desirable. Even the doll s name, Brat, is an insult and an undesirable trait for anyone. Moreover, it appears that online communities reflect the characteristics of the postmodern society. After analyzing the discussion in this group, it came to show that people are indeed living in a world of commodities, where they are separated from reality; they use consumption as a form of language and are validated as postmodern citizens on the market place. The effects that postmodernism has on society are all mirrored in the online communities as well. People are alienated from society and from one another; they see their time as a commodity and live in a world where culture has been popularized to the point where it lost its value, while marketing and advertising have become their new religion. Value The value of this paper stands in its online contextualization of postmodernism, bringing the current of thought to the consumers and analyzing their behavior in their own environment. What is more, it strives to be a warning sign that the postmodern society is heading down a slippery slope and is in danger of self destruction. Limitations The limitations of this thesis are mostly visible in the case study. Although the findings apply to the community in question, it is difficult to say if they can be extrapolated to society in general. What is more, the steps of the netnography could not be followed through to the end as the members and administrators were not available for comments and feedback. 3

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT... 2 PART I INTRODUCTION Motivation Problem statement and research questions Methodology Structure Delimitations Source evaluation Value and originality PART II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK From modernism to postmodernism Beginnings Postmodernism s manifestation in different disciplines Postmodernism and philosophy More recent takes on postmodernism Conclusion The consumer society establishment and characteristics Consumption as a form of language The individual s rupture from reality The world of commodities The market as a validating place The consequences of postmodernism The alienation Time as a commodity The popularization of culture Advertising and marketing as a new religion Conclusion

5 PART III EMPIRICAL STUDY The context and the community The Brands Netnography Questions, numbers and postmodern characteristics Quantitative analysis Qualitative discussion Limitations PART IV CONCLUSION Answer to research questions Limitations Further research REFERENCES APPENDIX

6 PART I INTRODUCTION The world today is not just different from the one some hundred years ago, but also dramatically dissimilar to the one the individual knew yesterday. Postmodernism has changed a lot, but it has mainly changed itself and in order to keep up with the times and not to be left behind, people need to learn how it works in order to adapt. The different means of communication, the mass media and the internet not only have consequences on the everyday life, but on society and economy as well. The technological advances have now bred into consumer products that past generations did not even dream of. The human relations are not what they used to be, and the rules of interactions, be they social or otherwise, have changed to the point where they are not conducted only face to face anymore. The rules of the market have changed as well, together with the human perceptions and the individuals relation to the world. In such a context one needs to be properly informed to keep up with the times and not be a society cast-off. This thesis is meant to study the postmodern society and discover its characteristics and consequences, as well as to discover if the new ideology has left its mark on the consumer products available on the market. 1. Motivation The motivation behind this paper came as the author has made a personal observation over the years that more and more people are complaining that the times are not what they used to be. There is a general trend of going downwards when it comes to the values of the society. Newspapers, TV channels and magazines all glorify the worldly and the fashionable while the true values and contributors to the welfare of the society remain unknown to the wide population. It is a personal concern of a student who is unsatisfied by the turn on the current events, by the celebrities that rid the world of its true value. It seems that the postmodern society, where overpopulation, teen pregnancy, illiteracy and consumerism are the topics of the day, is crying for 6

7 help. Thus the main motivation for choosing this subject was to find out whether this is just a personal belief, or is it shared by others as well. It was also interesting to see how a society that a century ago was preoccupied with the works of Marx, Darwin or Kant is now more interested in where and with whom Paris Hilton has spent her week-end. 2. Problem statement and research questions The world is changing from one day to the next. The whole landscape, be it natural, economic, social or cultural, is evolving so fast that the individual finds it much harder to keep up with the goings on. This is the postmodern world. The individual lives in a time of globalization, the internet, the social media and the consumer society. Keeping in mind that before postmodernism there was modernism, an ideology with such different pillars, it is safe to say that the individual, the society and all the disciplines, but especially marketing and advertising, have gone through radical changes. What would be interesting to see, as far as this paper is concerned, is how postmodernism affected the quality of the products available on the market? The issue sounded quite interesting as it is utterly these products that shape the life of the everyday consumer, especially in the postmodern times when, as will be shown later in the discussion, consumption is a form of language. A secondary problem to be discussed here is finding out how the characteristics of postmodernism are reflected in an online community. As the postmodern communication and socialization is dominated by the internet, it could prove useful from a market research point of view to find out if the online part of the human relations presents the same characteristics as the live one. Finally, it would be interesting to see how the consequences of postmodernism influence online communities. This topic includes an overview of how advertising, marketing and communication have evolved in the new era. The rules of socialization and human interaction have been dramatically altered. The new advances that technology has made are a definite game changer. The channels have changed, the messages have adapted and the customers have evolved into consumers. So it goes without saying that an analysis of the new order is necessary. 7

8 The practical part of this paper, the empirical study, will present a problem that is clearly illustrative of the postmodern consumer society. On a forum board, a variety of users discuss the influence that the toys they buy might have on their children/grandchildren. It is mainly a question of choosing between Barbie dolls and Bratz dolls and which one of them sends the right message to children. A netnographic study was conducted on the said board. The discussion was chosen as it compares two postmodern brands, one from the beginnings of postmodernism and one from its later stages. It shows not only how the two have changed over time, but also how people s perceptions have evolved, as the discussion lasted six years, from December 2005 until September 2011, the date of the last post. 3. Methodology As methodology for the theoretical part of this paper a review of the specialized literature was used. It is fundamentally a text analysis and critique of a selection of works written about relevant subjects such as postmodernism, modernism, marketing, advertising, consumer research, consumer society and a few others. The criterion for choosing the texts was the relevance they had to the problem statement and the subject of the paper. For the second part of this thesis, the empirical study, a rather new qualitative research method was used: netnography. The term was used and defined by Kozinets, as follows: Netnography, or ethnography on the internet, is a new qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to study the cultures and communities that are emerging through computermediated communications. As a marketing research technique, netnography uses the information that is publicly available in online forums to identify and understand the needs and decision influences of relevant online consumer groups. 1 The method was chosen firstly for its unobtrusiveness, as it only uses observation to draw its conclusions. Secondly, the postmodern consumer, as well as the postmodern market, have 1 Kozinets, Robert V. (2002). The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities. In: Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Vol. 39, Iss. 1, p. 62 8

9 dramatically changed, and so it logically follows that the market research methods should change as well. According to Cova, the postmodern consumer is erratic in their choices, leaning into the temptation to try everything, as if consumption were a game. 2 In a postmodern market, where the link is more important than the thing 3, objects aren t bought for their functional and utilitarian value anymore. According to the literature, in the consumer society marketing no longer deals with mere customers, but with consumers, a different breed of buyer altogether. This changed the way brands communicate with their audience, so it follows that research methods have to be updated as well. Netnography allows the consumers to talk freely and observe them in a habitat that feels safe for them. It is there that they express their actual ideas and motivations, with other consumers who face the same problems. There isn t a scheme that directs the answers, so the subject is not tempted to say what he thinks is expected of him. The researcher is the one who interprets, so the information goes through one filter and one filter only. It is a method that ensures more objectivity and it leads the study closer to the actual truth. In his article Cova contradicts his previous statement about the erratic behavior of the postmodern consumer, saying that the individual turns towards objects and services, that is to say the system of consumption, in order to forge an identity. 4 So how can it be said that they try everything, when they see consumption as an identity-defining act? This idea can be found in authors such as Baudrillard and Debord as well, and seems to be quite popular: consumers buy to define themselves. Every choice they make is a statement about their personality. This poses a conundrum for the market research, as it may seem that generalizing and segmenting the audience in such conditions is impossible. The postmodern consumer s behavior is indeed more unpredictable and uncertain compared to the modern consumer. This does not mean that the researchers should fold up their arms and hope for the best. On the contrary, they must adapt to the new situation. Marketing seems to 2 Cova, Bernard. (1999). Chapter 4: From marketing to societing. In: Brownlie, Douglas: Rethinking marketing: towards critical marketing accountings. SAGE Publications. p Cova, Bernard. (1999). Chapter 4: From marketing to societing. In: Brownlie, Douglas: Rethinking marketing: towards critical marketing accountings. SAGE Publications., p Cova, Bernard. (1999). Chapter 4: From marketing to societing. In: Brownlie, Douglas: Rethinking marketing: towards critical marketing accountings. SAGE Publications. p. 72 9

