DOCSLIB.ORG

Subjects of Consumption 43

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Subjects of Consumption 43 3 Subjects of distribute Consumptionor Passive Dupes or Active Agents? post, copy, ho exactly is purchasingnot all of the commodities produced in mass con- Wsumer society—and, more important, why? Social theorists have been debating the various motivations for why we consume since the inception of mass consumer society.Do Some claim that consumers are passive dupes, manipulated by advertisers- and marketers into buying whatever they are selling, while others believe that consumers are active agents, creatively using commodities to express their tastes and lifestyles. Some theorists argue that commodities are used to control individuals, while others suggest that consumersProof manipulate commodities to express their class, status, and lifestyle. A few theorists even assert that consumers can use commodities to resist and even rebel against mass consumer society. Others debate whether consumers are rational, sovereign decision makers when they select and Draftpurchase consumer goods or if they act irrationally, pursuing pleasure as they attempt to fulfill their daydreams and fantasies. Are consumers victims or rebels, rational utilizers or hedonistic pleasure seekers (Gabriel and Lang 2006)? This chapter will explore the various types of consumers that can be found in mass consumer society. 41 Copyright ©2017 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 42 PART I CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Emulation, Distinction, or Rebellion? Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption and Leisure American social economist Thorstein Veblen, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, established the framework for a critique of mass con- sumer society. In his book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), he argued that conspicuous consumption, or the lavish display of wealth, was the motivating force of consumer behavior for the leisure or upper class. He quite abhorred this behavior, describing it as wasteful and an “unpro- ductive consumption of goods,” because it did “not serve human life or human well-being on the whole” (1899/1994:69, 97). While Veblendistribute was most critical of the leisure class for establishing conspicuous consumption as a way to demonstrate their class and status, he statedor that “no class of society, not even the most abjectly poor, foregoes all customary con- spicuous consumption” (1899/1994:85). However, the classes below the leisure class were motivated by emulation. Veblen suggested that the lei- sure class created standards of tastes and fashionpost, trends, which the lower classes would then copy. Once this happened, the leisure class would have to invent new trends to differentiate themselves from the classes below them—what Veblen referred to as making invidious distinctions based on their social standing. In thecopy, words of Georg Simmel, Just as soon as the lower classes begin to copy their style, thereby crossing the line of demarcation thenot upper classes have drawn and destroying the uniformity of their coherence, the upper classes turn away from this style and adopt a new one,Do which in its turn differentiates them from the masses; and thus the game- goes merrily on. (1904/1957:136) This process has been referred to as trickle-down theory and, according to Veblen, each class emulated or copied the class right above it in the class hierarchy;Proof thus, the upper middle class emulated the leisure class, while the middle class emulated the upper-middle class and so forth (Ritzer, Murphy, and Wiedenhoft 2001). Veblen also frowned upon what he called conspicuous leisure, or the Draft“non-productive consumption of time,” and believed that the “instinct” to work rather than to consume was what needed to be more fully devel- oped for the common good of society (1899/1994:43, 33). Conspicuous leisure allowed the upper class to develop refined manners, etiquette, and tastes, which differentiated it from other classes, who had to work Copyright ©2017 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 3 Subjects of Consumption 43 to survive and did not have the time to cultivate an appreciation for the opera or fine art or travel to Europe to experience other cultures. Know- ing how to dress in the most current fashion or what fork to use during a specific course at dinner were signs that one was a member of the leisure class. Veblen argued that over time, due to the changes in “the means of communication and the mobility of the population,” conspicu- ous consumption would come to trump conspicuous leisure because an individual would become exposed “to the observation of many persons who have no other means of judging his reputability than the display of goods” (1899/1994:86). Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption continues to be relevant today—many of us use commodities to display our socioeconomicdistribute class position. However, today conspicuous consumption revolves around displaying brand logos and upscale spending. Accordingor to sociologist Juliet Schor (1998:47), “A whole group of consumer goods that were once neutral symbolically are now highly recognizable,” such as athletic shoes, T-shirts, and even bottled water. These brandedpost, or logoed everyday com- modities are conspicuously consumed alongside luxury, designer brands. Indeed, the whole idea of a designer logo points to “the importance of visibility” in mass consumer society (Schor 1998:46). Furthermore, peo- ple are willing to spend more on items that they can visibly display. For example, in one study, women werecopy, found to spend more on expensive lipstick, which they could apply in public, than on facial cleanser, eye shadow, or mascara that arenot usually used in private (Schor 1998:50). Another significant change regarding how we conspicuously consume involves who we areDo trying to emulate. “Today a person is more likely to be making comparisons- with, or choose as a ‘reference group,’ peo- ple whose incomes are three, four, or five times his or her own” (Schor 1998:4). Instead of trying to emulate the class directly above us in the class hierarchy or “keeping up with the Joneses” next door, we are now participatingProof in upscale spending and trying to copy the consumption patterns of the rich and famous, particularly celebrities. “Keeping up with the Kardashians” by watching their television show or following their Twitter feeds makes their celebrity lifestyle feel accessible to the average Draftfan. The problem with upscale spending is that keeping up with the rich and famous is becoming more and more difficult as income and wealth inequality increases in the United States. To participate in upscale spend- ing, more Americans are falling into credit card debt and working longer hours, leaving them unhappy and unsatisfied (Schor 1998:14, 19). Copyright ©2017 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 44 PART I CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Bourdieu: Taste, Habitus, and Cultural Capital Although Veblen argued that conspicuous consumption would become more popular than conspicuous leisure as a means to display one’s wealth, leisure has not completely disappeared as a device that distinguishes the elite from the masses. Given that U.S. workers fail to take around 429 million paid vacation days per year, those who do take time off of work continue to distinguish themselves as members of the elite (Fisher 2015). On one hand, consumers can display their wealth by taking lengthy vacations to expensive destinations, demonstrating that they have enough money to either take time off of work or do not have to work at all. On the other hand, “cultivation of the aesthetic faculty” still “requiresdistribute time and application” (Veblen 1899/1994:74). A certain amount of “leisure” is necessary to learn manners and etiquette, as well as developor an apprecia- tion for classical music, expressionist art, and caviar. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu investigated the relationship between class and taste in his work Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1984) and found that althoughpost, economic capital is strongly correlated with taste, it does not determine it. Cultural capital also plays a role. Cultural capital is “widely shared, high status cultural sig- nals (attitudes, preferences, formal knowledge, behaviors, goods and credentials used for social and cultural exclusion)”copy, and is “used by dominant groups to mark cultural distance and proximity, monopolize privilege, and exclude and recruit new occupants ofnot high status positions” (Lamont and Lareau 1988:156, 158). Cultural capital is shaped by what Bourdieu calls habitus, our mental dispositionsDo or “schemes of perception” (1984:2), that we acquire through socialization,- most generally through the institutions of the family and education. The elite attend the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, and often marry each other, acting as gatekeepers as to who will be allowed access. While it is possible for a person not born into theProof elite to gain access to their privileged world, it can be difficult for this person to fit in if he or she does not possess enough cultural capital. For example, in the popular movie Pretty Woman (1990), the prostitute character played by Julia Roberts tries to buy new clothes on Rodeo DraftDrive and is laughed out of the store because she is dressed indecently. Even though she has enough money to purchase these new, expensive clothes, she does not look like she belongs in the store. Thus, a person cannot buy his or her way into the elite—economic capital is not enough to confer membership. Throughout the movie, her character is continually Copyright ©2017 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 Douglas Kellner [
