Konsumenter använder varumärken dagligen och exponering av varumärken sker överallt: i reklam, böcker, filmer, människor och så vidare. Tidigare forskning visar att konsumenter använder varumärken för att bygga upp sin självbild och skapa sin identitet, samt att konsumenter kan ha mer eller mindre starka relationer till varumärken. Varumärken i sig är bara materiella markörer, de blir meningsfulla för konsumenterna först då de sätts in i ett sammanhang och får en individuell historia uppbyggt kring sig. Studiens syfte är att utifrån ett konsumentperspektiv visa hur meningsskapande i en relation mellan ett varumärke och en konsument kan se ut. Detta genom att reda ut frågeställningen: ”Hur kan en konsument skapa mening i sin relation till ett varumärke?”. En fallstudie har genomförts, där en individs meningsskapande kring ett varumärke har undersökts. Fallstudien bestod av två djupgående intervjuer och fem observationer. Resultatet har analyserats med hjälp av teorier kring bland annat meningsskapandeprocesser och varumärkessymbolik. Slutsatsen är tre faktorer som kan bidra till meningsskapande kring ett varumärke: överensstämmelse med konsumentens ”jag”, symbolisk innebörd och visuellt tilltalande, och användning. / Consumers use brands daily and the exposure of brands takes place everywhere: in advertisements, books, movies, people, and so on. Previous research shows that consumers use brands to create their self-image and identity, and that consumer can have stronger or weaker relationships with brands. Brands in their selves are only material markers, brands become meaningful to consumers when they are put into a context and receive an individual story built around them. The purpose of this paper is to show how consumers can create meaning in their relationship with brands. This is by sorting out the issue: “How can a consumer create meaning in the relationship with a brand? “. A case study has been carried out, in which an individual's meaning creation to a brand has been investigated. The case study consisted of two interviews and five observations. The results were analyzed using theories about meaning creation processes and brand symbolic. The conclusions are three factors that may contribute to the creation of meaning towards a brand: correspondence with the consumer's “self”, symbolic meaning and visually appearance, and the use of the brand.

The main objective of this thesis is to study how social and cultural norms regarding body and appearance are perceived and interpreted by young people. This is done by studying both how these perceptions affect young people and how the body is controlled and altered through practices such as dieting, exercise, plastic surgery and the use of steroids. Another question raised in the study concerns important sources of influence for how one's own body is perceived. The study is based on a questionnaire distributed to 167 young girls and boys aged 13,15 and 17.The theoretical framework includes both general theories of the body and gender perspectives. Four themes have been applied in order to capture central and important aspects of the ideal body. These are; the problematic body, the controlled body, the commodified body and the social body. These themes are all related both to gender and to the portrayal of bodies in mass media.The main conclusion is that the body matters very much to many young people today, both their own perceptions of it and what others think of it. The perceptions of one's own body is also very much gendered. Many girls have internalised a fragmented and problematised way of looking at their bodies. They report a greater dissatisfaction with their bodies than do boys. Size and shape are regarded as particularly problematic and a small and slim body is preferred. Girls are also frequently engaged in practices to alter and control their bodies and are more concerned with the state of their own bodies and how others' view them. Boys expressed a greater satisfaction with their bodies. Their dissatisfaction is primarily focused on height and weight and indicates a desire to become bigger and taller. Exercise is the prime way for boys to alter their bodies. However, their own bodies are not as problematic as for girls; instead they seem to be more concerned with others' bodies. Friends, together with mass media (particularly visual media and magazines), are regarded as the strongest source of influence on how the respondents (both girls and boys) perceive their bodies.Age differences are also found. Girls display a tendency to be more dissatisfied with and be more involved in practices to alter the body the older they are. Boys display the reverse situation. The largest differences can therefore be found among the oldest. The influence of friends and media tend also to be perceived as more important among the oldest. / digitalisering@umu

This thesis aims to investigate women&amp / #8217 / s double-way relation to consumption, as both consumers and commodities. The major goal of the study is to examine the historical construction of women as pimary consuming class and how this relationship of women to consumption has evolved through time. Moreover, it is claimed that display of women as visual objects of male gaze in visual iconography, ideologies of beauty and body politics on women&amp / #8217 / s appearances resulted in commodification of women in the modern consumer culture. Additionally, a brief analysis of Turkish print advertisements for the period 1930-1970 is attempted with a view to demonstrating how Turkish middle-class women have been incorporated into newly emerging consumer culture and how this integration process has been perceived by advertisers.

