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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This is a 5 page paper that provides an overview of consumer goods. The means by which goods become invested with cultural meaning are explored. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KW60_KFcsrcul.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
prosperous societies. The result of living in a "consumer culture" is that consumer goods become meaningful cultural artifacts as the result of those goods being impressed with a socially shared
cultural significance. This significance is impressed in various ways, sometimes pertaining to the history of the good, and other times to more direct causes, such as potent marketing. This paper
will explore the means by which consumer goods in a consumer culture become infused with social meaning and become cultural artifacts in their own right. This paragraph helps the student
introduce the four goods which will be covered in this paper. In order to better understand the corporate and sociological mechanisms which collude to imbue consumer goods with cultural value
of some sort, it can be helpful to look at certain particular examples of basic consumer goods. For this purposes of this essay, one might consider extremely basic and storied
consumer goods such as shirts, shoes, jeans, and sunglasses. Each of these goods superficially seems very basic and straightforward, and yet there are certain cultural messages encoded into these goods
that influences the way people regard and value them. For example, one might consider shirts. Shirts are the most basic and fundamental article of clothing; it is likely that
all but a few individuals in Western society own at least one shirt. Yet this basic consumer good comes in an endless variety of colors, fashions, materials, and price ranges.
Even limiting ones conception of shirts to the simple cotton t-shirt, one might spend anywhere between one dollar and five hundred dollars on a single shirt - this versatility of
the shirt as a product is reflected in the cultural conceptions tied to different shirts. In American, in particular, the t-shirt is a perennial favorite, and its simple design coupled
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