Consumer Culture

To speak of ‘consumer culture’ – or of ‘consumer society’ – is to admit that the relationship between people and objects is central to our lives (subjective scale), to the relationships we have (social scale), and to qualifying the contexts in which our existence and relationships unfold (institutional scale).

Several authors, as Roberta Sassatelli (2007) points out, trace the emergence of consumer culture to the period following the Second World War. From this moment onwards, in the West – and subsequently in the East – the subjective, social, and institutional importance of consumer goods is no longer limited to a few objects but becomes the centre of our mundane experience. In other words, the frontier between the market and our life becomes thinner, with the market eroding life domains that were not centred on consumer goods just a few decades ago (education, ethics, family moments, love, politics, religion, etc.). This is why dealing with consumer culture is an economic endeavour as much as it is an anthropological, ideological, sociological, and critical effort. 

To speak of ‘consumer culture’ also implies acknowledging that the meanings and valences of consumer goods are multiple and often competing. In our markets, companies can win consumer preference by adopting opposite strategies, also regarding the meanings they inscribe in their products and marketing actions. Each market trend often confronts its opposite. Consumer behaviours are more often characterised by paradoxes than rationality. In sum, our societies and markets seem to find equilibria more through balanced oppositions rather than convergence at the centre. 

Today a communicator, marketing expert, or manager cannot make decisions without understanding the far-reaching and profound implications of consumer products and the practices by which they are brought to their audiences (communicative, distributive, creative, experiential, and more).

Historically informed, this Course aims to:

1. Briefly review the key theoretical streams needed to understand the complexity of consumer culture.
2. Analyse contrasting consumer phenomenological paradigms, as they reflect opposing market expectations, ideologies, and practices.
3. In line with the professional focus of elective courses, contextualise the discussion within different economic sectors.

• Gender equality
• Responsible consumption and production

In presence

• Lectures
• Guided readings
• Debates among students

Students are expected to know what we covered in class. As such, they must attend at least 60% of the classes.

Assessment is based on both an individual written exam (50% of the final grade, reviewing the key notions of the Course and based on multiple-choice questions) and group assignments (50%). Concerning group assignments, teams will work mostly in class, elaborating on ad hoc requests and presenting their conclusions. Concerning the group assignments, (generative) artificial intelligence tools may be used provided that: (1) the authors indicate its use (which parts, with which prompts, etc.); (2) the authors use the content critically, verifying its reliability; (3) the authors take responsibility for the product as stated in the report; (4) the use of AI is limited to parts of the work (therefore, reports entirely delegated to AI are prohibited). Failure to declare the use of AI and how it is used is considered plagiarism and is subject to measures and sanctions, as per USI regulations and code of ethics.

To validate the course and average the project grade, each student must achieve a grade of 5 out of 10 or higher on the written individual examination.

For more details, please refer to the syllabus attached.