In the Twilight of Social Structures: Comparing Actualised and Subjective Consumption - Softcover

Räsänen, Pekka

Softcover

ISBN 10: 363910952X ISBN 13: 9783639109528

Publisher: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008

Synopsis

This book examines the significance of consumption with regard to theoretical notions of postmodernism and the consumer society. In the book, it is also analysed whether consumption activities in everyday life can be explained by structural factors in contemporary Finland. Consumption is measured as household expenditure (the actualised level of consumption) and as individual consumption desires (the imaginary level of consumption). The findings show that the factors selected explain expenditure better than they do consumption desires. On the basis of the results, it is argued that consumption is affected by linkages between a number of different conditions, which can be approached rather similarly at both levels of analysis. Throughout the book, interpretations of explanatory social mechanisms are offered in describing how individual behaviour is connected with economic and socio-demographic structures.

About this title

About the Author

Pekka Räsänen is currently a senior researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Finland. His research focuses on the ways that contemporary social life is affected by the new information and communication technologies and the commercialization of the media landscape.

Edition details

• Publisher: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 363910952X
• ISBN 13: 9783639109528
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160