This text provides an overview of concepts, theories, and methods related to the study of household consumption. It summarizes the most recent data on consumption patterns and trends, together with factors that influence consumption--population trends, prices, and distribution of resources--and examines how consumption data are used by business, government, and other organizations.

The work will give the student a knowledge of household consumption patterns and an understanding of how to use such knowledge. Its three general purposes, which correspond to the three parts of the book, are: to provide the tools students need in order to use information about household consumption, including major concepts and theories used in the study of consumption, empirical methodologies, and sources of data; to describe current patterns, trends, and problems in household consumption in the United States and other countries; and to show how information about household consumption is used. This text is designed for upper-division courses in consumption economics, consumer science, and family resource management.

Taking an innovative and interdisciplinary approach, Experiential Retailing moves beyond the traditional model of product assortment. It examines the history of retailing and consumption, and how cultural attitudes have changed over time. Different types of shopping experiences are described, and anecdotes and illustrations demonstrate strategies for success. Incisive, sensory, and entertaining, the text provides exciting new concepts for understanding this global phenomenon.

The new edition of this highly acclaimed anthology continues to provide the most comprehensive, rigorously balanced survey available of modern consumerism. Written by a wide range of experts, the 42 articles--half of them new to this edition--cover today's most important consumer and public policy issues: advertising and the disclosure of consumer information, selling practices, anti-trust issues and competition, product safety, liability, and consumer satisfaction. As in previous editions, the articles are arranged according to the steps in the process.

New to this edition are detailed discussions of such current issues as the costs and benefits of government regulation, advertising to children, consumer information systems, and demarketing (encouraging consumers to use less of such products astobacco and energy). The final section assesses the response of business and industry to consumer pressures.

The idea of Canada as a consumer society was largely absent before 1890 but familiar by the mid-1960s. This change required more than rising incomes and greater impulses to buy; it involved the creation of new concepts. Buying Happiness explores the ways that key public thinkers represented, conceptualized, and institutionalized new ideas about consumption. Liverant's fresh approach connects the emergence and diffusion of these ideas with changes in political processes and social policy. As the figure of "the consumer" moved from the margins to the centre of social, cultural, and political analysis, the values and concepts associated with consumerism were woven into the Canadian social imagination.

Holidays with Hitler tells the story of German leisure time and state-sponsored fun under the Nazi regime. Nathan Morley looks at consumerism, entertainment and travel in German society, and offers a vivid portrait of what it was like to visit as a foreign tourist seeking fun in a totalitarian state. An important part of Nazi policy was the vast Strength through Joy programme, headed by Dr Robert Ley - a brash and fanatical party member. Although Strength through Joy is best remembered for introducing the Volkswagen Beetle, it also allowed fourteen million people to enjoy annual vacations at bargain basement prices while improving the health of the population by encouraging running, hiking, swimming, and active family holidays. With millions of working people paying monthly dues, the organization amassed a hefty fortune. On the island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea, a vast resort capable of accommodating 22,000 holidaymakers began construction in 1937 - the same year the Wilhelm Gustloff, the first Strength Through Joy vessel, was launched in Hamburg. With the arrival of the Second World War, the organisation adapted, the goal being the 'cultural caretaking of the bomb-battered population and our soldiers'. Nathan Morley, employing meticulous research, tells the story not only of the Strength through Joy programme but also the efforts to organise the Olympics and disguise anti-Jewish sentiments from the thousands of visitors; the way millions of Germans spent their free time; and what it was like to be a foreign tourist as the thin veneer of a disintegrating Reich peeled away to reveal an ugly and evil interior.

An evocative symbol of the 1960s was its youth counterculture. This study reveals that the youthful revolutionaries were augmented by such unlikely allies as the advertising industry and the men's clothing business. The ad industry celebrated irrepressible youth and promoted defiance and revolt. In the 1950s, Madison Avenue deluged the country with images of junior executives, happy housewives and idealized families in tail-finned American cars. But the author of this study seeks to show how, during the "creative revolution" of the 60s, the ad industry turned savagely on the very icons it had created, using brands as signifiers of rule-breaking, defiance, difference and revolt. Even the menswear industry, formerly makers of staid, unchanging garments, ridiculed its own traditions as remnants of intolerable conformity, and discovered youth insurgency as an ideal symbol for its colourful new fashions. Thus emerged the strategy of co-opting dissident style which is so commonplace in modern hip, commercial culture. This text aims to add detail to a period in the 60s which has hitherto remained unresearched.

