Relationship Between Advertising, Consumer Culture, And Commodity Fetishism

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ADVERTISING, CONSUMER CULTURE, AND COMMODITY FETISHISM
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The Relationship Between Advertising, Consumer Culture, And Commodity Fetishism
Introduction
Advertising, consumer culture, and commodity fetishism are related in the sense that they describe self-perpetuating economic relationships of production and consumption. Several critical theorists have underscored the role of advertising in promoting marketed consumption or what is known as a consumer culture. Advertising provides a proliferation of stylized products that promote a passion for consumption among media consumers. Over the course of the last century, advertising has succeeded in turning the ordinary person into a consumer with an insatiable thirst for new products. However, this relationship is not unidirectional since advertising is also influenced by how individuals identify themselves. Advertising is driven by consumer trends and therefore, the two feed off each other. Moreover, advertising has the effect of decontextualizing and mystifying the social relations involved in the production of goods and services or what is known as commodity fetishism. In a consumeristic society, advertising takes more prominence than the social and environmental costs of production. This essay will discuss the nature of the relationship between advertising, consumer culture, and commodity fetishism using theory and contemporary examples.
Literature Review
The relationship between advertising and consumer culture is bidirectional in that the two sustain each other in a self-perpetuating cycle. Advertising creates a consumer culture as much as the latter influences the former. The relationship between advertising and consumer culture goes beyond the idea that people buy certain products because they are the targets of specific advertisements and includes the aspect of purchasing goods because they are symbols of who we are (Bhuiyan and Rahman, 2020). The role of advertising in creating a consumer culture relates to the aspect of need creation. We live in an affluent world where people have disposable income and are not worried about meeting the basic life necessities. Advertising creates a need for spending and purchasing items we do not need but may want because they are status symbols (Harvey, 2013). For instance, the economic struggles most Americans go through are not always about feeding their families but are related to secondary wants like buying a bigger home or taking their children to a better school. These are needs that can be ignored and are in some instances unnecessary, such as in the case of wanting an iPhone. Because most people can afford to ignore these secondary needs, even if they have the surplus income, creates the problem of influencing their purchase decisions.
Advertising is therefore important in preserving the capitalistic momentum of mass production and consumption. The idea of human beings as consumers and the cornerstone of capitalism started taking shape in America in the 1920s. While people have always consumed the basic needs and have had to work or trade their...