Consumption choices cannot be understood without considering cultural context in which they are made: culture is the ‘prism’ through which people view products and try to make sense of their own and other people’s consumer behaviour.
Howard and Sheth viewed culture as a selective, man-made way of responding to experience, a sat of behaviour patterns. In their interpretation, culture consists essentially of traditional ideas and, in particular, the values that are attached to these ideas. They postulated that cultural influences affect motives, brand comprehension, attitude, and intention to purchase.
Linton defined culture as ‘the total way of life of any society, not simply… those parts of this way which the society regards as higher or more desirable. Thus culture, when applied to our own way of life, has nothing to do with playing the piano or reading Browning’. ‘ Culture is not a narrow view of human activities, exclusively concerned with listening to symphony concerts, or visiting galleries’
Culture, a concept crucial to the understanding of consumer behaviour(!!!) , may be thought of as the collective memory of a society. Culture is the accumulation of shared meanings, rituals, norms and traditions among the members of an organization or society. It is what defines a human community, its individuals, its social organizations, as well as its economic and political system. It includes both abstract ideas, such as values, and ethics, and the material object and services, such as cars, clothing, food, art, and sports, that are produced or valued by a group of people.
Ecology – the way in which system is adopted in its habitat. This area is shaped by the technology used to obtain a distribute resources
Social structure- the way in which orderly social life is maintained . This area includes the domestic and political groups that are dominant within the culture
Ideology- the mental characteristic of a people and the way in which they relate their
environment and social groups. This area revolves around the belief that members of a society possess a common worldview. They share certain ideas about principles of order and fairness. They also share ethos.
History records that popular forms of entertainment have always existed. In his Historia , Herodus (circa 48-425 BCE) wrote about amusing performances and songs that he encountered as he traveled the ancient world that seemed rather odd him but that were highly popular. Fortunately, he thought, such phenomena were exception, not the rule. Today’s popular entertainment culture, or “pop culture” as it is commonly called, is instead the rule, not exception. It is everywhere- on television, in movie theaters, in sport stadiums, in shopping malls, and so on. Is pop culture on the verge of taking over the hearts and minds of everyone living today?
So what is pop culture?
“The bosses of out mass media, press, radio, film, and television succeed in their aim of taking our minds off disaster”
Ernst Fisher(1899-1972)
1920s - the decade marked, in fact, the crystallization of pop culture, as we now call it. By the 1930s, pop culture was spreading to all corners of American society and to other parts of the world as well.
Levels of culture
The categories of high, mid and low culture merit further discussion, since the sense that certain forms of culture are higher than others has not disappeared from modern society, despite the efforts of the Romantics and the advert and spread of pop culture. Paradoxically, the idea of levels of culture exists within pop culture itself. Most people today share an understanding of an implicit culture hierarchy.