The question of consumption emerged as a major focus of research and scholarship in the 1990s but the breadth and diversity of consumer culture has not been fully enough explored. The meanings of consumption, particularly in relation to lifestyle and identity, are of great importance to academic areas including business studies, sociology, cultural and media studies, psychology, geography and politics. The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture is a one-stop resource for scholars and students of consumption, where the key dimensions of consumer culture are critically discussed and articulated. The editors have organised contributions from a global and interdisciplinary team of scholars into six key sections: Part 1: Sociology of Consumption Part 2: Geographies of Consumer Culture Part 3: Consumer Culture Studies in Marketing Part 4: Consumer Culture in Media and Cultural Studies Part 5: Material Cultures of Consumption Part 6: The Politics of Consumer Culture

Food trucks announcing "halal" proliferate in many urban areas but how many non-Muslims know what this means, other than cheap lunch? Here Middle Eastern historians Febe Armanios and Bogac Ergene provide an accessible introduction to halal (permissible) food in the Islamic tradition, exploring what halal food means to Muslims and how its legal and cultural interpretations have changed in different geographies up to the present day. Historically, Muslims used food to define their identities in relation to co-believers and non-Muslims. Food taboos are rooted in the Quran and prophetic customs, as well as writings from various periods and geographical settings. As in Judaism and among certain Christian sects, Islamic food traditions make distinctions between clean and impure, and dietary choices and food preparation reflect how believers think about broader issues. Traditionally, most halal interpretations focused on animal slaughter and the consumption of intoxicants. Muslims today, however, must also contend with an array of manufactured food products-yogurts, chocolates, cheeses, candies, and sodas-filled with unknown additives and fillers. To help consumers navigate the new halal marketplace, certifying agencies, government and non-government bodies, and global businesses vie to meet increased demands for food piety. At the same time, blogs, cookbooks, restaurants, and social media apps have proliferated, while animal rights and eco-conscious activists seek to recover halal's more wholesome and ethical inclinations. Covering practices from the Middle East and North Africa to South Asia, Europe, and North America, this timely book is for anyone curious about the history of halal food and its place in the modern world.

We can't stop shopping but we must stop shopping - the consumer dilemma that defines our lives and our future. What would happen if we did? We are using up the planet at almost double the rate it can regenerate. To support our economies, we're told we must shop now like we've never shopped before, yet the scale of our consumption remains the biggest factor in the ruination of the world. But what would life look like if we stopped? Visiting places where economies have experienced temporary shut-downs, artisan producers, zero-consumption societies and bringing together a host of expert views, this is both a history of our relationship with consumption and a story about the future. 'Lays out a wealth of knowledge and wisdom' Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress

What does it mean to be young and Muslim today? There is a segment of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims that is more influential than any other, and will shape not just the future of Muslims, but also the world around them: meet 'Generation M'.From fashion magazines to social networking, the 'Mipsterz' to the 'Haloodies', halal internet dating to Muslim boy bands, Generation M are making their mark. Shelina Janmohamed, award-winning author and leading voice on Muslim youth, investigates this growing cultural phenomenon at a time when understanding the mindset of young Muslims is critical. With their belief in an identity encompassing both faith and modernity, Generation M are not only adapting to Western consumerism, but reclaiming it as their own.

History | Food Studies A century and a half ago, when the food industry was first taking root, few consumers trusted packaged foods. Americans had just begun to shift away from eating foods that they grew themselves or purchased from neighbors. With the advent of canning, consumers were introduced to foods produced by unknown hands and packed in corrodible metal that seemed to defy the laws of nature by resisting decay. Since that unpromising beginning, the American food supply has undergone a revolution, moving away from a system based on fresh, locally grown goods to one dominated by packaged foods. How did this come to be? How did we learn to trust that food preserved within an opaque can was safe and desirable to eat? Anna Zeide reveals the answers through the story of the canning industry, taking us on a journey to understand how food industry leaders leveraged the powers of science, marketing, and politics to win over a reluctant public, even as consumers resisted at every turn.