    Douglas Kellner [http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/] T.W. Adorno and the Dialectics of Mass Culture While T.W. Adorno is a lively figure on the contemporary cultural scene, his thought in many ways cuts across the grain of emerging postmodern orthodoxies. Although Adorno anticipated many post-structuralist critiques of the subject, philosophy, and intellectual practice, his work clashes with the postmodern celebration of media culture, attacks on modernism as obsolete and elitist, and the more affirmative attitude toward contemporary culture and society found in many, but not all, postmodern circles. Adorno is thus a highly contradictory figure in the present constellation, anticipating some advanced tendencies of contemporary thought, while standing firming against other regnant intellectual attitudes and positions. In this article, I argue that Adorno's analyses of the functions of mass culture and communications in contemporary societies constitute valuable, albeit controversial, legacies. Adorno excelled both as a critic of so-called "high culture" and "mass culture," while producing many important texts in these areas. His work is distinguished by the close connection between social theory and cultural critique, and by his ability to contextualize culture within social developments, while providing sharp critical analysis. Accordingly, I discuss Adorno's analysis of the dialectics of mass culture, focusing on his critique of popular music, the culture industry, and consumer culture. I argue that Adorno's critique of mass culture is best read and understood in the context of his work with information superhighway. In conclusion, I offer alternative perspectives on mass communication and culture, and some criticisms of Adorno's position.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding the Value of Arts & Culture | the AHRC Cultural Value
    Understanding the value of arts & culture The AHRC Cultural Value Project Geoffrey Crossick & Patrycja Kaszynska 2 Understanding the value of arts & culture The AHRC Cultural Value Project Geoffrey Crossick & Patrycja Kaszynska THE AHRC CULTURAL VALUE PROJECT CONTENTS Foreword 3 4. The engaged citizen: civic agency 58 & civic engagement Executive summary 6 Preconditions for political engagement 59 Civic space and civic engagement: three case studies 61 Part 1 Introduction Creative challenge: cultural industries, digging 63 and climate change 1. Rethinking the terms of the cultural 12 Culture, conflict and post-conflict: 66 value debate a double-edged sword? The Cultural Value Project 12 Culture and art: a brief intellectual history 14 5. Communities, Regeneration and Space 71 Cultural policy and the many lives of cultural value 16 Place, identity and public art 71 Beyond dichotomies: the view from 19 Urban regeneration 74 Cultural Value Project awards Creative places, creative quarters 77 Prioritising experience and methodological diversity 21 Community arts 81 Coda: arts, culture and rural communities 83 2. Cross-cutting themes 25 Modes of cultural engagement 25 6. Economy: impact, innovation and ecology 86 Arts and culture in an unequal society 29 The economic benefits of what? 87 Digital transformations 34 Ways of counting 89 Wellbeing and capabilities 37 Agglomeration and attractiveness 91 The innovation economy 92 Part 2 Components of Cultural Value Ecologies of culture 95 3. The reflective individual 42 7. Health, ageing and wellbeing 100 Cultural engagement and the self 43 Therapeutic, clinical and environmental 101 Case study: arts, culture and the criminal 47 interventions justice system Community-based arts and health 104 Cultural engagement and the other 49 Longer-term health benefits and subjective 106 Case study: professional and informal carers 51 wellbeing Culture and international influence 54 Ageing and dementia 108 Two cultures? 110 8.
    [Show full text]
  • Identities Bought and Sold, Identity Received As Grace
    IDENTITIES BOUGHT AND SOLD, IDENTITY RECEIVED AS GRACE: A THEOLOGICAL CRITICISM OF AND ALTERNATIVE TO CONSUMERIST UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE SELF By James Burton Fulmer Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Religion December, 2006 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Paul DeHart Professor Douglas Meeks Professor William Franke Professor David Wood Professor Patout Burns ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all the members of my committee—Professors Paul DeHart, Douglas Meeks, William Franke, David Wood, and Patout Burns—for their support and guidance and for providing me with excellent models of scholarship and mentoring. In particular, I am grateful to Prof. DeHart for his careful, insightful, and challenging feedback throughout the writing process. Without him, I would have produced a dissertation on identity in which my own identity and voice were conspicuously absent. He never tried to control my project but rather always sought to make it more my own. Special thanks also to Prof. Franke for his astute observations and comments and his continual interest in and encouragement of my project. I greatly appreciate the help and support of friends and family. My mom, Arlene Fulmer, was a generous reader and helpful editor. James Sears has been a great friend throughout this process and has always led me to deeper thinking on philosophical and theological matters. Jimmy Barker, David Dault, and Eric Froom provided helpful conversation as well as much-needed breaks. All my colleagues in theology helped with valuable feedback as well.