10 need to resort to anthropology and ethnosociology in order to re-embed its approach. Rethinking marketing is rethinking its essence in the socio-economic paradigm. 5 Another issue that supports the use of a new market research method is the new media. Questionnaires and interviews might have been suited when the main communication channels were the TV, the print media and the radio. But in the postmodern society, the internet is king. People use it to socialize, to shop, to pay their bills, to call their friends and to get information, to name just a few. It has evolved so much and spread so fast, that it became the most relevant and certain way of reaching one s audience. This goes to show that a rethinking of the traditional methods of market research was necessary. Following on the steps of ethnography, Kozinets distinguishes five steps in conducting an accurate and meaningful netnography 6 : a. Entrée finding a specific market research question as well as identifying an online group (or more) that are appropriate to study. What is more, the researcher has to strive and learn as much as possible about the community/communities they study, before starting the actual analysis. b. Data collection and analysis gathering data should follow two paths: first is the actual messages posted by the users in the group and second is the researchers personal insight about the interaction between the members and the feeling of the community. c. Providing trustworthy interpretation the researcher has to choose those statements and messages that are appropriate to the research question. d. Research ethics the ethic problem is a bit dicey when it comes to netnography. As Kozinets remarks, there are two specific impediments: is the information on a forum considered public, and thus can it be freely used by anyone and what does a clear consent mean when it comes to cyber-communication? The real problem is not whether the information is public though; the issue here is in what purposes and under what circumstances can one use the information available online? It is clear that once the 5 Cova, Bernard. (1999). Chapter 4: From marketing to societing. In: Brownlie, Douglas: Rethinking marketing: towards critical marketing accountings. SAGE Publications., p Kozinets, Robert V. (2002). The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities. In: Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Vol. 39, Iss. 1, pp

11 information has been sent, it is public, but in what circumstances can a third person use it? For the case study in this paper, the administrators of the forums were contacted and asked for permission to collect data. e. Member checks this is the part of the study where the findings are presented to the community in order to ask for their commentaries and feedback. As mentioned earlier, the netnographic method is a fairly new one. It s usage in this study strives to follow the steps recommended by Kozinets, but it is not an exact science. Market research can no longer be an exact science, as previously argued, but it strives to draw some conclusions about the postmodern values and the way they changed over time by observing an online community. 4. Structure The paper consists of four parts, each of them dealing with a certain aspect. The structure was chosen having in mind the research questions and the goals to be acquired. Below, an overview and short description of each part is provided: Part I INTRODUCTION: contains an overview of the situation at hand, motivation for choosing the subject, the problem statement and a description of the methodology used Part II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: presents the findings of the literature researched in order to find the answer to the research questions Part III EMPIRICAL STUDY: in this part the author conducts a netnographic study on an online community in order to find the answers to the research questions. Part IV CONCLUSION: sums up the findings of the study, provides the limitations of the paper and offers a few lines of further research that can be done on the topic. 11

12 5. Delimitations As stated in the problem statement, this paper tries to find out whether and how postmodernism affected the value of the products on the consumer market. The netnographic study is conducted on a sole and small online community and the findings are true for that group, though it would be unprofessional and somewhat incorrect to assume that they are valid for the society at large. Hopefully it will provide a valuable starting point for developing a larger and more complex study in the future. 6. Source evaluation The information used in the netnographic case study is genuine and taken from the online forum of the Chamber of Secrets online community. In matters of reliability and validity, there is no reason to suspect that administrators and moderators of the forum have done anything to intervene in the discussion conducted, as there are no signs of deleted or modified post made by a third party. The changes and the editing are all done by the users who have written these posts. Also there is no reason to believe that representatives of either of the discussed brands have intervened to stir the discussion in one way or another, since there is no proof of that. It would be foolish to assume though that such actions were not taken, so leaving some room for reserve would be the sensible thing to do. 7. Value and originality The originality of this paper stands in both its theoretical and its empirical approach. As far as the theoretical part goes, the author has tried to develop a comparative critique of the literature, striving to find common threads and analyze them in order to draw the characteristics and consequences of postmodernism. As for the empirical part, the originality comes from the netnographic approach, which is rather new and not thoroughly used, although it is a very valuable source of gathering consumer information in the postmodern society. 12

13 The value of the paper stands in the problem it puts forward. It wishes to be a valid master thesis as well as a warning sign that the postmodern world is beginning to lose its values and forget about the importance of intelligence and hard work, while glorifying fame and shallowness. 13

14 PART II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 1. FROM MODERNISM TO POSTMODERNISM 1.1. Beginnings Postmodernism stands for a current of thinking and a set of values, as well as ways of seeing the world that became popular at the turn of the twentieth century. Its values, beliefs and categories spread around from politics to literature, culture, art etc. and dramatically changed the modern world. As all the currents go, postmodernism appeared as a critique of modernism. In the late 1950 s postmodernism was attributed to any ideology/author that was criticizing the modernism. 7 Later on, in the 1960 s-70 s, the current became popular in arts, literature and architecture. It created confusion, as in all these disciplines it was used with different meanings. One thing was clear though, all the disciplines saw postmodernism as a movement whose conscious purpose was to overturn ideas integral to modernism, in particular those of narrative and representation. 8 As previously stated, the keyword of the movement is change. Drolet goes on saying that postmodernism is not just a trendy way of thinking that will just come and go, but a solid and serious intellectual engagement that is influencing and will influence lives and thoughts. 9 Modernism was without a doubt the period of intellectual enlightenment. The movement was all about rationality, discovering the limits of human intelligence and improving the individual, taking him to the next level. As opposed to the previous movement, the romanticism, in modernism science is king. Where the romanticism previously dictated that man should go back to nature, to 7 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003) 8 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p. 3 9 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p. 3 14

15 creation and fought for individual liberty, modernism stated that only through science and rationality shall the human being progress Postmodernism s manifestation in different disciplines In the 1920 s, postmodernism has been discussed by Bell in politics. When discussing post modernity, the author referred to the period of time which succeeded the modern era. He saw the current as an intelligent alternative to the liberalism and totalitarianism movements that were shining on the political scene of the time. Bell thought that liberalism s and totalitarianism s faith in reason brought about the impoverishment of the human condition rather than its improvement. 11 He goes on saying that faith in scientific objectivity and progress [ ] left individuals spiritually weak and emptied life of metaphysical wonder. 12 Bell cleverly sees the need for enchantment in the life of the modern individual, whose main purpose was to become enlightened, to be rational and scientific in all his endeavors and to look for knowledge in anything he did. Romanticism was the complete opposite, encouraging the enlightenment of the soul. It can be said that the first is an ideology of the mind, while the latter is one of the spirit. Modernists argued that romanticists were too lost in their own dreams to see the practical aspects of life, while postmodernists argue that modernists are too focused on knowledge and that they lose the main focus of any ideology: the human. The postmodern individual has to be intellectually humble and spiritually hungry 13. Seen from this angle, it may follow logically that what Bell sees the new current of postmodernism as some kind of common denominator between modernism and romanticism. Both currents were huge contributors to the history and the world today. Both periods were of remarkable progress in all areas of knowledge, and both were in blatant opposition to one another. One can assume that the 10 Romanticism was a reaction and critique towards the industrialism and the bourgeois values. The current was popular in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. 11 Bell, Bernard Iddings Postmodernism and Other Essays apud Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Bell, Bernard Iddings Postmodernism and Other Essays apud Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Bell, Bernard Iddings Postmodernism and Other Essays apud Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p. 6 15

16 author saw the possibility of combining the two, taking what s best from each, and starting a new ideology, a new trend that shall take the world further, when modernism has shown signs of weariness. Postmodernism stressed the mysterious and unknowable nature of the universe. 14 In literature, the rejection of modernism meant the rejection of the traditional narrative framework. 15 Federico de Onis used the term postmodernism in 1934 to describe the Spanish and Latin American poetry at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of the characteristics of the new movement were: commitment to detail, refined tone, simplicity of prose and ironic humor. 16 The ironic humor in the postmodern art will be discussed further, as it is one of the main characteristics of postmodern art and culture. When it comes to literature, postmodernism encourages self expression and experimentation, as well as a return to the romantic elements. The current returns to values highly regarded in romanticism, such as contemplation and introspection. The postmodern literature is also infused with feminine and native rhythms 17. The latter goes to show the critique that postmodernism brings to the masculinization of the cognitive subject (current established in modernism, especially in philosophy). The subject shall be further developed, as it is of main importance to the consumer society. What is more, the postmodern literature also encourages native and ethnic diversity, which can be seen as a first step towards globalization. In history, Toynbee pinpoints the beginnings of postmodernism around the First World War 18. The historian sees the war as the resulting clash of the two main political and economical movements of the period: Nationalism and Industrialism. While Industrialism worked towards the expansion of economy and progress outside the boundaries of the country in other words, towards globalization, Nationalism worked towards the expansion of the nation inwards, which had a negative influence on the minorities and other ethnic groups Bell, Bernard Iddings Postmodernism and Other Essays apud Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003) 16 Onis, F. de Antologia de la Poesia Espanola e Hispanoamericana apud Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003) 17 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p. 6 16

