ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an outline of the basic features of consumer culture and move beyond regarding it as merely a mass culture by inquiring into the problem of the differential reception and the use of consumer goods and images. The term consumer culture points to the impact of mass consumption on everyday life which has involved a series of transformation in the symbolic order, meaning structures and practices. From the origins of consumer culture in the nineteenth century the means of production and distribution of consumer goods as well as the content of the associated imagery has been dominated by the West in general and the United States in particular. The chapter examines the view that consumer culture can merely be regarded as a product of the universal logic of capitalist development is questioned and some of the possible ways how consumer goods and images can be used by various classes and groups to enhance their particular interests.
