I aim to
investigate how Jean Baudrillard constructed a theory of modern society through
the use signs and symbols that represent objects in the and analysis of
consumption. Today society is governed by consumerism; we are a ‘consumer
society’. One shall explain how
Baudrillard used Saussure’s theory of signs and structural linguistics
concerning the language used today. One will discuss how society is coded into
consumerism through the use of a system of values that society take on as
personal in order to develop an identity. Semiological analysis is applied to
the consumer objects, how nothing is offered alone and the use of the display
technique shops apply in order to entice consumers into buying a whole new
identity and not just one object. One shall explain how Baudrillard argued that
objects and our desires for an object are given a system of values, controlled
by codes and unconscious social logic; resulting in the consumer buying an
object for its value and status in society,
not its function. Also investigated is the theory of hysteria and its
similar paradigms to the theory of consumption when portraying meaning. To
conclude one shall determine whether Baudrillard did construct a theory of
modern society, which as one shall show is a ‘consumer’ society. Ideology today
represents consumerism, and the control that the ‘system’ has over commodity
consumption.
The
structural, cultural theory of signs was first discovered by Ferdinand de
Saussure (1857-1913); he had established ideas that aided Baudrillard’s study of
the processes of structuralism and semiology in terms of objects and
commodities. Parts of these processes are the structural linguistics, made up
of langue; “the object which linguists should study, forming both the focus of
their analyses and their principle of relevance.” (Strinati, 1995, page 90) it
is the structure of wording and meanings in advertising for consumption.
Saussure is “the creator of structural linguistics, the signs we had just
stumbled upon were now chief components of our language and communication” (Bishop,
2009, page 126) Saussure states that the sign is not just composed of a
signifier, signified, an auditory image, sound or mental idea, but the parts of
a ‘sign’ and the signs itself was composed of both physical and psychological
associations that were conventional when considering language and
communication. Baudrillard uses Saussurean linguistics in his analysis of
consumption, he states that the advertising for objects is coded through the
use of symbols that differentiate the objects from one another that creates a
series of products, objects or also referred to as commodities. Society is
‘coded’ through a differentiated system of signs, giving the consumer a sense
of freedom and self-determination; the choosing of objects in order to create a
personality, an identity, and as Baudrillard argues we follow unconscious logic
in our desire for consumer objects are tried to functions or a defined need.
Self-differentiation, self-integrating and class differentiated social
structure, conforming to societal influences in the present culture.
Baudrillard
applies semiological analysis to the way in which shops advertise products. Profusion
is one method of advertising a product; stacked in a pyramid or seen in
abundance on the shelf drawing the consumer to the product. But the method that
shows evidence of a semiological aspect is the method of display; the consumer
is surrounded by signs and symbols in an arrangement that sparks a
psychological reaction and draws them in to commit mass consumerism. The
display shows the consumer a range of objects, as objects are not offered
alone, but within a context of other objects, such as accessories to go with a
pair of trousers a jumper, a pair of shoes and so on. This group of objects; a
whole new look, has a different meaning to the objects individual meaning (such
as the jumper for warmth). Poster (2001) expresses that displays, adverts and
manufacturers all impose coherent and collective visions. Objects are signifieds as the object does not
have meaning; this is projected onto the object by the consumer. Williamson
states “a product may be connected with a way of life through being an accessory
to it, but come to signify it” (Williamson, 1978, page 35). These accessories
have other related objects that send the consumer into a spending frenzy. “Each
object can signify the other in a more complex super-object, and lead the
consumer to a series of more complex choices” (Poster, 2001, page 34). The
displays are specifically arranged to trace out directive paths. Consumers
caught up in, as Baudrillard says, the “calculus of objects”, differs from the
frenzy state of purchasing and possessing something to ‘show off’, to the use
of commodities and profusion. Baudrillard argues that displays and consumption
are fully integrated in consumer society. Kellner states that
Baudrillard
sees the entire society as organized around consumption and display of
commodities through which individuals gain prestige, identity and standing […]
just as words take on meaning according to their status in a differential
system of language, so sign values take on meaning according to their place in
a differential system of prestige and status.
(Kellner, 1989, page 21).
Using this system, the
possession of high end commodities, issues the consumer with higher status.
Baudrillard uses Saussure’s semiological language theory to portray signs as a
differential system to analyse commodities and the object. Baudrillard
established commodities as signifiers and signifieds, and interchangeable in
their subject; which was Saussure’s same framework for the linguistic sign.
Baudrillard
argues that objects are given “a system of sign values governed by rules, codes
and a social logic” (Kellner, 1989, page 21) and Genosko states that no one can
escape a pact with objects in a culture of consumption” (Genosko, 1994, page
119) A Sign or symbol’s meaning is only evident in a total context; analysing
the objects in relation to an individual (biological or social) ‘need’ that it
satisfies. Individual object (and our ‘need’ of it) must be considered as part
of a differential system. Baudrillard
argues we follow an unconscious social logic in our desire for consumer objects.