Balkan Blues explores how a state transitions from the collectivized production and distribution of socialism to the consumer-focused culture of capitalism. Yuson Jung considers the state as an economic agent in upholding rights and responsibilities in the shift to a global market. Taking Bulgaria as her focus, Jung shows how impoverished Bulgarians developed a consumer-oriented society and how the concept of "need" adapted in surprising ways to accommodate this new culture. Different legal frameworks arose to ensure the rights of vulnerable or deceived consumers. Consumer advocacy NGOs and government officers scrambled to navigate unfamiliar EU-imposed models for consumer affairs departments. All of these changes involved issues of responsibility, accountability, and civic engagement, which brought Bulgarians new ways of viewing both their identities and their sense of agency. Yet these opportunities also raised questions of inequality, injustice, and social stratification. Jung's study provides a compelling argument for reconsidering of the role of the state in the construction of 21st-century consumer cultures.

Consumers, manufacturers, and auto dealers use publicly available auto recall information differently. Chapter 1 addresses: how consumers and industry stakeholders use such information and how easy to use do consumers find the auto recall areas of NHTSA.gov, among other objectives. Ticket pricing, resale activity, and fees for events vary. Chapter 2 review issues around online ticket sales including what is known about online ticket sales, consumer protection issues related to such sales, and potential advantages and disadvantages of selected approaches to address these issues. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) regulates robocalls. A robocall, also known as "voice broadcasting," is any telephone call that delivers a prerecorded message using an automatic (computerised) telephone dialing system, more commonly referred to as an automatic dialer or "autodialer." Chapter 3 addresses robocalls that are both illegal under the TCPA and intended to defraud, not robocalls that are defined only as illegal. Chapter 4 addresses FTC's role and authorities for overseeing Internet privacy, stakeholders' views on potential actions to enhance federal oversight of consumers' Internet privacy, and breaches of personally identifiable information. Chapter 5 provides a brief overview of federal regulation of Wells Fargo and a timeline of key events involving the company since the scandal's disclosure. It then discusses a few relevant policy issues, including consumer protection and corporate governance, and highlights recent instances of congressional oversight of the bank. Chapter 6 summarises measures FTC has taken to enforce consumer reporting agencies (CRA) compliance with requirements to protect consumer information, measures CFPB has taken to ensure CRA protection of consumer information, and actions consumers can take after a breach. Chapter 7 examines issues related to federal oversight of CRAs. This chapter discusses measures FTC has taken to enforce CRA compliance with requirements to protect consumer information, measures CFPB has taken to ensure CRA protection of consumer information, and actions consumers can take after a breach. Chapter 8 reviews gender-related price differences for consumer goods and services sold in the United States. Chapter 9 summarises P.L. 115-174 as enacted and highlights major policy proposals of the legislation.

We now call it The Great Realisation and, yes, since then there have been many. But that's the story of how it started ... and why hindsight's 2020. First performed online in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Tomos Roberts' heartfelt poem, with its message of hope and resilience, has been viewed over 60 million times and translated into over 20 languages. Adapted by Ashley Banjo and Diversity into a BAFTA-winning dance performance for Britain's Got Talent! As featured in the official BBC New Years Eve fireworks spectacular! 'A beautiful book and beautifully illustrated' - Kate Garraway, Good Morning Britain Written in the form of a bedtime story, The Great Realisation is a celebration of the many things - from simple acts of kindness, to applauding the heroic efforts of our key workers - that have brought us together at a time of global crisis. It captures, with magical resonance, the thoughts and feelings of millions in lockdown, as we adapted to a new way of life, found joy in unexpected places, cast aside old habits and reflected on what truly matters to us. The Great Realisation is a timely reminder that, even during our most challenging moments, there is always hope. Tomos's second book, The World Awaits, was published in July 2021 and he was commissioned by the Royal British Legion to write an Armistice Day poem, Alive With Poppies, which he performed at the Royal Albert Hall in commemoration of 100 years of the poppy. He wrote a Christmas poem, 'I Actually, Love London' for BBC London in December 2021. 'This fairytale-style story provides a springboard for discussion of current events with children, and presents a more optimistic view of the future in a time where the outlook often seems bleak' - School Library Journal, US

In the first half of the twentieth century, Theodor Adorno wrote about the 'culture industry'. For Adorno, culture too along with the products of factory labour was increasingly becoming a commodity. Now, in what they call the 'global culture industry', Scott Lash and Celia Lury argue that Adorno's worst nightmares have come true.
Their new book tells the compelling story of how material objects such as watches and sportswear have become powerful cultural symbols, and how the production of symbols, in the form of globally recognized brands, has now become a central goal of capitalism. Global Culture Industry provides an empirically and theoretically rich examination of the ways in which these objects - from Nike shoes to Toy Story, from global football to conceptual art - metamorphose and move across national borders.
This book is set to become a dialectic of enlightenment for the age of globalization. It will be essential reading for students and scholars across the social sciences.