    [Show full text]
  • Relevance in Obsolescence: Recuperation and Temporality in the Work of Guy Debord and the Situationist International
    RELEVANCE IN OBSOLESCENCE: RECUPERATION AND TEMPORALITY IN THE WORK OF GUY DEBORD AND THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL Tom Bunyard RECUPERATION In 2009, the French State bought an archive of Guy Debord’s work, containing his manuscripts, correspondence, reading notes, cinematic material and assorted personal effects. This purchase, which was conducted in order to prevent the archive’s sale to Yale, resulted in its installation in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). In order for this to take place, the President of the Bibliothèque was required to dub Debord’s work a “national treasure”; Sarkozy’s minister of culture was then obliged to endorse that evaluation by describing Debord as a “great French intellectual.”1 Unsurprisingly, these statements have proved somewhat notorious. Debord’s “bad reputation”2 once merited far more attention from the police and secret services than it did from academia, and the irony involved in the archive’s acquisition has not been lost on its many commentators: for as a journalist in Le Monde remarked, it entailed housing, “in a temple of the state,” the archives of “an intellectual who was critical of all institutions, and of society in general.”3 Yet while the tension between the archive’s content and its current location may have been sufficient to provoke commentary in the press, it remains the case that Debord’s work, together with that of the Situationist International (S.I.), has been steadily accepted and celebrated by the society that it opposed for years. This process of accommodation has proceeded apace over the past few decades, and Situationist material has now become a fixture of both the academic Left and of university teaching program; this despite the fact that in 1966, a French judge felt moved to declare Situationist ideas to be a genuine “threat” to the minds of impressionable students, and to society at large.4 Thus while the transition from the status of “threat” to that of “treasure” announced by the archive’s purchase is sharp, it is by no means without precedent.
    [Show full text]
  • Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) “Conspicuous Leisure”
    Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) “Conspicuous Leisure” • American economist • Born in farm country of Minnesota (Norwegian settlers) • Norwegian farmers vs. English townspeople • Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) Takes the appearance of an anthropological study of the “behavior of people who possess or are in the pursuit of wealth, and who, looking beyond their wealth, want the eminence/status that, or so they believe, wealth was meant to buy.” (John Kenneth Galbraith, Introduction) Book on snobbery and social pretense; the effect of wealth on behavior. Context: American society at the end of the 19th century: the “Gilded Age” (Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, etc). A rhetorically clever critique of the rich - purports to be a purely descriptive anthropological study (appearance of objectivity); no prescriptions offered. But, read between the lines, it is a “devastating put- down” (JKG, Intro). “Conspicuous Leisure” (Chapter 3) Some terms: pecuniary - money-related; monetary pecuniary struggle - struggle to acquire and exhibit wealth in order to gain status pecuniary emulation - effort to equal or surpass another in status associated with wealth leisure - nonproductive consumption of time leisure class - upper class exempt from productive work Veblen claims that the pecuniary struggle is the driving force behind the development of culture and society. The pecuniary struggle should make humans industrious and frugal. Veblen thinks otherwise: • For the working class (the “pecuniary inferior” class) - superficially this is true, but later we’ll see otherwise. • For the wealthy class (the “pecuniary superior” class) - pecuniary emulation demands abstention from work. The struggle for wealth (private property) is due to pecuniary emulation. It is not a struggle for subsistence.
    [Show full text]
  • The Culture Industry As Mass Deception Revisited
    XULAneXUS Volume 9 | Issue 1 Article 8 12-1-2011 The rF ankfurt School and the Problem with Popular Culture: The ulturC e Industry as Mass Deception Revisited Nelantha K. Riley Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xulanexus Recommended Citation Riley, Nelantha K. (2011) "The rF ankfurt School and the Problem with Popular Culture: The ulturC e Industry as Mass Deception Revisited," XULAneXUS: Vol. 9 : Iss. 1 , Article 8. Available at: https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xulanexus/vol9/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by XULA Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in XULAneXUS by an authorized editor of XULA Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Riley: The Frankfurt School and the Problem with Popular Culture: The Cu ! Volume 9, Issue 1, December 2011. Scholarly Note. 9-18. ! <http://xulanexus.xula.edu/textpattern/index.php?id=121> ! The Frankfurt School and the Problem with Popular Culture: The Culture Industry as Mass Deception Revisited Nelanhta K. Riley, Psychology Faculty Mentor: Dr. Christopher Faircloth, Sociology Abstract The turn to the 21st century and the technological advances that came with it have made the culture industry a force to be reckoned with, but at the same time changing the dynamics of the marketing Nelanhta Riley is a Psychology arena. Now more than ever, the Internet has become a marketing major with a minor in Sociology entity in its own right. The varying industries of culture are no from New Orleans, LA. Upon longer the gatekeepers of public opinion and product critique.
