Write an Essay That Outlines the View That a Consumer Society Is a Divided Society

TMA02 Essay Plan

‘Write an essay that outlines the view that a consumer society is a divided society.’

Introduction:

Outline what I am going to put into the essay as a whole – In this essay; I will outline the views that a consumer society is a divided society.

Introduce what a consumer society is, and outline consumption.

Factors that contribute to understanding what consumption is about e.g. Income, education, the role of media, social expectations, family and peer pressure.



Main body:

Explain that not everyone is able to consume equally, which shapes their ability to participate in consumer society.

Talk about the seduced and repressed by Bauman e.g. the seduced are those who can participate in a consumer society, with something to sell back to the market, for example, the employed, the young, talent, good looks. The repressed are those that are excluded from consumer society, for example, the unemployed, the low paid, recently arrived migrants, some people with disabilities, older people on state pensions. Outline how this creates winners and losers in society.

Discuss the divides in consumer society. For example money and status, but also different groups e.g. the in crowd (people with the most social status) and how these different groups know how to positively consume, and it benefits them as a group.

Zero- sum game, Positive- sum game. (Dennis Wrong 1997)

Talk about winners and losers but involving big supermarkets e.g. Tesco’s, include how the current market is now for them, and say how it is effecting other stores, for example, lots of smaller shops on the main town street. E.g. STOP (Stop Tesco owning Patrick) this is not a division between consumers, but between who has the most power to actually influence where we shop. Talk about what I have learnt in the different audio tapes ‘evidence in the social sciences.’ And ‘reflections on material lives.’



Conclusion:

Sum up what I have already found out in the...