17 While discussing Toynbee s work and the beginnings of postmodernism, Drolet remarks that the historian makes a statement about the technological advances of the time. He says that technology is now so advanced that people can t keep up with the new developments during the course of their lives. Toynbee believes that this aspect has caused a rupture and an unprecedented crisis in human affairs. 20 The topic shall be discussed further, as it is of utmost importance. The alienation of the person and the deterioration of social life caused by technological advances are the main issues in the postmodern society. What is more, they are two of the main reasons for which consumption patterns have changed, and the consumer society, as Baudrillard describes it, has come into being. It is important to remember though that Toynbee sees postmodernism as a negative consequence of the politics of the time. The negative aspect is brought upon by the manifestation through war, but all in all, postmodernism is just an expression of change. In this case, change was negative. As far as aesthetics go, Drolet presents the takes of Olson on the subject of postmodernism. The latter saw postmodernism as a reaction against modernism and its defining attributes: the formal and symbolic representation of reality and experience as means to both deepen the humanity s self knowledge and strengthen its ability to master the Universe. 21 Olson argues that the aesthetics have lost their purpose during modernism. The latter over rationalized civilization and art to the point where people could no longer have fully authentic experiences of life. The author believes that the new postmodern aesthetic would liberate human potentialities that were so far stifled by the intellectualization of human experience 22. Aside from the blatant critique of the modernism, reading between the lines one can definitely see how the new postmodern approach of the aesthetics encourages self expression, personal development and experimentation. It takes the rational out of art and encourages feeling and experience. The new aesthetic would repudiate the rational conceptualization of sense experience as a prelude to formal representation, narration and interpretation Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p. 8 17

18 The previous statement lights up another important characteristic of postmodernism: the current rather looks for meaning than attempts to change views and ideologies. Together with change, interpretation is one of the postmodern keywords. Semiotics and art developed the aesthetic point of view further: from Peirce with his triads of meaning, to Ogden and Richards and the semiotic triangle 24, to Magritte and his famous pipe, they all have a very common denominator: the world is not what it appears to be, all is interpretation, everything stands for something else. As far as architecture goes, Venturi believes that modern architecture suppressed individuality and enforced social conformity. 25 In his view, the architectural language was too elitist and lost its vitality while drawing in itself. He comments on the fact that the architecture can no longer embody and illustrate the diversity of human experience, and so it needs new aesthetic principles to guide it. Furthermore, Jencks, the acknowledged guru of postmodernism 26, argues that architecture should draw on the individuality and diversity that characterize present times. It is his belief that architecture should speak to both elites as well as to the man on the street. The main aesthetic principle of architecture should be using forms and symbols that [are] meaningful to an international elite and [have] relevance to a local population. 27 Again the trend to go towards interpretation is obvious. When talking about the postmodern society, the French author Jean Baudrillard makes a similar comment on the postmodern culture, which follows a recycling pattern: the elites have access to what the author calls the High Culture, and this culture is recycled and made available to the masses. 28 Baudrillard uses the argument against the cultural values of the consumer society, which became common and bland. So even though postmodernists argue for a descend of the modern elitist cultural values in the day-to-day life, Baudrillard emphasizes the negative effect that the process had on the society: instead of rising to the cultural values, the consumer society dragged them down and transformed them into what the author calls LCC lowest common culture Arnould, E., L. Price & G. Zinkhan: Consumers, International edition, 2 nd ed., Boston: McGraw-Hill (2004), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003) 27 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), pp Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

19 According to Drolet, Jencks and Venturi s postmodern alternative was critiqued as it was unable to free itself from commercial imperatives. 30 But it can be argued that this is an important characteristic of the postmodern art and culture: it becomes commercial. As discussed later, Baudrillard makes a clear distinction and brings the best argument: the postmodern culture of the consumer society is fashion and consumer oriented. The main goal is not to inform or express, but to be consumed. It is not a problem of bringing something new to the table, but a problem of interpreting the world so that more people can understand it. Once again, it becomes clear that the postmodern ideology is oriented towards interpretation. Rather than giving the people a set of values and norms for living their lives and creating culture, postmodern encourages the individual to come up with their own views and interpretation of what surrounds them Postmodernism and philosophy In philosophy, names such as Foucault, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche colored the scene at the beginning of the postmodern current. All of them saw the need for a new ideology as the modern one was blind to what is behind rationality and experience. Schopenhauer mainly critiques Hegel s phenomenology, stating that it made people blind to important issues that go beyond servicing their immediate needs. He argues that the world and the individual are hooked into the immediate, with no regards to issues of being and existence 31. What is more, people have become slaves of the will. They must go beyond the immediate to find the aim of the whole of life 32. Nietzsche thinks that modernity is nihilism, as it negates value, meaning and desirability 33. He denies the existence of the absolute truth and encourages a gay science, one that keeps turning and questioning itself to discover new answers to old questions. With his shocking announcement 30 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p

20 that Gott ist tot 34, the German philosopher critiques the modernity for killing the values and shows the need for a new ideology, in which the human is the creator and interpreter: God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? 35 The passage illustrates Nietzsche s view that modernity has killed all values and meaning in this metaphor illustrated as God. It is important that the individuals atone, and become creators in order to restore the damage they did. They have to take a good look at the world and start interpreting, start creating, become a superman, one who creates beauty, embraces life and is unchained from any form of morality. Foucault goes even further in his epistemology, saying that one should leave the past behind, as the individual is not capable to learn from it. In essence, Foucault says the same thing that Nietzsche does: rely on creation not on what others did in the past. The time to live and learn is now. This idea is also one of the most important pillars of postmodernism, as the current takes great pride on being contemporary, actual and, as Baudrillard would say, up-to-the-minute. The deconstruction theory of Derrida criticizes the Foucauldian epistemology by stating that the French philosopher still argues for the existence of absolute truths. Derrida makes some very important points in his argument. As his theory says, he wants to create a definitive rupture between the traditional, modern philosophy and create another one that is appropriate to the new times and the new human condition: the traditional philosophy is illusory. 36 The new philosophy the hermeneutics is the philosophical enquiry into understanding and interpretation. 37 It is the hermeneutic view that individuals experience 34 God is dead. 35 Nietzsche, F. W.: The Gay Science. Cambridge UK, New York: Cambridge University Press. (2001) 36 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p

21 the world through language. Language is the key for interpreting and experiencing the world, thus there is no absolute truth, no one knowledge that is universally available all is interpretation. It once again becomes clear how at the roots of postmodernism lie interpretation, diversity and the empowerment of the human being as creator of meaning. Drolet describes Derrida s theory as quintessentially postmodern 38. The deconstructive theory has changed not just the way texts are written, but also the way texts are read. This further empowers postmodernism to reach another one of its goals: the blurring of the lines between disciplines. It is a postmodern ambition to further unify knowledge. By negating the modern narratives, and especially the meta-narratives, postmodern language needs to find a proper way of presenting itself. Lyotard makes the distinction between narrative and scientific knowledge. The author stated that scientific knowledge has taken over in the modern times because it was more comprehensive and universal. In the meantime, society has gone through changes mainly that it doesn t value the absolute truths anymore 39. It follows that a new narrative has to emerge, one that is fit to the new social, political, cultural and economical situation of the new order. As the postmodern condition is characterized by a general skepticism towards grand narratives, it goes to follow that science can no longer use its own narratives to make itself known. The solution provided by Lyotard is for science to turn to other narratives, but this comes with strings attached, as by doing so, the discipline loses its credibility. What is more, Lyotard manages to present here how the interdisciplinary barriers disappear: through the use of narrative knowledge. By accomplishing that, ground is given to new discoveries and territories. Again it is plain to see the tendency towards experimentation and creation. The author predicts that the modern science shall be replaced by the postmodern science, one that is not preoccupied with finding absolute truth, but rather with aspects that can t be decided: pragmatic paradoxes, catastrophes etc Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p

22 Deleuze s take on the flaws of the traditional philosophy create the basis of a global way of thinking. According to him, philosophy needs to be restored to an immanent power of creation by understanding diversity, rather than unity. It needs to see the Being and the world as a diverse entity. 41 It is plain to see once again the push of postmodernism towards creativity and interpretation. Irrigaray takes the subject even further and denies the modern language which is seen as patriarchal and reduced to a fixed set of fundamental categories 42. The author shows the need for a new and improved language that accounts for women as well. Feminism is an important subject in postmodernism, one of the major changes that the current brings from the modern period is that women have an identity and that they are citizens of the society as well. The change was inevitable, as on the historic plain women have gained more and more rights, so it is only fair to develop language and narratives that include them as well. In modern times, when the individual was categorized by means of production and consumption (production was good and consumption was bad), men were the only ones that were deemed fit to be acknowledged, as they were the only ones contributing to the welfare of society by producing goods. But as times have changed, and women were given more power, furthermore, as consumption has no longer been regarded as a negative and destructive process for the society, the need to include women as active citizens arouse. Irrigaray plays more or less on Lyotard s assumption that modern narratives are outdated in the contemporary society, so they need to be changed. Jameson sees postmodernism as a particular historical era, not a type of cultural style. 43 Capitalism has caused dramatic changes in the society and culture as well. The author approaches the same issue that Baudrillard does: the loss of cultural value. Jameson says that in the postmodern times, culture has become all the same, so mainly, the differences between high and low culture have disappeared. Now this wouldn t be necessarily bad if the trend was upwards, but the low culture has encompassed the low culture, taking everything 41 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p

