Consumer Culture as Witnessed in Christmas Period - Coursework Example

Consumer Culture As Witnessed in Christmas Period Student’s Name Institution Christmas is one the few religious rituals that is celebrated across the globe on an annual basis. McKechnie and Tynan (2006, p.133) notes that Today, unlike the past, the ritual is also marked in countries or rather cultures, which never had a Christmas tradition. The meaning of the ritual, over time, has enormous shifted to reflect intensive cult statuses that greatly involve participation by most of the world population. Now, like never before, Christmas is characterised by aspects related to family life, affection for children and, also willingness to support the needy in the societies (Hirschman & LaBarbera, 1989). The fundamental rite associated with the ritual involves attending the midnight mass on the eve, the early church service on Christmas morning, shopping, gift giving and charity and all these is intended to eliminate the possibility of anxiety in order to uplift the present while at the same time securing the future (Starr, 2007). The focus of this paper is to try and examine the way such cultural event as Christmas has been linked to consumer culture over time. The ritual associated with Christmas has changed significantly to embrace new and distinct consumer culture. One of the ways for which the ritual has changed is through the adoption of “The Christmas Potlatch” (Belk& Bryce, 1993). This activity is characterised by the act of gift-giving between different classes of consumers. A perfect example is seen whenever parents engage in the giving of greater amounts of gifts to their immediate children and vice versa. The aspect is attributed to the principle of asymmetry whereby the society, at large, is also directly engaged in donating such items as money, toys and other necessary gifts to the abandoned children and those belonging to the poor class. In conducting this exercise, there were intensive propositions made especially in relation to the differences in empowerment that is exercised by the numerous gift givers (Belk& Bryce, 1993). For instance, the asymmetries in gift giving nowadays depict the level of differences in social power with economic value of gifts being given to those with enormous social power. It is argued that nowadays, the primary focus of the religious celebration, in general terms, the activities involved with gift giving rest with reinforcing the aspects related to social solidarity and kinship ties. The process of receiving and giving gifts, the sharing of the entire festivities season as well as the meals consumed in solidarity propels the formulation and implementation of tangible tines that are able to bind one generation to the next within a given family setting. In his recent research, Belk (1987, p.91), ascertains that the entire Christmas festival is marred with materialism and hedonistic tendencies. He argued that given that the ritual treats Santa as being a small god, then in real sense, it is a god of materialism. In essence, both Santa Claus and the corresponding seasonal rituals that encompass the celebration like family feasts, office parties and, also the enormous circulation of such Christmas issues of numerous magazines in the United States of America, postulates the celebration of such attributes as greed, gluttony as well as hedonism. The current American society seems to have reflected a greater length of its values onto Santa Claus (McCracken, 1986). Of particular interest, Santa Claus is being viewed as a notable symbol of American consumer culture that is making enough efforts to promote aspects related to commercialism as well as materialism in the world over. Through popular media platforms, the American society believes that these values should be replicated in the entire universe as a way of justifying their nature of embracing materialism. To the Americans, Christmas is a secularised celebration event that promotes attributes relating to commercialisation, materialism and hedonism (Berger, 2015). The fundamental reason for engaging in the event rests with conducting sustaining rituals as a way of promulgating sacredness through intensive consumption processess. It is important to understand that although these values seem to be promulgated by the larger American society, the ritual foundation exercised is deemed to be similar with that of the United Kingdom, which is especially characterised by common gift giving and excessive gift shopping (Berger, 2015). The process of analysing social consumption patterns through a structuralism model has provided a fundamental platform for evaluating Christmas consumption culture given that it portrays a relationship between consumer culture and consumption especially in the Western countries (Treadwell, Briggs, Winlow, & Hall, 2012). The model provides that there are four types of consumption rituals- possession, grooming, exchange and divestment- that have helped to showcase cultural meanings from products to persons. These rituals are used to postulate the distinctive ways for which products are used by consumers to position and, also define themselves in relation to a particular socio-cultural context like class. Through possession rituals, consumers in the Western countries will take a given purchased product to the immediate place of consumption and thereafter, claim of its possession as being one’s own. A perfect example is when during the Christmas evening’s dinner in our home; people seemed to come fully and expensively dressed showing off these jewelleries and comparing it with others. In fact, in most of these instances, the dinner exercise was finalised with photographing of these personal possessions for future reference. The exchanging rituals involve the activity of gift giving as well as receiving as a way of ensuring to tighten interpersonal influences (Berger, 2015). In our case, it greatly constitutes careful selection of gifts that portray specific elements that would later be given to a person with the desire that these attributes are transferred to the receiver. Consequently, it further involved intensive unwrapping of gifts as well as sharing the pleasure that came with opening sacks, stockings and pillow-cases of numerous presents. The final phase of the exercise involved playing with these new acquisitions since the entire activity was perceived to be an intergenerational given that it only took place annually hence a great opportunity to engage in a shared activity altogether. In adopting divestment rituals, the consumers opt to relinquish possible meanings that are attributed to historical owner of second-hand products or even engage in the erasing of any personal meaning that is deemed to be attached with the item (Berger, 2015). In our case, the process involved recycling of business cards given that their specific meanings had already drawn closer to the end of the holiday season. Some old Christmas cards were secured in a safe place as mementoes for the family tree and, also aid in making gift tags in the coming holidays. It is important to note that the activity that involves playing plays a significant role in ascertaining the ordinary mode of hedonism transfer that assists consumers to determine and maintain overall social identity (Izberk-Bilgin, 2015). In particular, the aspect of sharing Christmas as family groups and as a communal experience is still reflected in different activities like attending nativity plays