12227 - Sociology of Consumption

Learning outcomes

The course is proposed to provide students a deep knowledge of the social aspects of the consumption phenomenon, giving them instruments in order to analyze and understand practices of consumption in the contemporary society. The course is focused on the relationship between consumption practices and individual identity, and the transformations of the consumption phenomenon related to the process of globalization, spectacularization and dematerialization, as three main aspects of the contemporary society. A monographic part is dedicated to the analysis and understanding of the persuasion mechanisms, related  to non rationally conscious cognitive processes, that advertising has on the consumers.

Course contents

Teaching organization

The course is divided in three modules:

• the 1st and the 2nd modules will be carried out by prof.ssa Paola Parmiggiani (teacher responsible for this class); 
• the 3rd module will be carried out by prof. Renato Cocchi.

The course is carried out in the 2nd semester on Monday and Tuesday from 13.00 to 15.00 and Friday from 11,00 to 13,00.  Monday and Tuesday's lessons will be dedicated to the 1st and 2nd modules (prof.ssa the Paola Parmiggiani); Friday's lessons will be dedicated to the 3rd module (Renato Cocchi).

Course contents

1st and the 2nd modules:

• Consumption spectacularization and commercialization process. The transformation of the places of consumption in XIX century: from the craft store to the department store. Critical cues on the four classic theoretical figures of the consumer in the social studies: the homo faber, the homo oeconomicus, the alienated consumer, the emulative (envious) consumer.
• Consumption and personal identity: freedom and loss of the metropolitan man (the blasé individual, the flaneur); inauthenticity of self (one dimensional man, the man of the needs system, other-directed personality, the new Narcissus); self nomadism (the nomad of metropolitan neo-tribes, tourist of the liquid modernity); self construction (consume as symbolic appropriation ritual; consumption as tactics of cultural resistance).
• Contamination between consumption tactics and power strategies: from the strategies to tactics (cool hunting, viral marketing, tribal marketing); consumption and commercialization of the life experience (Codeluppi, S. Latouche, J. Rifkin, G. Ritzer); from tactics to the strategies (boycott, consumption of Fair Trade goods, Solidal Buying Groups, responsible tourism,…);  the figure of citizen-consumer (N. Hertz; U. Beck).

III Modulo:

• Introduction. Structure of the advertising communication. advertising objectives (sale of goods, services, mixed). Short advertising history
• Advertising typology: rational (simple; in-directed; directed). Survey about the non conscious mechanisms of thought. Advertising type:  not-rational;  mixed. Emotions in advertising. The Pavlov's dog and ads. The explicit sexual callback. The consciousness non-rational and the unconscious: analogies and differences.
• The message's primary vehicle. The indirect guarantee (Witnesses): the child, the movement, the youth,   the glamour, the music, the doctor, vivalitalia, etc. as message's secondary vehicles.
• Survey results, mechanisms of the non-rational conscious thought.
• The direct guarantee (Witnesses). Mechanisms of   non-rational conscious ads: identity as contiguous time; identity as contiguous spaces; identity as similarity; opposition.  
• How neuronal net works, as justification of these mechanisms.
• Attention and persuasion.
• “Logo”. Linguistic invention in ads: the composed word; the polysemy; the words game; “the magical” words; the mnemotechnics tricks (repetition, rhythm, rhyme); the “finale” in advertising.
• Personification; “rebounds ads”. The tricky ads; the bargain; fidelity; the opposition and the “diabolic one”; the well-being; the search of deep (fundraising).
• The rhetorical figures in advertising.
• Voice audio and mixed channel. Verbal and non verbal codes. 
• Effectiveness and persuasion.
• Cars ads.; Season ads.
• Practices on right advertising communication.
• Practices on wrong advertising communication.   

The 3rd module lessons' will be supported by over 600 visual examples from real advertising.

Readings/Bibliography

1st and 2nd modules

1. Parmiggiani P., Consumatori alla ricerca di sé, FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2001.
2. Parmiggiani P., La produzione del consumatore esce dalla clandestinità, Dispensa ad uso didattico.
3. One of the following texts:

• Barile N., Fenomenologia del consumo globale, Edizioni Interculturali, Roma, 2004.
• Bauman Z., Modernità liquida, Edizioni Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2002.
• Codeluppi V., Il potere del consumo: viaggio nei processi di mercificazione della società, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2003; Il potere della marca, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2003. (entrambi)
• Ferraresi M., La società del consumo. Lessico della postmodernità, Carocci, Roma, 2005.
• Ferraresi M., Parmiggiani P. (a cura di), L'esperienza degli spazi di consumo, Angeli, Milano, 2006.
• Hertz N., La conquista silenziosa, Carocci, Roma, 2001.
• Rifkin F., L'era dell'accesso. La rivoluzione della new economy, Mondadori, Milano, 2000.
• Ritzer G., L'era dell'iperconsumo: McDonaldizzazione, carte di credito, luoghi del consumo e altri temi, Angeli, Milano, 2003.
• Ritzer G., La religione dei consumi: cattedrali, pellegrinaggi e riti dell'iperconsumismo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2000.

Attending students will have the opportunity to choose the third text from a larger list, that it will include further bibliographic references proposed during the lessons.

3rd module:

• Cocchi R., Comunicazione nella pubblicità, teaching Paper

A copy of the Cocchi's teaching Paper is avaiable at the Library of Department of Sociology and it can be bought at the Baiesi Copy Shop.

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons, including moments of discussions and comparisons with the students. 

Assessment methods

For the first two modules the final assessment is an oral exam that consists in a conversation about the suggested reading list. The oral exam is aimed to assess the level of student knowledge of the topics treated during the course and his argumentation ability.

For the third module the final assessment consists in evaluation of a written assignment, of not more than 8-10 pages of lenght, about a topic that has been agreed with prof. Cocchi by e-mail (renatococchi@libero.it). The paper has to be sent by mail (Via Rabbeno, 3, 42100 Reggio Emilia), at least two weeks before the date of the exam.

A copy of the paper has to be sent by e-mail to prof. Parmiggiani (paola.parmiggiani@unibo.it).

Teaching tools

Photocopies, Video-projector, PC, white board.