Post-purchase consumer behavior is an area of consumer research that is underdeveloped. One new phenomenon that can be used to study post-purchase consumer behavior is the individual behavior related to “socially-visible brands.” A socially-visible brand (SVB) is a brand located on or near a person’s physical body while they are out in the public atmosphere. Understanding consumers’ use of their socially-visible brands sheds light onto this form of post-purchase behavior. From a theoretical standpoint, impression management theory from the field of social psychology and consumer culture theory from the field of consumer research were juxtaposed and applied to the topic of socially-visible brands. An organizing framework is presented which adapts the dramaturgical concepts from impression management theory to the field of consumer behavior. Two studies are then presented which look at consumer behavior through this organizing framework. Study one delves into the consumer culture surrounding consumer behavior associated with socially-visible brands. Study two shows how market segmentation factors predict consumer behaviors associated with socially-visible brands. The overall argument being made here that socially-visible brands are a “prop” or tool consumers use during their presentation of self to others. / text

Mina Loy’s work explores the gaudiness of consumer culture in its spectacle, extravagance and underlying falsity. “Giovanni Franchi,” “Three Moments in Paris” and “Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots” question the perceptive powers and autonomy of Baudelaire’s flâneur when applied particularly to the modern female subject. Moreover, “Hot Cross Bum” explores the excess involved in consumer extravagance, while “Feminist Manifesto” uses that extravagance to re-appropriate advertising towards Loy’s own ends. Throughout, consumer culture is seen as a false veneer; ultimately, however, Loy admits the paradoxical reality of this false consumer culture, and its real implications on modern life in “On Third Avenue” and “Mass Production on 14th Street.” Consequently, Loy gives a nuanced and sophisticated critique and exploration of consumer culture, and can be connected to theorists of spectacle like Guy Debord, of advertising like T.J. Jackson Lears, and to Baudrillard’s hyperreality.

Šiame darbe analizuojama vartojimo kultūra. Iškeliamas vartojimo kultūros klausimas – ar tokia kultūra apskritai įmanoma. Darbo tikslas – atkreipti dėmesį į reklamą ir jos neigiamą įtaką, apţvelgti naujausias įţvalgas šioje srityje, parodant beprasmiškumą vartotojų visuomenėje. Praktinė dalis skirta videofilmu perteikti vartotojo beprasmi pirkimą, įtakotą per televiziją bei internetą rodomomis reklamomis, kuriose pasitelkiami reklaminiai triukai. / The present paper analyzes the consumer culture. A negotiable issue concerning the consumerism arises - does such kind of culture really exist? The main aim of the present study is to pay more attention to the commercial, point out its negative influence and find the new providence of this area by showing the vacuity of consumer‟s society. The practical part of the research paper with the help of the film conveys the meaningless consumers' buying purchase, which is influenced by commercials full of promotional tricks displayed on TV or in the Internet.

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<p>This dissertation explores the quotidian experience of economic development by studying both the material realities and discursive worlds of 1960s Argentina. I reveal the gendered relationship between economic development and an expanding consumer culture by analyzing the use, circulation, and meanings attributed to household appliances by journalists and public intellectuals. In the late 1950s, many economists, politicians, and intellectuals fervently believed they had found an economic model -- developmentalism -- that would finally provide the means of raising Argentines' standard of living and make the Argentine economy as robust as those of the United States and Northern European countries. Household appliances played a key role because they achieved both those goals, (supposedly) improving women's lives in the process by in part facilitating their increased participation in the workforce. Developmentalists believed their economic model to exist independently of ideology and cultural influences, but their model encountered cultural realities that limited its success. Consumerism--the way through which Argentines interacted with development--and its effects on family and gender relationships complicated the process. Both supporters and critics of developmentalism attacked women's roles as consumers to articulate many of their protestations against changes in women's status and to express anxieties about seemingly unrelated social and cultural changes. I argue that through the course of the 1960s the discussion about consumerism increasingly became a way through which different groups offered distinct visions of how "Argentine society" ought to be transformed.</p><p>This study draws on a broad array of written and oral sources. To trace the connection between economic development and consumer society, I interweave an analysis of economic and infrastructural data - such as production statistics or the availability of gas, water - with a study of socio-cultural discourses found in a wide variety of magazines, essays, films, and interviews. I juxtapose these sources in unusual ways to demonstrate two things. First, the cross-referencing of disparate sources to reveals a fuller, more complete picture of economic development and its effects--transcending macro-structural phenomenon to offer a view of quotidian change. And, two, this more complete pictures details how a narrative of hope and idealism evolved into one of anxiety and vitriol as the decade progressed.</p> / Dissertation

