COMM 309: Consumer cultures -- how far do we want to go with this?

In his chapter on consumer cultures, Arthur Berger says in a mass consumer society, we no longer have a fixed identity from family, social class, religion and other markers that influenced people in more tradition-bound societies.

So, he says, we go out and buy our identity.

Quoting the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard (pp. 34-35), Berger says "... the world in which we live, in which -- without any rules that everyone accepts -- we all create and change our lifestyles and identities whenever we feel like doing so." A little later on (pp. 61-63), he creates a composite character, Lisa Greatgal, whose identity is created basically by the products she wears, eats or consumes and the media she watches.

Does she sound like anybody you know? Does Berger's world sound like the world you/we live in? Or does he go a little bit overboard? If so, where? And where is he on solid ground? (I know, I know, I'm mixing metaphors. But you know what I mean.) How much of this is due to advertising and how much of it is due to the nature of a mass media society? (Or is that just two ways of saying the same thing?) Be ready to discuss in class.