23 down with it. The author calls this depthlessness the art and other cultural expressions have become flat and increasingly superficial. He also tackles the subject of reality, which is heterogeneous it is impossible to render a coherent account of it, as it is overwhelming, constantly changing and always outside our grasp. 44 Jameson states that events are too big for us to face and understand, so the reality becomes heterogeneous. When faced with the problem of reality, Baudrillard doesn t even attempt to find a way for the individual to know it: all that the people see about this world are images on TV. They consume reality just like they consume anything else: The consumer s relation to the real world, to politics, to history, to culture is not a relation of interest, investment or committed responsibility nor is it one of total indifference: it is a relation of curiosity. 45 It follows that the consumer is no longer aware of their surroundings. They merely consume the image of an image of the events occurring around them. It is understandable then why Jameson states that the world lives in a perpetual discontinuous present and that by experiencing reality as intensity postmodern era is, above all one of feeling More recent takes on postmodernism In their article Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption, Firat and Venkatesh sum up the differences between modernism and postmodernism in the form of six critiques, which will be presented as follows 47 : a. Modernism has created a world where everything is scientific, technologic and rational. Postmodernism points out that the world isn t merely scientific, it s also about aesthetics, art, language etc. what is more, it is believed that modernism has become dogmatic and one-dimensional. The risk of working with meta-narratives and 44 Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Drolet, Michel: The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. London, New York: Routledge. (2003), p Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, pp

24 absolute values, led modernism to a point where it deals with surface realities 48. Also, as time evolved, the individual can t be seen as a mere cognitive subject anymore they must be seen as consumers. b. Modernism has not delivered the technological, scientific and ethical society it promised. In other words, the fact that the society seems to be declining under the current ideology is a clear sign that it needs to be changed. The individual feels oppressed in a society that offers no relief, so postmodernism strives to re-enchant human life and liberate the consumer from a repressive rational/technological scheme. 49 c. The modern world was made of dichotomies, where the first term had superiority over the second: male/female, production/consumption, Occident/Orient etc. Because of this black and white view, modernism constitutes itself as a dogma. Postmodernism sees the diversity of the experiences and does not discard, overlook or categorize. In postmodernism everything is interpretation, thus subjective it is an open critique of the modern dichotomies. d. In the modern era, the status of the consumer was uncertain, if not paradoxical. On one hand, according to the dichotomy production/consumption, the producer was the creator of value a desirable status, while the consumer was the destroyer of such value 50, thus creating an image of a social pariah. On the other hand, slogans such as The consumer is king! or The consumer is always right! are confusing and create a sense of unease. Consumers feel misplaced in a modern environment where they are encouraged to be themselves, but then are criticized and looked down on for doing so. Postmodernism sees everyone as consumers first, and then as producers. The paradox is resolved by making everyone a consumer and producer (of value through the act of consumption) in turn. As the authors say, postmodernism [ ] elevates consumption to a level on par with production, where consuming is also 48 Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p This dichotomy also created the male/female one, as men were seen as the providers and women the consumers. 24

25 viewed as a value-producing activity. 51 This argument is one of the critiques that can be brought to postmodernism as well, as it encourages consumerism and the production of waste. e. When it comes to art and architecture, modernism is very strict in its forms as it is based in rationalism and science. Postmodernism gives more way to expression, experiments and symbolic representation. f. The last critique that Firat and Venkatesh bring to modernism is a consequence of the fourth one, mainly, the feminine movement. As previously stated, the women were seen as mere consumers. The Cartesian cognitive subject was also male. So it only follows that there is a clear necessity for an acknowledgement of the women as well dichotomies be gone Conclusion It is clear so far, from the discussed issues that a change of ideology from modernism to postmodernism was necessary. The society in all its chapters has evolved to the point where modernism has been rendered mute. The ideology is outdated and can no longer offer a framework for society to evolve further. Times have changed, and so the current of thought has to adapt and alter as well. Figure 1 presented on the following page, shows the main differences between the modern and postmodern ideologies, as well as the need for a change of view in the present day society. Modernism has shaped the world up to a point where the changes and the framework it puts on the table are no longer viable. From now on it is time to step into the postmodern times, in the consumer society. The argument formulated so far does not in any way deny the merits of modernism. Without its technological progress and the scientific way of thinking, the society today might not enjoy the technology and gadgets that make the life of the postmodern consumer so much easier. It is not to say that modernism is bad, just merely outdated. 51 Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p

26 It can be seen that these ideologies seem to be founded as critiques of the previous ones: romanticism is a critique of industrialism; modernism is a critique of romanticism and so on. Postmodernism seems to have learned from both romanticism and modernism s mistakes and formulated a new, improved and far more accurate ideology for the contemporary times. It seems to find a middle way to bring together mind and soul, production and consumption, human and machine. It is expression, experiment, freedom and progress. Figure 1 52 The values have changed dramatically from one period to the next. Postmodernism has taken what modernism had to offer and opened it for interpretation. The tables have turned and now, what used to be considered to have no value has been given some. Postmodernism has transformed the black and white modern world into a promise land filled with opportunity. People now live in the internet era, the consumer society the society of the spectacle. 52 Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p

27 Further on the paper will tackle the manifestations of postmodernism in the contemporary times, mainly the consumer society, the society of the spectacle and its consequences on the values produced by them. This first part was mainly constructed to show the promises the postmodernism made, what it wanted to change and how. It is now time to see how and if it delivered on those promises. It is time to take a look at the postmodern society: its rules, its values, its manifestations and its consequences on consumers and their values. 2. THE CONSUMER SOCIETY: ESTABLISHMENT AND CHARACTERISTICS After the transition period between modernism and postmodernism, the later installed comfortably in the contemporary society and changed the way the world revolves. It is not just a matter of ideology, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say that postmodernism influenced society and society influenced postmodernism, it is definitely a two way street. The world needed a push to strive and evolve from the modern times. It needed a justification, a context in which the new developments in technology and the new lifestyle to make sense and be encouraged. The geopolitical changes in the world, the occurrence of two World Wars and the wave of new developments that happened since the beginning of the 20 th century had major potential in changing the society. All they needed was a system in which they were justified, promoted and encouraged. This system is the postmodernism as it offered the change that society was definitely ready for. Firat and Venkatesh make a crucial first point that when referring to postmodernism, it might be more appropriate to use the plural postmodernisms, as the current is a compilation of several themes with different origins or starting points. 53 It is a logical assumption, since postmodernism promotes diversity and interpretation. The authors distinguish among several types of postmodernism: celebratory, liberatory, critical etc. but setting aside their differences, however subtle or unsubtle they are, it is important to see the central values and themes of the current. 53 Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p

28 Postmodernism creates a shift from the core values of modernism. While the later promotes economy, science and technology, postmodernism is more of a cultural movement. It promotes ideas of culture, language, aesthetics, narratives, symbolic modes, and literary expressions 54. It offers a relief from the rigid order and scientific discourse that the modernism sets, and opens horizons towards interpretation and self-expression. It challenges the interdisciplinary boundaries and strives to erase them in order to offer a more diverse environment, encouraging the individual to see it in their own way. Approached from such an angle, modernism created a set of beliefs and rules that boxed the world and offered it to the people. Its main message was: this is the world, this is how you live. Postmodernism on the other hand encourages diversity: there isn t just one world - each person creates their own frame of mind, their own boundaries and their own interpretation. It is mainly what Firat and Venkatesh refer to when they talk about hiperreality. Everything is challenged, there are no absolutes and the individual is given the opportunity to make their own sense of the world. Objectivism is replaced by subjectivism. The new ideology doesn t look at the human subject to see merely its cognitive potential, postmodernism considers other possible profiles, such as human beings as communicative subjects guided by language as much as by rational thought. 55 One of the main consequences of postmodernism is that individuals are no longer viewed as either producers or consumers of value. In modern times, when the means of production were dictating social status, dichotomy made sense. Production was creation, because it added something of value to human lives and thus it was considered sacred activity. 56 But in a mass-producing society, there seems to be a need to change the paradigm. Postmodernism sees all individuals as consumers. The cycle of value production occurs through consumption. 54 Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p

29 As Firat and Venkatesh cleverly observe, one of the main reasons for this change is the separation of the public (domain of production) from the private (domain of consumption): this way people weren t seen simply as producers or destroyers of value. Each of them was in turn both producers in their work time and consumers in their leisure time. They are thus entitled to consume, as in one form or another they consume the results of their own work. A mass producing society required a mass consumer who could benefit from its products, as creative labor at home has quietly surrendered its power to productive labor in the public domain. 57 What is more, the authors present Marchand s four major moves which triggered the growth of the consumer society 58 : a. The separation of the public from the private domain in modern times the desirable state was production of value. Post modernity rather concentrates on the circulation of such value. b. The apparition of consumer society which settled in encouraged by mass media and new developments. 59 c. The capitalist market has assigned the role of producer to the male and the role of consumer to the female. d. Consumers are now called shoppers as marketing and advertising increase in importance. All of these factors are a prerequisite for the consumer society which was to follow. They all show how the necessity of a change in paradigm came to be. So, as postmodernism replaces modernism in the new societal landscape, it would be interesting to see how it shaped it and the repercussions it has on the society. After a review of the specialized literature, four main characteristics of the consumer society emerged: 57 Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p The concept of consumer society is one of major interest to this paper and shall be discussed further in the chapter to follow. 29