Förevarande studie tar sin utgångspunkt i ett Stockholm satt i förändring. Som allt mer inbäddat i en global och post-industriell ordning skapas nya konfigurationer i gruppers sociala och kulturella mönster – i studien begreppsliggjort och analyserat genom livsstilar - och hur dessa sammanbinds med specifika platser. Särskilt intressant är det att få insikt i hur de i Stockholms socioekonomiskt svaga ytterstadsområden upplever, deltar i och tillägnar sig innerstaden, som en plats där processer av gentrifikation och stegrande kulturkonsumtion gradvis omförhandlar villkoren för vad ett besök kan och bör bestå i. För studiens räkning har en rad livsvärldsintervjuer skett med unga vuxna boende eller med härkomst i miljonprogramsområdena i Järva (Kista, Akalla, Rinkeby, Tensta och Rissne) i västra Stockholm, där deras berättelser ger uttryck för deras unika förhållanden till kvaliteterna i stadens socialt skiktade rum. Redan under ungdomsåren kommer innerstaden att representera något sublimt i en stadsmiljö diametralt annorlunda Järva, och genom betingelserna av den blå tunnelbanelinjen beskriver flera informanter hur ett utforskande tog vid av den nyupptäckta platsen. I vuxen ålder tonar innerstaden till stora delar upp som tydligt kopplat till selektiva nyttjanden i form av konsumtionen av varor och nöjen – där i synnerhet krog- och klubbscenen visar sig vara föremål för besök - men inbjuder för merparten av informanterna sällan till ett mer villkorslöst, icke-konsumerande fördröjande i de offentliga rummens gator, torg och parker. I själva erfarenheten av Stockholm är dikotomin förort - innerstad tydlig och genererar en diskursiv schematik mina informanter på olika sätt förhåller sig till.

<p>My dissertation, "The People's Republic of Capitalism: The Making of the New Middle Class in Post-Socialist China, 1978-Present" draws on a range of visual cultural forms - cinema, documentary, and fashion - to track the cultural dimension of the emergence of the new middle class subject in China's encounter with global capitalism. Through cultural studies methodologies and critical theoretical practices, I explore the massive reorganization of national subjectivity that has accompanied the economic reforms since 1978. How, I ask, has the middle class replaced the proletariat as the dominant subject of Chinese history? What are the competing social forces that contribute to the making of the new middle class subject, and how do they operate? By considering these questions in terms of the cultural cultivation of new sensibilities as much as identities, I trace China's changing social formations through the realm of cultural productions. This project is organized into three parts, each of which attends to a particular constellation of middle class subjectivities and ideologies. In Part I (Introduction and Chapter 1), I explore how the Chinese middle class subject is shaped by historical, political-economic, and cultural forces. I show that the new social actor is structurally dependent on the national and transnational bourgeoisie and the post-socialist party-state. In Part II (Chapters 2-5), I focus on the relationship among fashion, media, and Chinese consumer culture in the socialist and post-socialist eras. By engaging with films such as Xie Tieli's Never Forget (1964), Huang Zumo's Romance on Lushan (1980), Qi Xingjia's Red Dress is in Fashion (1984), and Jia Zhangke's The World (2004) and Useless (2007), I suggest that the representation of fashion and consumption in Chinese cinema, documentary, and new media is a privileged site for deciphering otherwise imperceptible meanings of class, ideology, and history in the formation of the Chinese middle class subject. In Part III (Chapter 6), I attend to the repressed underside of Chinese consumer culture: rubbish. This project reorients our understanding of socialist and post-socialist China, seeing them as underpinned by the contradictions emblematized in the Chinese middle class.</p> / Dissertation