    [Show full text]
  • Affluenza - Pages 6/4/05 9:03 AM Page 3
    Affluenza - pages 6/4/05 9:03 AM Page 3 Chapter 1 What is affluenza? Af-flu-en-za n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the Australian dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.1 Wanting In 2004 the Australian economy grew by over $25 billion, yet the tenor of public debate suggests that the country is in a dire situation. We are repeatedly told of funding shortages for hos- pitals, schools, universities and public transport, and politicians constantly appeal to that icon of Australian spirit, the ‘Aussie battler’. Political rhetoric and social commentary continue to emphasise deprivation—as if we are living in the nineteenth century and the problems facing the country have arisen because we are not rich enough. When the Labor Party lost the federal election in 2004 it declared that, like the conservatives, it must pay more attention to growth and the economy. It would seem that achieving an economic growth rate of 4 per cent is the magic potion to cure all our ills. But how rich do we have to be before we are no longer a nation of battlers? Australia’s GDP has doubled since 1980; at 3 Affluenza - pages 6/4/05 9:03 AM Page 4 AFFLUENZA a growth rate of 3 per cent, it will double again in 23 years and quadruple 23 years after that. Will our problems be solved then? Or will the relentless emphasis on economic growth and higher incomes simply make us feel more dissatisfied? In the private domain, Australia is beset by a constant rumble of complaint—as if we are experiencing hard times.
    [Show full text]
  • Thorstein Veblen and American Social Criticism Joseph Heath Department of Philosophy University of Toronto Thorstein Veblen Is P
    Thorstein Veblen and American Social Criticism Joseph Heath Department of Philosophy University of Toronto Thorstein Veblen is perhaps best thought of as America’s answer to Karl Marx. This is sometimes obscured by the rather unfortunate title of his most important work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), which misleading, insofar as it suggests that the book is just a theory of the “leisure class.” What the book provides is in fact a perfectly general theory of class, not to mention property, economic development, and social evolution. It is, in other words, a system of theory that rivals Marx’s historical materialism with respect to scope, generality and explanatory power. Furthermore, it is a system of theory whose central predictions, with respect to the development of capitalism and the possibilities for emancipatory social change, have proven to be essentially correct. When stacked up against Marx’s prognostications, this success clearly provides the basis for what might best be described as an invidious comparison. For example, it is Veblen who, at the close of the 19th century, observed that “The exigencies of the modern industrial system frequently place individuals and households in juxtaposition between whom there is little contact in any other sense than that of juxtaposition. One's neighbors, mechanically speaking, often are socially not one's neighbors, or even acquaintances; and still their transient good opinion has a high degree of utility... It is evident, therefore, that the present trend of the development is in the direction of heightening the utility of conspicuous consumption as compared with leisure” (1899, ch.
    [Show full text]
  • What Drives Conspicuous Consumption? – the Case of Chinese Consumers
    What Drives Conspicuous Consumption? – The Case of Chinese Consumers Y. Henry Xie, [email protected] Abstract Conspicuous consumption refers to a type of consumer behavior that people display wealth by spending a large proportion of their incomes on luxury products and services (Trigg, 2001). Different from other goods, the satisfaction that conspicuous goods provide buyers often comes from audience’s reaction, as opposed to product’s actual use (Wong, 1997). In other words, consumers exhibit certain conspicuous consumption behaviors due to their hopes to be seen more favorably in the greater social hierarchy (Podoshen, Li, & Zhang, 2011). Chinese consumers present lucrative growth opportunities for the world’s leading consumer product manufacturers and retailers that particularly target the luxury and upscale layer of the Chinese market, highlighting a rosy display of conspicuous consumption in China. Consumers purchase products for material needs and social needs such as prestige and self expression (Belk, 1988). In this current study, we examine the direct impact of individual traits / factors (i.e. face consciousness, interdependent self-concept, and cultural capital) on conspicuous consumption of Chinese consumers. According to Midgley and Dowling (1978), personality traits as well as social participation affect new product adoption and search behavior. In this current study, we particularly examine the impact of the individual traits of face consciousness, interdependent self-concept, and cultural capital, as conspicuous consumption is closely related to consumers’ desire for exclusivity and conformity, as well as social status (e.g. Amaldoss & Jain, 2005). We also examine the moderating effects of consumer innovativeness. This current study provides an insight into conspicuous consumption behaviors of Chinese consumers.