30 a. It is a world of commodities/objects, b. where the individual is alienated from reality, c. where consumption is a form of language, d. and the market is a validating place. Each of these characteristics will be analyzed in the following pages Consumption as a form of language Simmel [ ] argues that consumption cultivated individuals by allowing them to attach their own meanings to and act upon the objects in their world. Consumption determined many consumers values and experiences regarding life and being. 60 Postmodernism caused a shift in consumers motivation to buy objects. According to Cova, the postmodern leitmotif is the link is more important than the thing 61. In his introduction to Baudrillard s The Consumer Society, George Ritzer seems to agree: commodities are no longer defined by their use, but rather by what they signify. And what they signify is defined not by what they do, but by their relationship to the entire system of commodities and signs. 62 This brings the discussion to a point where clarification is needed on one of the most important changes in paradigms that postmodernism brought: the way in which the world is seen and communicated. In short, the new language that postmodernism uses to communicate. The postmodern world is all about image. As technology advanced, people are communicating mainly through images. They see the world as presented on TV and they buy their commodities because of an image they create about themselves, as well as for the 60 Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p Cova, Bernard. (1999). Chapter 4: From marketing to societing. In: Brownlie, Douglas: Rethinking marketing: towards critical marketing accountings. SAGE Publications. p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p. 7 30

31 image advertisers create for them: Their daily dealings are now not so much with their fellow men, but rather on a rising statistical curve with the reception and manipulation of goods and messages. 63 The consumer world is a web of meanings among consumers and marketers woven from signs and symbols ensconced in their cultural space and time. 64 Firat and Venkatesh postulate that postmodernism is rather focused on culture, language and aesthetics. In order to better understand the consumer society, one must first understand its language properly. This calls for a short incursion in semiotics, a science that became rather popular at the turn of the 20 th century. One of the pioneers of semiotics was Charles S. Peirce. Though it shall not be discussed here for matters of space, it is important to mention that Peirce s philosophy steps on the grounds laid by Saussure s distinction between language and reality. The American philosopher talks about a triadic relation between a sign, an object and an interpretant. His philosophy states that a person understands the world and that they communicate it using a triadic scheme: a sign [is] anything that stands for something (its object), to somebody (its interpretant), in some respect (its context). 65 Peirce insists on the signification of the interpretant, which is not, as some authors present, the person who does the signification (the interpreter), but rather another sign referring to the same object. 66 In the triadic relation, the sign and the object are the same for everyone, but the interpreter changes in accordance to the context the other two are put in. Figure 2 illustrates the semiotic triangle, together with the cultural context (an advertisement for Johnny Walker) created for the consumer (the interpreter). It is thus clear that anything can stand for anything in a cultural context, which makes it easier to understand how consumer society came to be. The postmodern leitmotif makes 63 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Mick, David Glen. Consumer Research and Semiotics: Exploring the Morphology of Signs, Symbols, and Significance. In: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 13, Iss. 2, p Mick, David Glen. Consumer Research and Semiotics: Exploring the Morphology of Signs, Symbols, and Significance. In: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 13, Iss. 2, p Mick, David Glen. Consumer Research and Semiotics: Exploring the Morphology of Signs, Symbols, and Significance. In: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 13, Iss. 2, p

32 better sense now, as objects are bought for their interpretants rather than for their utility. The consumers buy the objects as they transfer meaning to their own person. McCracken explains and illustrates the circulation of meaning: Usually, cultural meaning is drawn from a culturally constituted world and transferred to a consumer good. Then the meaning is drawn from the object and transferred to an individual consumer. In other words, cultural meaning is located in three places: the culturally constituted world, the consumer good, and the individual consumer, and moves in a trajectory at two points of transfer: world to good and good to individual. 67 Figure McCracken, Grant. (1986). Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 13, Iss. 1, p Source: Arnould, E., L. Price; G. Zinkhan: Consumers, International edition, 2 nd ed., Boston: McGraw-Hill (2004), p

33 Figure 3 shows the transferring of meaning from the culturally constituted world to the consumers. Figure 3 69 This model shows very clearly how motivation for consumption has changed. The objects exist in a culturally constituted world, pass through the filter of art, fashion and integrated marketing communication system and are imbibed with meaning. Then, through different means of consumption (the author calls them rituals), they transfer their meaning to the consumer, who in turn, receives social status. It is a model of consumption specific to the consumer society and a stepping-stone in studying the postmodern consumer behavior. It is also a scheme that shows how value is transferred. In modern times the relation between objects and the world was a two-dimensional one: the object was bought for its utility. Consumption was seen as the bad end of production, so it fits that modern 69 Source: Arnould, E., L. Price; G. Zinkhan: Consumers, International edition, 2 nd ed., Boston: McGraw-Hill (2004), p

34 consumers would only buy to satisfy their basic needs. Peirce made the first step in showing that the reality is actually three-dimensional. As mass-producing society grows, it drags along the increase in mass-consuming society. This creates what Debord calls the commodity society and what Baudrillard refers to as the consumer society. In this environment, the main language is consumption. The French author goes even further, explaining the social logic of consumption, one that goes beyond the modern satisfaction of needs into the realm of production and manipulation of social signifiers 70. Further on, he states that seen from this perspective, there are two ways of analyzing the consumption process 71 : a. Consumption seen as a language, a system of exchange ; b. Consumption seen as a process of classification and social differentiation where the objects consumed are in themselves a message of social status. Baudrillard considers that in this form of consumption, the individual consumes the signification of the object, which has the power to differentiate or integrate them from/into other social groups. However, it is not clear how these two angles of consumption differ from one another. If the individuals use language as a form of expression and communication, as well as a form of relating to the outside world, and they send messages to others through this language, then the first instance is not that different from the other. Both of them see consumption as a language, the only difference is that in the second one consumption is merely seen as a social language. A further clarification would be needed on the system of exchange view in order to make a clearer difference. 70 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

35 2.2. The individual s rupture from reality The evolution of technology brought with itself new means of communication, or even better said, the means of mass communication. By listening to the radio, reading a newspaper or watching the news on TV, the individual could learn everything he wanted about the world he lives in. As Baudrillard notices, What characterizes consumer society is the universality of the news item in mass communication. 72 As previously stated, the individual is driven by curiosity. He now has access to information about a world he would probably never get to experience. Going even further, the internet has opened huge new horizons as it has taken communication to a true global scale. But however convenient the new situation might be, it does have a reverse, which backfires strongly: by experiencing the world through mass media, the individual grows even more alienated from it. It is one of the postmodern paradoxes in communication: the more an individual tries to know the world through mass media, the more he grows apart from reality. Baudrillard actually shows how the characteristics of the news item have changed in this new society. According to him, the news item is also confronting with the same paradox in communication, as it is both actualized dramatized in a spectacular way and deactualized reduced to signs and images and sent through a channel. 73 What mass media creates is a world of the interpreted reality. It offers the individual their view on current events. It interprets, selects and presents only that news which is relevant or deemed important enough by a producer, thus providing the individual not with a connection to the real world, but with a connection to the mass mediated world. The postmodern individual is nothing if not isolated from reality. Debord even goes as far as calling him Homo Spectator as he sits by and watches the world as it is presented to him. This would not be a negative aspect onto itself, but when combined with the fact that he thinks it s the reality, a rupture occurs. At the beginning of his book, the author remarks that 72 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), pp

36 reality erupts within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real 74 : the mass mediated version of the world thus becomes reality for the consumer, but that does not mean that the real world is still not somewhere out there. Marcuse also talks about the individual s separation from reality from a social perspective. He believes that the postmodern society and its educational system push the individual into socializing from very early stages in their lives, thus encouraging conformism through kindergarten, pre-schools etc.: The individual does not really know what s going on; the overpowering machine of education and entertainment unites him with all the others in a state of anesthesia, from which all detrimental ideas tend to be excluded. 75 The point tends to be a little extreme, though true. The education system might create conformism and start the individual s rupture from reality at an early age, but it is a necessary evil as it is a means to single out value. Of course it is not proper to engage children so young in socializing activities, but starting from an acceptable age it is important for them to learn skills and information in order to reach their potential. In Eros and Civilization Marcuse s main point is that human relations in the postmodern society have deteriorated. There is no doubt that what he says is indeed true, but some of the points he makes are rather extreme. One of the main factors he blames for the human s alienation is the feeling of guilt that the individual has 76 and for most people labor becomes a mean to atone. The point Marcuse makes is that people are caught between the reality and the pleasure principle. The two are antagonistic and influence the decisions the individual makes. Between these principles lies the feeling of guilt, the little voice in the individual s head telling him to choose. Although it is a very interesting critique of Freud s work for postmodern times, Eros and Civilization does have its minuses, especially in the dichotomous view of the world. 74 Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p The author based his book preponderantly on Freud s work. The feeling of guilt is common to all people and it comes from the original sin. The wish to atone, to get make up for the guilt is what drives all individuals, it is the motivation behind their behavior. 36

