Theories of Consumption

Theories of Consumption explores the concept of consumption from the post-disciplinary perspective of cultural studies. John Storey brings together work that up until now has been located in distinct disciplinary spaces including work on reception theory in literary studies and philosophy; work on consumer culture in sociology, anthropology and history; and work on media audiences (both ethnographic and theoretical) in media studies and sociology. Moving beyond the usual analysis of consumer culture, Storey presents a critical assessment of a range of theoretical approaches to the study of consumption. In doing so, he provides an authoritative overview of a significant selection of research and analysis that has explored consumption as an object of study. This book provides an ideal introduction to consumption for students of media and cultural studies and will also be useful for students within a number of other disciplines such as sociology, history, anthropology, cultural geography and both literary and visual studies.

Table of Contents:
Contents Preface Acknowledgements 1. Why We Consume Marx, alienation and consumption Social emulation The Romantic ethic Notes 2. Consumption as Manipulation The Frankfurt School The Leavisism The mythologies of Roland Barthes Problems with the cultural-consumption-as-manipulation model Notes 3. Consumption as Communication Conspicuous consumption Consumption as culture Consumption as class struggle Consumption as secondary production Notes 4. Consumption as Production Hermeneutics The Constance School Interpretative communities Reading formations and paratextuality 5. Media Consumption The Encoding/Decoding Model Watching Dallas Dallas and cultural imperialism Notes 6. Non-Media-Centric Media Consumption Television talk Family television Talking with television Notes 7. Consumption and Identities We are what we consume Identities and performativity Identities and displaced meaning Thinking consumption and identities historically Notes 8. Consumerism and Consumer Society Consumption and consumerism Birth of consumer society Anti-consumption Advertising and the organisation of desire Notes 9. Consumption and Cultural Studies The determining role of production Textualism Consuming with Gramsci Notes References

About the Author :
John Storey is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland, UK. He has published extensively in cultural studies, including11 books. His work has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. He is also on editorial/advisory boards in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the USA, and has been a Visiting Professor at the universities of Vienna, Henan and Wuhan and a Senior Fellow at the Technical University of Dresden.