    [Show full text]
  • Investigating New Aspects of Recuperation 1 Michael Tsangaris
    Re-adapting radical forms of expression in the digital era -Investigating new aspects of recuperation 1 Michael Tsangaris To cite this version: Michael Tsangaris. Re-adapting radical forms of expression in the digital era -Investigating new aspects of recuperation 1. XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology / RC57 Visual Sociology, Jul 2018, Toronto, Canada. hal-02349016 HAL Id: hal-02349016 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02349016 Submitted on 5 Nov 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. 1 Re-adapting radical forms of expression in the digital era - Investigating new aspects of recuperation1. Michael Tsangaris, University of Piraeus, Greece Undoubtedly, all past media forms held possibilities for alternative communications but most of the times commodification that turns everything into ‘Spectacle’ degenerated such options. Even some of the most experimental forms of painting, photography, music or moving images, after all, removed far away from the original ideological frames in which they were initially created, and got absorbed by the mainstream cultural industry. In fact, alternative media forms such as aggressive rock music, street graffiti or tattoos, were initially used to express distinctive youth cultural scenes or counter-movements challenging the dominant culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Veblen Online: Information and the Risk of Commandeering the Conspicuous Self
    PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE UNIVERSITY OF BORÅS, SWEDEN VOL. 23 NO. 3, SEPTEMBER, 2018 Contents | Author index | Subject index | Search | Home Veblen online: information and the risk of commandeering the conspicuous self Holmes Miller Introduction. Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class introduced the concepts of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. These concepts are valid today, and one's online behaviour, social media engagement and general abundance of information help create a broader conspicuous self. Method. Two grids are used to illustrate concepts relating to the conspicuous self. One assesses information domains vs. risk and the other creates categories formed by the intersection of information abundance and one's conspicuous profile. Analysis. Using the information grids, general scenarios are identified and four categories are created reflecting information abundance, one's online presence and the trade-off between an information sender and information recipient's control of information. Results. Within this structure, various scenarios, risks, and amelioration strategies are presented and discussed. These can inform further analyses performed by individuals and organisations. Conclusions. Information technologies can support, further promulgate, or even inhibit conspicuous behaviour. P people may expand their conspicuous behaviour by employing strategies that craft their message and target micro audiences, or people may pull back from social media and online behaviour, while finally, people may choose to live with less privacy and more public lives. In each case, users may make behavioural adjustments to mitigate the predicted consequences. Introduction In 1899 Thorstein Veblen published The theory of the leisure class (Veblen, 1994). Since its publication, society has evolved and Veblen's terms and concepts have taken on different connotations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Privileged Defense: Affluenza's Potential Impact on Counselors In
    Article 73 The Privileged Defense: Affluenza’s Potential Impact on Counselors in Court Proceedings Ashley Clark Clark, Ashley, PhD, NCC, DCC, ACS, is a recent graduate from Walden University’s Counselor Education and Supervision program and current program manager for the Rappahannock Rapidan Community Services’ Young Adult Coordinated Care program, an evidence-based early intervention program for adolescents and young adults experiencing the first onset of psychosis. Her research interests include disability issues in counseling and current approaches to multicultural counseling. Abstract Concerns regarding affluenza as an epidemic have been quietly raised in a sociological context and largely ignored in mainstream society for several decades. When the idea of affluenza was raised in the criminal court system by the defense’s evaluating psychologist during a high profile manslaughter case, however, the concerns regarding effects of affluenza rose to the forefront. In fact, the trial of Ethan Couch, product of affluent parents, caused public outcry when an affluenza defense was noted as a potential contributor to a seemingly lenient sentence. This paper provides a brief overview of the history and development of the affluenza concept, evaluates the impact of affluenza through a systemic lens, reviews systemic influences in court rulings, discusses the potential impact of counselors’ roles in the courtroom, and provides a case illustration to demonstrate this potential. Recent court cases involving perceived leniency for Caucasian defendants, which has been attributed to wealth and privilege, have unearthed concerns with the social concept of affluenza. Making headlines in 2013, affluenza was introduced by a court appointed psychologist in the case, State of Texas v.
    [Show full text]