37 Another aspect that separates the postmodern individual from reality is the immense quantity of information available. Baudrillard talks about the universality of the news item but says nothing about the quantity. Mass media and technology rose hand in hand and positively drowned the individual in a pool of information from which it is difficult to choose what is of importance: The individual, though condemned to the passive acceptance of an alien everyday reality, is thus driven into a form of madness, in which by resorting to magical devices, he entertains the illusion that he is reacting to his fate. 77 Firat and Venkatesh call this fragmentation as well as the decentering of the subject. Mass media have opened up the world for the individual to know. He now has the possibility to find out about events that happened on the other side of the globe at the push of a button. It is unfortunate though that instead of getting to know his surroundings and gathering some first-hand information about his close environment, the postmodern individual prefers to find out more about what the news channels decide is important. Even though the postmodern time is incredibly flashy in the huge amounts of information it makes available to the population, the truth is that none or very little of that information is really helping people to connect to reality. This argument is in no way meant to denigrate the mass media or to imply that it manipulates the world. It is simply an observation of the reality. If not for the mass media, the postmodern individual would probably find another way of alienating himself from reality. All in all, the mass media are a necessary harm. It might be that they do more good than they hurt. What is important is to realize that what they present, even if it is a live transmission, is not the reality, but merely a representation of it The world of commodities In his work, The Society of the Spectacle, Debord presents his very drastic and critical point of view about the postmodern world. Even from the beginning he warns the reader that This book should be read bearing in mind that it was written with the deliberate intention 77 Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p

38 of doing harm to spectacular society. 78 His main critique seems to be that the individual lives in the world governed by commodities: the world we see is the world of the commodity. 79 It is a world where the individual only lives to consume. Whether its objects, images or anything else, the postmodern individual seems to consume a world that ends up consummating 80 him. The point made is rather harsh and unilateral, as it doesn t hold into account the means of production. The author depicts a society that only consumes. In Baudrillard s consumer society, there seems to be a little more balance: This does not mean that our society is not firstly, objectively and decisively a society of production, an order of production, and therefore the site of an economic and political strategy. But it means that it is entangled with that order an order of consumption, which is an order of the manipulation of signs. 81 Further on, Debord talks about the principle of commodity fetishism which consists of the domination of society by things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses. 82 What he author means to point out here is that people are indeed not buying for utility s sake. They make a purchase after seeing advertisements on TV so their decision is made based on some qualities of the product that are indeed imperceptible to the senses. What Debord calls the world of commodity, Baudrillard depicts as a world governed by affluence. In his view, the humans of the age of affluence are surrounded not so much by other human beings, as they were in all previous ages, but by objects. 83 For the French author a world governed by affluence is a world dominated by objects. He defines affluence as the possession of ever more goods and individual and collective amenities Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p The term consummate is used here in the form intended by Baudrillard pure and simple destruction in Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), pp Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

39 Baudrillard also exposes the dangers of affluence and indirectly, the dangers that a commodity driven society poses. According to him, the more affluence grows, the more the system becomes parasitic upon itself 85. The production of more goods and services actually destabilizes the labor market, along with the rapid progress in technology. People find it hard to keep up and are sometimes left behind. The author predicts a time when the system will have to produce and consume only to keep functioning. 86 As production value is overseen and the emphasis is on the consumption value of any item, the latter becomes a dangerous drive for the postmodern society. It encourages consumerism and the generation of waste seen by the author as negative products generated by the economy, though according to Mandeville, and later Baudrillard, waste is a sign of a wealthy economy The market as a validating place The thing about living in a commodity driven society is that all the objects need to be acknowledged and exchanged for their value, producing them is not enough. The market is definitely such a place. The commodity has turned the whole planet into a single world market 88 and this market has become the place for cultural, economic and informational exchange. It is definitely the place where value circulates in the consumer society. Even the person has become a commodity in these times. Marcuse observes that the social value of the individual is measured primarily in terms of standardized skills and qualities adjustment rather than autonomous judgment and personal responsibility. 89 This is also contributing to the previous remark that the postmodern person is alienated from reality. In exchange for objectifying the individual, the market also creates a place for him as, what Baudrillard calls, the hero of consumption. He is opposed to the hero of production, and is 85 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), pp Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p

40 a character that apparently spends their time consuming. 90 The postmodern market justifies this behavior saying that he is not merely a consumer, but a creator of value. The author further presents the drive, the mechanism behind the postmodern market: The consumer society needs its objects in order to be. More precisely, it needs to destroy them. The use of objects leads only to their dwindling disappearance. The value created is much more intense in violent loss. 91 So it appears that the market is where the objects and their value are evaluated, exchanged and destroyed. What remains after all this is the process of creating value, be it symbolic or otherwise. The postmodern market is beyond monetary. It takes its fuel from satisfying the needs of the consumer which, as previously shown, go beyond utility, but are undoubtedly present. It is true that most of them are fabricated by advertisers and marketers, but they are still very much real to the consumer and they need to be satisfied. The system needs people as workers (wage labor), as savers (taxes, loans etc.), but increasingly it needs them as consumers. 92 The postmodern market though is not just a place where people consume. It is also a place where they can learn to consume responsibly: The consumer society is also the society of learning to consume, of social training in consumption. 93 Baudrillard also implies that the marketplace has a hierarchy of its own: All men are equal before objects as use-value, but they are by no means equal before objects as signs and differences, which are profoundly hierarchical. 94 What the author means to imply is that the postmodern marketplace is blind to social differences. All it cares about is how consumers draw meaning and value from its commodities. 90 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

41 3. THE CONSEQUENCES OF POSTMODERNISM As the main characteristics of postmodernism have been discussed, it is now time to show what kind of consequences the current has on the contemporary society. This is not a discussion on whether these consequences are good or bad, rather on how they manifest. The research on literature has drawn to light four major consequences of postmodernism: a. People are alienated from each other and from the world. b. Time is seen as a commodity. c. Culture has been irrevocably altered. d. Advertising and marketing practices have become the new religion. Each of these aspects shall be discussed in more detail in the following pages. They are also very relevant for the case study that follows this theoretical analysis, as each and every one of them can be observed in action in the online community depicted The alienation There are several factors that contributed to the alienation of the individual in the postmodern world. Marcuse finds its origins in the clashing of the two basic principles that govern the human being: the pleasure principle and the reality principle. In his view, the element that tips the scale from one to another is the human s sentiment of guilt. Following in the steps of Freud, the author s theory is that conducted by guilt, people only act on the reality principle and this leaves them frustrated. He goes so far as to postulate that both society and civilization are built on sublimation, as the guilt-driven people forget about giving in to their pleasure, and that it tends towards self destruction. 95 The same tendency is also observed by Baudrillard, but for him the self destruction is called waste. In a world where consumption is the universal language and form of expression, the rising generations are new inheritors: they no longer merely inherit goods, but the natural 95 Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p

42 right to abundance. 96 As previously stated, waste is the dysfunction of an affluent society, and the paradox in this is not lost as the concept defies scarcity and [ ] signifies abundance. 97 On some level, the concepts of waste and guilt are very similar. Even though one is a product and the other a driver, they both create negative effects and are seen by their authors as the key factors in the destruction of the society and civilization. Even though the individuals do not think in terms of psychological and sociological concepts, they are aware of how their actions influence the environment they live in, creating a sentiment of alienation. It is a vicious circle: they generate waste because they feel guilty and they feel guilty because they generate waste. This helplessness the individual feels builds up to their alienation from the world. As showed earlier, the postmodern consumer is not connected to reality, but merely to an image of it. Living in the society of the spectacle where commodity [is] ruling over all lived experience 98, irreversibly affects human relations, in the sense that instead of interacting with other people, the individuals now interact with objects and their meanings. The fact that consumption has become a form of language onto itself is also a factor that encouraged this transformation. This society eliminates geographical distance only to reap distance internally in the form of spectacular separation. 99 Debord s argument refers to the fact that the world has become a global market, and the spectacular separation comes from the drive that the spectacle inoculates in people s minds: the drive towards consumption. In Marcuse s work, the spectacular separation comes from the fact that people themselves are seen as commodities on the global postmodern market. They are evaluated according to their skills and assets and their value on this market is only as much as their labor goes. This creates a rupture from the primarily socializing cradle, the family: the family becomes less decisive in directing the adjustment of the individual to society. 100 In the previous chapter, 96 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p

43 Marcuse s view on socializing was discussed as well. Combining the two, it is easy to see how a person who has been in the educational system from their early childhood and then grown to be a player on the market, thus valued only for their capabilities, becomes estranged. This person has developed their socializing skills away from the people who could have taught them the value of humanity, so it s easy to see how they come to believe that they are worth only what the market, or the consumer society says they re worth. And so, the feeling of alienation grows so much stronger. The development of technology is also an important factor that contributed to alienation of the individual. As the previous chapter has shown how mass media has created the rupture of the individual from reality, it is now time to see how the internet has created the rupture from society. The internet has, without a doubt, erased all boundaries from communication, mainly the geographical ones. Just as the mass media and the generalized consumption of images, of facts, of information aims [ ] to conjure away the real with the signs of the real 101, so does the newest manifestation of the internet, the social media, aim to conjure away the human relations with the signs of human relations. In the contemporary society it is possible to communicate with anyone and everyone, no matter the geographical distance, and it can be done for free. The social networks count their users in hundreds of millions 102, while Facebook is closing in on one billion, with a whopping 900 million users as of April Online forums and discussion boards, such as the one analyzed in the following case study, are becoming breaking grounds for consumers to give and receive advice, express their feelings and concerns and to create a connection. But no matter how much time is spent on social media, the human relations are not genuine, and sooner or later, the individual realizes that they are still alone and alienated from the world, and now, from society. The main consequence of this alienation is consumerism. As people feel more alone, they fill the void by consuming what the market offers. This gives them the feeling that they are in 101 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Twitter announced 140 million users in April 2012 and Google+ 90 million in January