Growing numbers of consumer product recalls in 2007 and 2008, particularly of toys and other children's products, focused increased attention on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). As globalisation and technological advances expand the range of products on the market, the challenge of overseeing and regulating the thousands of product types becomes all the more complex. This book evaluates the authority and ability of the CPSC to stay informed about new risks associated with consumer products and its ability to identify product hazards, with a focus on voluntary standards and product identification.

One Big Thing is about finding out what you were born to do with your life and how to use it to revolutionize your business or ministry--and change the world. In a complex, multi-layered world, it's more difficult than ever to get your voice heard and to accomplish your dreams. To stand out today, you need to cut through the clutter and get noticed. Making that happen means to focus on the one thing in your life that drives you, inspires your passion, and separates you from the pack. For everyone who's been pulled in different directions, born with multiple abilities, or just wondered what to do with their lives, this is the answer. Phil Cooke helps you not only discover that one big thing, but also teaches you the secrets of making an unforgettable impact with your life. Stop being average at so many things, and become extraordinary at One Big Thing. What were you born to accomplish with your life? One Big Thing will help you discover what you were born to do and allow it to revolutionize your business, your ministry, and your life. In today's distracted, digital culture, it's harder than ever to identify your calling, get your voice heard, and achieve your dreams. To stand out and communicate your ideas and message, you need to cut through the clutter and get noticed. Making that happen means focusing on the one thing that drives you, inspires your passion, and separates you from the pack. If you've ever felt pulled in different directions or wondered what to do with your varied talents and interests, Phil Cooke will teach you the secrets of living a life-on-purpose that rises above the noise and leaves a lasting mark on the world.

Peter Gleick knows water. A world-renowned freshwater expert, Gleick is a MacArthur Foundation 'genius', and according to the BBC, an environmental visionary. And he drinks from the tap. Why don't the rest of us? "Bottled and Sold" shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last one hundred years - and why we are poorer for it. It's a big story and water is big business. Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of commercially produced water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than thirty billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars. Have we simply been hoodwinked by corporate executives or are there legitimate reasons to buy all those bottles? With a scientist's eye and a natural storyteller's wit, Gleick investigates whether claims about the relative safety, convenience, and taste of bottled vs. tap hold water. And he exposes the true reasons we've turned to the bottle, from fear-mongering by business interests and our own vanity to the breakdown of public systems and global inequities. Jewel-encrusted 'designer' H2O may be laughable, but the debate over commodifying water is deadly serious. It comes down to society's choices about the human right to water, the role of government and free markets, the importance of being 'green', and fundamental values. Gleick gets to the heart of the bottled water craze, exploring what it means for our most basic necessity to become a luxury.

In today's digital economy, consumer information is more important than ever. Companies are using this information in innovative ways to provide consumers with new and better products and services. Although many of these companies manage consumer information responsibly, some appear to treat it in an irresponsible or even reckless manner. And while recent announcements of privacy innovations by a range of companies are encouraging, many companies - both online and offline -- do not adequately address consumer privacy interests. This book proposes a normative framework for how companies should protect consumers' privacy.

Public alarm about the spate of recent product recalls, particularly of toys and other products used by children, has focused attention on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). This book provides an overview of the prior authority of the CPSC to establish consumer product safety standards and to inspect and recall unsafe consumer products. This book also describes the new requirements for certification and testing and the effect of the stay of enforcement of these requirements announced by the CPSC, certain new safety standards established by the CPSIA and related implementation actions and issues. In addition, the authors assessed injury and death data sources used by CPSC, compared CPSC's consumer education efforts with key practices, and interviewed federal officials and groups representing the health and consumer interests of minority populations. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

A classic expose in company with "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Silent Spring," "The Story of Stuff" expands on the celebrated documentary exploring the threat of overconsumption on the environment, economy, and our health. Leonard examines the "stuff" we use everyday, offering a galvanizing critique and steps for a changed planet.
"The Story of Stuff" was received with widespread enthusiasm in hardcover, by everyone from Stephen Colbert to Tavis Smiley to George Stephanopolous on "Good Morning America," as well as far-reaching print and blog coverage. Uncovering and communicating a critically important idea--that there is an intentional system behind our patterns of consumption and disposal--Annie Leonard transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.
From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of "Time "magazine's 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these.
With curiosity, compassion, and humor, Leonard shares concrete steps for taking action at the individual and political level that will bring about sustainability, community health, and economic justice. Embraced by teachers, parents, churches, community centers, activists, and everyday readers, "The Story of Stuff" will be a long-lived classic.

