---
title: Consumer Culture & Advertising
description: This topic examines how advertising and consumerism shape modern social identity, values, and economic behavior. Learners will analyze marketing strategies, media representations, and the historical development of consumer societies to understand their impact on daily life.
category: humanities
subcategory: cultural-studies
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/consumer-culture-and-advertising
---

# Consumer Culture & Advertising

This topic examines how advertising and consumerism shape modern social identity, values, and economic behavior. Learners will analyze marketing strategies, media representations, and the historical development of consumer societies to understand their impact on daily life.

## Available Resources

2 Videos • 2 Books • 1 Courses • 3 Websites

## Websites

### 1. Consumption Markets & Culture Journal

Academic open-access articles on consumer culture (suggested in r/academia, r/sociology)

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/r/cmc20/current

**Tags:** consumer-culture, academic-journal, consumption, marketing-research, cultural-studies

### 2. Adbusters

Anti-consumerism magazine and culture jamming resources (rec'd in r/collapse, r/anticonsumption)

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.adbusters.org

**Tags:** anti-consumerism, culture-jamming, advertising-critique, activism, magazine

### 3. baudrillardstudies.com

Baudrillard Studies is an online scholarly resource dedicated to Jean Baudrillard’s work, offering academic articles, essays, reviews, translations, and bibliographies that explore his theories of simulacra, hyperreality, media, and consumer culture.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://baudrillardstudies.com

**Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies

## Videos

### 1. The Story of Stuff

Animated critique of consumer culture (frequent rec in r/environment, r/ZeroWaste)

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM

**Tags:** consumerism, materials-economy, waste, sustainability, documentary

### 2. The Century of the Self (Full Adam Curtis Documentary)

Adam Curtis documentary on Freud, Bernays, and rise of consumer culture (highly upvoted in r/Documentaries, r/sociology)

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

**Tags:** public-relations, edward-bernays, propaganda, psychoanalysis, documentary

## Books

### 1. The Consumer Society

**Author:** Jean Baudrillard

Baudrillard's 1970 sociological study, translated into English, argues that consumption organizes modern society as a system of signs rather than satisfaction of needs. Readers gain a framework for analysing advertising, affluence, and mass media as structures of meaning.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0761956921?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies

### 2. Captains of Consciousness

**Author:** Stuart Ewen

Historical account of how American business in the 1920s used advertising to turn workers into consumers, tracing mass consumption's social roots. After reading, you can explain advertising as a tool of industrial and political management.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465021557?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies

## Courses

### 1. Consumer Culture

University of London course taught by Alan Bradshaw, running three modules on marketing, gender and ideology; digital surveillance and algorithmic targeting; and sustainable consumption. Finishing it, you can analyse marketing practice using sociological concepts rather than industry terminology.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/consumption-marketing-culture

**Tags:** courses, humanities-social-sciences, cultural-studies

---

*This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge*

*Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).*

View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/consumer-culture-and-advertising