44 some sort of control and that they are actually communicating using the language of consumption. Herbert Marcuse sums up the basic idea of alienation the consumer society: People dwell in apartment concentrations and have private automobiles which they can no longer escape into a different world. They have huge refrigerators filled with frozen foods. They have thousands of newspapers and magazines expose the same ideas. They have innumerable choices, innumerable gadgets which are all of the same sort and keep them occupied and divert their attention from the real issue which is the awareness that they could both work less and determine their own needs and satisfactions. 104 The literature seems to agree that the contemporary era is one where human relations are slowly giving way to customer-commodity relations. The process has begun in steps, from considering consumption as a form of language to creating an artificial environment for artificial relationships to evolve. These and all in between have developed the sense of alienation, the feeling of being isolated together 105 among the postmodern population Time as a commodity Another consequence of postmodernism is the new view of time as a commodity, which makes sense in a consumer society governed by a global market. People consume in order to enrich their lives and to rid themselves of the alienation feeling, to get the feeling that they belong. In exchange for the commodities that enrich their lives, the individuals sell not only their labor but also their free time. 106 Baudrillard makes the distinction between work time, which does not belong to the individual, and leisure time, or free time, which the individual can use however they want. It can be seen as a further distinction between the public and the private that Firat and 104 Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p

45 Venkatesh put forward in their article. Baudrillard points out that free time has to be earned through work time, thus it is sold to the individual in form of free days, vacation days etc. it is a form of reward, be it non-monetary, that the individual gets for the time they spent working. In the author s view, work time is production time, while leisure time is consumption time. Leisure is not, therefore, so much a function of enjoyment of free time, satisfaction and functional repose. Its definition is that of an unproductive consumption of time. 107 Although it may seem, especially from a modern point of view that Baudrillard gives a tad negative sense to the concept of leisure time, what he wants to transmit is that this time might be unproductive in the same sense that work time is, but it is nonetheless the time of the creation of value the highly charged part of social time. 108 Free time is also sold to individuals through objects designated to make their lives easier: frozen dinners, smart phones, clever kitchen and home appliances etc. Advertisers play cleverly on this idea: when they make a purchase, the individual is helping himself and not the producing company, thus encouraging and rationalizing consumption. What is more, the emergence of the experience economy is also a key factor in transforming time in a commodity. As Pine and Gilmore define it, An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event. 109 The shopping malls that offer everything in one place and creating a whole new world, an air conditioned world as Baudrillard would put it, have a major play on the conception of time in the postmodern society. As the individual is alienated from society and his fellow men, as well as from reality, these shopping centers create a whole new world, the world of consumption and a reality to which the consumers can easily relate to. They create the illusion of affluence, playing on the myth of cornucopia. These are the places where cyclical time goes to die: The drugstores writ large in the form of the shopping center, the city of the future, is the sublimate of all real 107 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Pine, I. I. & Gilmore, James H. (1998). Welcome to the experience economy. In: Harvard Business Review, Vol. 76, Iss. 4, p

46 life, in which not only work and money disappear, but also seasons, those distant vestiges of a cycle which has at last been homogenized! 110 A visit to the mall opens a door to the magic land of Narnia: just one step through the revolving door of the closet, and the magic is unleashed. This is a place where man s struggle through life disappears. Cash is not even an issue anymore since the credit system was put into place. But no matter how much it strives to offer a place of belonging, the magic is gone as soon as one steps outside, as real life goes on no matter what. Baudrillard points out that the struggle, the alienation and the cyclical time define human condition. Such escapes into magic lands might be liberating, but dwelling in such worlds may transform the individual into a consumer robot. Debord also believes that the time of the society of the spectacle is no longer cyclical. It is merely an image of the consumption of time. In other words, it is not the time that the individual takes to know the world, but rather the time they take to consume the images created by the mass media: Consumable pseudo-cyclical time is the time of the spectacle: in the narrow sense, as the time appropriate to the consumption of images, and in the broadest sense as the image of the consumption of time. 111 Technology also plays a very important part in creating this leisure, or spectacular time. Marcuse cleverly observes that Technology operates against the repressive utilization of energy in so far as it minimizes the time necessary for the production of the necessities of life, thus saving time for the development of needs beyond the realm of necessity and of necessary waste. 112 What the author means to say by Civilization has to defend itself against the specter of a world which could be free. 113 is that if not properly controlled, technological advancement might erase the need for working time, thus creating an overflow of leisure/consumption time. When confronted with so much leisure time, the individuals might be tempted to give into the pleasure principle, thus leading civilization to self destruction. 110 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p

47 It is thus an issue of balance between the two forms of time that the individual is confronted with. Looking back, labor time has always been a commodity on the market. Since forever people have been paid for their work, and what is that if not buying their time? But what postmodernism has put forward is that leisure time is for sale as well. It even might be that leisure time is the currency of the consumer society, as it is mainly consumption time The popularization of culture Postmodernism has had a major influence on culture and the way it manifests in society. Baudrillard defines culture as: 1. An inherited legacy of works, thought and tradition; 2. A continuous dimension of theoretical and critical reflection critical transcendence and symbolic function. 114 At the same time, he defines cultural consumption as the time and place of the caricatural resurrection, the parodic evocation of what already no longer exists of what is not so much consumed, but consummated (completed, past and gone). 115 It will be later shown in the following case study how this statement holds true: the new Bratz dolls are a caricatural resurrection of the Barbie dolls, a recycled fashion to keep up with the new times. It is the form of humor and irony that postmodernism uses in its cultural products. The author distinguishes between the High Culture and the Mass Media Culture or, as he calls it, the Lowest Common Culture (further on referred to as LCC). For him the High Culture is available only to the elites of the society, as it has been for centuries. In this he encompasses the true works of art that have passed the test of time, those unique and invaluable products that are irreplaceable and hold intrinsic value that grows as years, or even centuries go by. 114 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

48 A similar concept can be found in Marcuse s work, an author who seems to think that Art survives only where it conceals itself, where it saves its substance by denying its traditional form, and thereby denying reconciliation: where it becomes surrealistic and atonal. 116 But the postmodern time is the time of the here and now. Mass media encouraged this living in the moment theme by creating a need: the need for people to be up to date with everything that is going on around them. As previously discussed, authors seem to recognize a danger in the consumer society: if one does not keep up, they are left behind. Postmodernism is nothing if not rapid progress in technology and the latter has become rather hard to live without nowadays. So the postmodern citizen has to keep up with the times if they wish to be active in such a society. The rush for here and now and the multitasking to which the individual has to cope with daily just in order to stay above the line, leaves little time for culture and its true products. Baudrillard talks about the recycling theory, basically stating that originality and substance are gone. The past is recycled to fit with the present, to go along with these new times. From nature to culture, everything is recycled: refashioned, rearranged, and remodeled so as not to be left behind. Techniques in knowledge and science are adapted and renewed nature is transformed and landscaped into parks to better suit the needs of people. Professionals update their skills and people live in the moment, changing their value systems and cultural beliefs as they change their cars according to fashion, one of the drivers of the consumer society. The author describes fashion as arbitrary, transient, cyclical and [adding] nothing to the intrinsic qualities of the individual. It does, however, impose thoroughgoing constraints and the sanction it wields is that of social success or banishment. 117 This implies that from fear of social banishment, people go with the fashion and its rules. And since it has been established that the postmodern consumer is alienated from the reality and society by the mass media and the other factors, it follows logically that from a wish to reduce this estrangement, they try to at least keep up with the fashion. 116 Marcuse, Herbert: Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1956), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

49 Bourdieu also remarks that fashion now dictates the taste in nowadays society of consumption: social reality is constructed for human beings through structurations that are crucially determined by the economic that, in turn, has to be mediated by the symbolic. As a result of structuration, then, consumer tastes develop that are determined socially, not privately. 118 From the two definitions provided for culture and fashion, it is easy to see how one influences the other: while culture is transcendent and continuous, fashion is cyclical and changeable from one season to the next. Applying the principle of fashion in culture results in what the author calls the LCC the lowest common panoply of right answers the average individual is supposed to posses if he is to win his spurs as a cultural citizen. 119 This is the popular culture, the culture of the masses, as mass communication has made it available to all social categories: The work of art is breaking out of the solitude in which it has for centuries been confined as unique object and privileged moment. Once upon a time, as everyone knows, galleries were sanctuaries. But the masses have now taken over from the solitary owner or the enlightened art lover. And there is no simply industrial reproduction to delight the masses, but a work of art that is both unique and collective: the Multiple. 120 The author further explains that the mass production of that which is unique is the main reason for the downfall in culture and the apparition of LCC: culture is subject to the same competitive demand for signs as any other category of objects, and that it is produced to meet the demand. 121 The new objects are no longer seen as works of art, but just as finite objects into themselves, as culture become a commodity. The value has decreased to the point where they became mundane, part of the package, the constellation of accessories by which the socio-cultural standing of the average citizen is determined Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