The transformation of China from a major site for clothing manufacture to an intensely fashion consuming society has been widely documented. Less has been written about the making of Chinese fashion. In Fashion in Multiple Chinas, expert authors explore how a multitude of Chinese fashions operate across the widespread, fragmented and diffused Chinese diaspora. They challenge the idea of Chinese nationalism as 'one nation', as well as of China as a single reality, revealing the realities of Chinese fashion as diverse and comprising multiple practices. They also demonstrate how the making of Chinese fashion is composed of numerous layers, often involving a web of global entanglements between manufacturing and circulation, retailing and branding. Chapters cover the mechanics of the PRC fashion industry, the creative economy of Chinese fashion, its retail and branding, and the cultural identity of Chinese fashion from the diasporas comprising the transglobal landscape of fashion production.

In Speculative Communities, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou examines the ways that speculation has moved beyond financial markets to shape fundamental aspects of our social and political lives. As ordinary people make exceptional decisions, such as the American election of a populist demagogue or the British vote to leave the European Union, they are moving from time-honored and -tested practices of governance, toward the speculative promise of a new, more uncertain future. This book shows how even our methods of building community have shifted to the speculative realm as social media platforms enable and amplify our volatile wagers. For Komporozos-Athanasiou, "to speculate" means increasingly "to connect," to endorse the unknown pre-emptively, and often daringly, as a means of social survival. Grappling with the question of how more uncertainty can lead to its full-throated embrace rather than dissent, Speculative Communities shows how finance has become the model for society writ large. As Komporozos-Athanasiou argues, virtual marketplaces, new social media, and dating apps bring finance's opaque infrastructures into the most intimate realms of our lives, leading to a new type of speculative imagination across economy, culture, and society.

Over-consumption is one of the key issues of our time, especially in the Western world. Over the past decade, in the face of historically unprecedented levels of consumer spending in the West - and the more recent impact of recession - a vigorous politics of anti-consumerism has emerged in a range of wealthy nations.

This timely and original new book provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of what has come to be called the 'new politics of consumption'; a politics embodied in movements such as culture jamming, simple living, slow food and fair trade. The book offers an examination of anti-consumerism at a time when the idea of 'consumer excess' is being re-framed by a global economic downturn, and crucially explores what this means for the future of political debate. Drawing on interviews with activists across three continents, and offering a refreshingly accessible discussion of contemporary commentary and theory, Kim Humphery sympathetically explores anti-consumerism as cultural interpretation, lifestyle change, and collective action.

Whilst analysing the positive advances of the anti-consumerist movement, "Excess "also challenges contemporary critical thinking on consumption, taking issue with the return to theories of mass culture in contemporary anti-consumerist polemic. Alternatively, Humphery begins to forge a politics of anti-consumerism that addresses the complexity of material acquisition and which avoids treating consumers as mere dupes in the logic of capitalism, viewing them instead as active participants in a culture which is capable of transformation.

Turkey has witnessed remarkable sociocultural change under the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), particularly regarding its religious communities. As individuals with pious identities have increasingly gained access to state power and accumulated economic influence, so religious appearances and practices have become more visible in Turkey's `secular' public spaces. More than this, consumption practices have changed and new Islamic and Islamist identities have emerged. This book investigates three of the most widespread faith-inspired communities in Turkey: the Gulen, Suleymanli and the Menzil. Nazli Alimen compares these communities, looking at their diverse interpretations of Islamic rules related to the body and dress, and how these different groups compete for power and control in Turkey. In tracing what motivates consumption practices, the book adds to the growing interest in the commercial aspects of modest and Islamic fashion. It also highlights the importance of clothing and bodily rituals (such as veiling, grooming and food choices) for the formation of community identities. Based on ethnographic research, Alimen analyses the relationship between the marketplace and religion, and shows how different communities interact with each other and state institutions. Of particular note are the varied expressions of Islamic masculinities and femininities at play. Appealing to a cross-disciplinary readership, the book will be relevant for scholars within Turkish Studies, Gender Studies, Islamic Studies, Fashion, Consumption Studies, Sociology of Religion and Middle Eastern Studies.