concerts, pantomimes and conducting shopping in general. In my home, sometimes in the course of the Christmas season, we were encouraged to break the usual house swap Christmas visiting tradition where same community members spend time in each other’s places and instead resorted to spending time with extended families in different cities. Another important Christmas exchange ritual involved the sending and receiving of cards. A clear and well-sough self identity would deem the entire practice to be somehow expensive and widespread. Certainly, it is also important to be cynical in the manner for which resources are used within the period. For instance, while it is deemed to be culturally right to participate in charity donations during the period, it is important that the discern the amount for the purpose lest one is carried away. In order, to develop a perfect sense of Christmas and thus, impress guests using different objects, my parents engaged in extensive purchasing of Christmas related items only later admitting that they would have been carried away by the exercise. Notably, the ritual is sometimes psychological in nature and triggers intensive compulsive behaviour amongst consumers. Back home, the entire period starting early October to early January is considered to be the celebration period and it is characterised by excessive display of Christmas decorations. The display process involves decorating the house with more ornaments that include trees and statues (Freeman & Bell, 2013). These pieces of ornaments are filled with tinsel garlands, ribbons and sometimes snow. In addition to this, there are also music boxes that play seasonal tunes while some of the rooms are also furnished with tapes that also play music. This Christmas attribute is unusual across the globe. In our case, the motivation for decorating the house is to trigger elements of charity so that possible visitors are requested to donate packed food items in order to be distributed to the unfortunates within the community. In some of the analysis conducted to ascertain the realistic and sacredness of the religious celebration, research indicates that there exists subjective resentment of self-transcendent international relationships amongst consumers regardless of their nationalities (Farbotko & Head, 2013). In fact, for some of these consumers, Christmas period is deemed to be a stressful as well as an anxiety-drawn timeframe especially since people are unfairly positioned to experience the sacred binds of such important elements of family as well as extended friendship, which are fundamental in Christmas cultural meaning. People experience emotional isolation, bitterness and at time individual-focused mortality especially in the event that they are secluded from the family networks sentiment that highly characterises the entire season. Numerous researches indicates that during this period, the damages caused by the lack of interpersonal relationships and self-identity amongst consumers can best explain the high level of psychotic episodes as well enormous admissions to psychiatric facilities (Farbotko & Head, 2013). However, it is noted that some of the people did not relate their personal experiences with the celebration at all and in essence, remained cynical about the importance of the event on a religious perspective. Markets across the globe have perfected the act of enticing consumers into fully participating in the celebration. This is clearly done through popular adverts from different companies addressed to the consumers to trigger purchase. In fact, Farbotko and Head (2013, p.89-91) notes that it is during this period that some companies entice customers to try out their products or services for the first time given special occasion. Others ensure to develop marketing campaigns as well as organisational-focused partnerships that ensure customers remain loyal throughout the period. A perfect example can be seen in the hospitality industry where discounted packages are offered to couples that are willing to consumer more of particular brands. Discounts coupons are offered to consumers that had remained loyal in the course of the year in order to appreciate their businesses. Ethical consumption during the celebration is promulgated when consumers are encouraged to only focus on products that protect the environment like unnecessary dumping of waste food. In the 19th century, Quakers refused to purchase slave-grown cotton and sugar in order to show solidarity with the oppressed especially during the Christmas period (Farbotko & Head, 2013). To sum up the discussion above, it can be seen that the religious celebration marked by Christmas indicates a notable experience for consumer culture. In most communities across the globe, the event is characterised by the act of giving gifts and decorations. Different authors stipulate different perspectives about the aspect of the event in relation to consumption. While others are of the opinion that it does attract a materialism culture others do not connote any significant religious meaning to it. Out of self-identity, certain consumers choose not to be carried away by the event through unnecessary spending and donations. All consumers have also been shown to embrace the element of gifting according to societal classes in the community. Expensive gifts flow from the classiest consumers to the less ones. Another important aspects noted in the paper rests with the fact that psychological aspect of the celebration is deemed important especially in the case of home decorations and interpersonal relationships. It has been argued that those with inefficient family ties suffer psychologically mostly during this time while home decoration helps to create an ambience of charity donations and listening to seasonal music. References List Belk, RW. (1987), "A Child's Christmas in America: Santa Claus as Deity, Consumption as Religion," Journal of American Culture, Spring, 45-99 Belk, R.W & Bryce, W., 1993. Christmas shopping scenes: From modern miracle to postmodern mall. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 10(3), pp.277-296 Berger, A.A., 2015. Ads, fads, and consumer culture: Advertising's impact on American character and society. Rowman & Littlefield. Freeman, L. & Bell, S., 2013. Women's magazines as facilitators of Christmas rituals. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 16(3), pp.336-354. Farbotko, C. & Head, L., 2013. Gifts, sustainable consumption and giving up green anxieties at Christmas. Geoforum, 50, pp.88-96. Hirschmn, EC & LaBarbera, P, A. 1989. The Meaning of Christmas. Interpretive Consumer Research, pp.135-147 Izberk-Bilgin, E., 2015. Rethinking religion and ethnicity at the nexus of globalization and consumer culture. The Routledge Companion to Ethnic Marketing, p.135. McKechnie, S & Tynan, C. 2006. Social Meanings in Christmas Consumption: An Exploratory Study of UK Celebrants’ Consumption Rituals, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 5, pp.130-144 McCracken, G., 1986. Culture and consumption: A theoretical account of the structure and movement of the cultural meaning of consumer goods. Journal of consumer research, pp.71-84 Starr, M.A., 2007. Saving, spending, and self-control: Cognition versus consumer culture. Review of Radical Political Economics, 39(2), pp.214-229 Treadwell, J., Briggs, D., Winlow, S. & Hall, S., 2012. Shopocalypse Now Consumer Culture and the English Riots of 2011. British Journal of Criminology, p.azs054 Read More