50 On the other hand, Debord blames the downfall of culture on the lack of meaning present in the society of the spectacle. He characterizes the postmodern society as a shallow shell, from which nothing of value can come out: Culture is the meaning of an insufficiently meaningful world. 123 Judging from the postmodern semiotics standing point that everything is meaning, that everything stands for something else, the downfall of culture follows suite: culture draws its inspiration from the world around it: if the world has nothing to offer then the cultural products will depict this nothingness. The conclusion that can be drawn from all three arguments is that the world has lost its values and meaning, and as culture draws its inspiration from the world, it goes to follow that the latter has lost its values as well. In a world that is, as Vattimo says, a continuous making of the present 124, culture finds it difficult to establish roots and values, as these change with every day that passes. Postmodernism is the time of the present, where the future and the past are disregarded and people live here and now Advertising and marketing as a new religion Brown points out that the progressive, optimistic, forward-looking, ever-onward-everupward worldview of the modern era has been replaced by a pessimistic, almost apocalyptic, sense of apprehension, anxiety, apathy and anomie. 125 The postmodern consumer lives in such a culturally diverse world and in a global market that identity and common grounds are very hard to come by. What is more, as Marcuse observes, that family is no longer the primary source or social education for the individual, and with the liberalization of the principles, with the erasing of the rules, religion doesn t play an important role individual transmitting symbolic meaning. 123 Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. (1995), p Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, p Brown, Stephen. (2006). Recycling Postmodern Marketing. In: The Marketing Review, Vol. 6, p

51 Baudrillard also states that technology has replaced religion as a form of socialization. The modern individual received communion from the church and was integrated in a social community, although religious. It was a rite of passage, a form of social integration. Postmodernity is a place where there are no rules, only choices 126 and the postmodern consumer chooses to live their life according to fashion guidelines rather than religious ones. What is more, religion was a form of communication, but in postmodern times communication is conducted through technological means and consumption is the new language of social interaction: communion is no longer achieved through a symbolic medium, but through a technical one: this is what makes communication. 127 As previous arguments have shown that postmodernism uses consumption as language, it would be only logical to assume, and the literature seems to agree, that marketing and advertising have become the new postmodern religion. As religion created the need for a person to be good and follow the word of God in order to enjoy eternal life, just as well the postmodern marketing and advertising create needs for people: buy this to be happy, buy this to have an easier life, buy this to have more free time etc. The alienated postmodern consumer finds their place in the uncertain, unreliable and unpredictable postmodern world as long as they follow the word of the marketer. Living in the now, following the fashion trends and being informed are all factors that contributed to the establishment of the must-have era. Firat and Venkatesh are of the opinion that the postmodern principle according to which reality is a construction, a representation and not a given also contributed to the shift in the practices of marketing. They distinguish five themes that are central to the domain 128 : a. Hyperreality there are places that recreate the reality and enhance it, making the new one better. In these places the distinction between reality and fantasy is diminished to the point of being blurred. 126 Brown, Stephen. (2006). Recycling Postmodern Marketing. In: The Marketing Review, Vol. 6, p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Firat, A. Fuat & Venkatesh, Alladi. (1995). Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption. In: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Iss. 3, pp

52 b. Fragmentation the postmodern consumer is bombarded with a large amount of information at any given time. His attention is fragmented as is his lifestyle. c. Reversed production and consumption - from the modern the consumer is king the society has evolved to the postmodern the consumer is the creator. The individual can no longer be manipulated by the marketer to buy a product. The authors observe that brand loyalty is replaced by interpretant loyalty. d. Decentred subject in the postmodern era, consumers are no longer defined by demographics, social class and other traditional marketing segmentation criteria. They play a variety of roles on a daily basis and each of these roles comes with a consumption behavior. e. Juxtaposition of opposites as the postmodern consumer is next to impossible to pin down and be studied, advertising and marketing find a language that appeals to no one in particular and to everyone that is interested. It involves the consumer by encouraging him to create his own meaning and draw his own message from the communication. Brown seems to think that the main characteristic of the postmodern marketing is retrospection. He observes that the ongoing trend is towards retro: Old fashioned brands [ ] have been adroitly revived and successfully relaunched [ ] time-worn slogans are being resuscitated [ ] and long-established products are being repackaged in their original, eyecatching liveries. 129 Cova is of the opinion that postmodern marketing is all about image and the creation of meaning: postmodern marketing s task is to identify meanings for a product. [ ] The product must say something. 130 Advertising then creates a form of transmitting what the product says to the consumer. The author also states that advertising is an important means of transferring meaning from culture to objects and commodities. 129 Brown, Stephen. (2006). Recycling Postmodern Marketing. In: The Marketing Review, Vol. 6, p Cova, Bernard. (1996). What postmodernism means to marketing managers. In: European management journal, Vol. 14, Iss. 5, p

53 But no matter what each author believes about the characteristics of the postmodern marketing and advertising, the truth of the matter is that it is a new religion: it speaks to the masses, it converts them to a lifestyle, and it shows them what choices they have. Just as religion, they create the fear of being punished (socially outcast) if one does not follow the fashion. Even though it is true that marketers have no real influence on the decision the postmodern consumer ultimately makes 131, they do however engage the consumer in the consumption game: the creation of meaning. The postmodern marketing and advertising have come to be seen more as a form of entertainment than persuasion. Baudrillard also observes this trend: The truth is that advertising (like the other mass media) does not deceive us: it is beyond the true and the false, just as fashion is beyond ugliness and beauty and the modern object, in its sign function, is beyond usefulness and uselessness. 132 They showcase all the choices the consumer has, engaging them in a social play where Love thy neighbor has transformed into Love thy lifestyle. Baudrillard manages to say it nicer though: Advertising is prophetic language, in so far as it promotes not learning or understanding, but hope. 133 This hope is exactly what the doctor recommended for the postmodern consumer who lives in the uncertain, unpredictable time which is the post modernity Conclusion The discussion of the consequences postmodernism has on the consumer society brings about the end of the theoretical framework of this paper. Further on it will be shown how these characteristics and consequences are mirrored in an online community. 131 As in postmodern times the advertising seems to have more of an informative role rather than a persuasive one. 132 Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p Baudrillard, Jean: The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (1998), p

54 PART III EMPIRICAL STUDY 1. THE CONTEXT AND THE COMMUNITY Chamber of Secrets is the official collection of forums of mugglenet.com, the number one Harry Potter site 134. The forums contain threads, posts and have users to date. 135 This is a place where Harry Potter fans all over the world can get together in a family friendly environment to discuss Potter related topics as well as issues such as hobbies, politics or current events. Chamber of Secrets also has a section dedicated to parenting, where issues such as breastfeeding, activities for stay at home mothers or teenagers problems are discussed. One of the topics tackled in this section is whether Bratz and Barbie dolls are a role model for the children nowadays, and what their influence is. The reason for choosing this discussion as a case study for this thesis is three-fold: a. It takes place in an online environment, which is utterly postmodern. b. It helps answering the main research question on how postmodernism has affected the value of the consumer products available on the market. c. It mirrors both the characteristics and the consequences that postmodernism has had on contemporary society, as they were presented in the theoretical framework. A small netnographic study was conducted on this particular discussion with the purpose of determining whether consumers see the new products (Bratz dolls) as better as or worse than the older products (Barbie dolls). Although the method is primarily qualitative, some quantitative elements needed to be taken into account. The combination of the two seems to create more reliable results, but it was also designed to make up for the fact that the last two steps of the netnography as presented by Kozintes proved impossible to follow. 134 According to mugglenet.com

55 As argued in the methodology part of this paper, quantitative studies are outdated in the postmodern consumer society, but there is no rule that says qualitative and quantitative together can t show reliable results when it comes to market research. 2. THE BRANDS Barbie is a brand of Mattel Inc. and the most popular doll in the world, as one is sold every 3 seconds worldwide. The doll was born in 1959 and its first occupation was a teenage fashion model. Since then, it had over 130 careers such as teacher, doctor, astronaut etc. and it collaborated with over 75 fashion designers. What is more, Barbie depicted over 40 nationalities in its lifespan. 136 The Bratz dolls were created in 2001 by MGA Entertainment and are marketed as The ONLY girls with a passion for fashion. 137 There are four main characters, Chloe, Jade, Yasmin and Sasha, each depicting a different fashion style, ethnicity and personality. The dolls come in 17 collections, such as Rock, Sleep Over or Holiday, and are presenting the latest fashion for each situation in particular. The pictures below show the two products in question, the Barbie doll 138 and the Bratz dolls All the information regarding Barbie dolls was taken from Image source: Image source: Google Images. The Bratz site does not offer pictures of the products available for downloading. 55