SOC 365 Mass Media and Consumer Society

The course will examine how mass communication systems such as radio television cinema and the Internet are produced and what they signify and represent of the social world and public life. We consider the relationship of the mass media to big business and the structure of capitalism. The ideological influences of the mass media are interrogated through concepts such as "mass culture" and "subculture". We examine how contemporary culture and everyday life are increasingly commodified through the systems and spectacles of consumption capitalism. How has globalization affected consumerism and the social construction of the contemporary self?