We want it not for the actual function, but for the statement of difference, to
communicate the individuals identity; objects are always endowed with meaning
in modern society. Baudrillard states that according to Riesman products are
not machines or objects anymore, but part of a personality. Personal
satisfaction is achieved through consumerism but “it is clear that in the act
of personalized consumption the subject, in his very insistence on being a subject, succeeds in manifesting himself
only as an object of economic demand”
(Baudrillard, 1996, page 152).
Consumption is the theory of needs and
satisfactions that are within an object; it then becomes substitutable in an
unlimited fashion outside the field of its denotation. Objects take on the
value of a sign; a designer handbag, serves
as a normal everyday bag would, but plays
as an element of status and individuality. The field of play is the field of
consumption.” In the logic of signs and symbols, objects are no longer tied to
a defined need, as they respond to the social logic of the logic of desire
[…]where they serve as a fluid and unconscious field of signification” (Poster,
2001, page 47). Objects and needs are interchangeable to fit the necessary
needs and desires of an individual. Consumption has the same system as concept
of hysteria, just as Glickman explains,
In the hysterical
or psychosomatic conversion the symptom, like the sign, is (relatively)
arbitrary. Migraine, colitis, lumbago, angina, or general fatigue form a chain
of somatic signifiers along which the symptom “parades.” This is just the
interconnection of object/signs, or of object/symbols, along which parades, not
needs (which remain tied to the object’s rational goal), but desire, and some
other determination, derived from an unconscious social logic”.
(Glickman, 1999, page 46).
The
consumption system regulates signs and integrates social groups; a system of
ideological values and communication; a social function which transcends
individual desires and encapsulates the unconscious social constraints and
values, when an object is bought it is not used to show individuality but the
object is used to signify and show the meaning in the differential system,
communicating status to others. Mathewes state that Baudrillard implores that
Consumer
behaviour, which appears to be focused and directed at the object and at
pleasure, in fact, responds to quite different objectives: the metaphoric or
displaced expression of desire, and the production of a code of social values
through the use of differentiating signs.
That which is determinant is not the function of individual interest
within a corpus of objects, but rather the specifically social function of
exchange, communication and distribution of values within a corpus of sign.
(Baudrillard, 1970 in Schweiker and Mathewes, 2004, page 198).
The system of consumption and
the social logic denies personal pleasure as the individuals ‘needs’ or
objectives are collective and socially constrained. Pleasure is one’s own
personal need for satisfaction and gratification, yet this is not an individual
venture but a collective one, implicated in a system of exchange and coded
values. So consumption is a system of meaning, a system of sociological signs
replacing the bio-functional and bio-economic systems that determine objects
and commodities. This consumer communication governs the communication between
individuals in society. Even though there are biological needs and important
utilities for human consumption, such as clothing to keep us warm and washing
machines to ensure we have clean clothing, the point one is trying to establish
is that; consumption does not fit into this system of thinking and this is true
in all societies’ groupings. The system of signs communicating consumer objects
reorganises consumerism and aids in the transition of nature to culture, the
need to search for desires. Baudrillard suggest that this is now “the specific mode of our era” (Poster,
2001, page 51). Commodities, objects, signs, marketing, all play a role in
communication, a language (langue) in its own right, a code that society
conforms to as a whole. Baudrillard argues that to ‘consume’ is now a
compulsory element of personal satisfaction. He states that “the consumer, the
modern citizen, cannot evade the constraint of happiness and pleasure, which in
the new ethics is equivalent to the traditional constraint of labour and
production” (Poster, 2001, page 51). He then continues to argue that man now
spends more time producing and creating personal needs and desire, continuously
reproducing the need to consume. If this process is no longer used then man is
satisfied with his objects and has become asocial, no longer needing to
consume. The universal concept of curiosity has enlightened individuals to try
anything, as the consumer does not want to miss out on any form of pleasure,
need or curiosity.
Consumption
is systematic and references signs collectively forming a code that governs
communication. This collective behaviour is actively pursued and the system of
values attached to an object concern social control, integration and
conformity; creating a new “mode of socialization”. Baudrillard considers that
Weber’s analysis of self-discipline for the workers of capitalist production is
the same process that is evident in contemporary consumption. Baudrillard’s
work shows that objects in consumer society are the productions of “human
practice, they have come to surround us in the modern world” (Gane, 1991, page
55) not as objects suggested by Marx, but that in a capitalist society, the
object that is produced is that of a commodity, something that is bought and
sold, so in this sense a product is not produced for a particular consumer but
it is produced for the collective consumer society. The consumer society is the
twentieth century’s equivalent to the indoctrination of industrial labour that
had constraints on the rural population, “there has been a revolutionary
transformation in the structure of social control and power” (Kellner, 1994,
page 168). Now the masses have been socialized by way of a labour force, the
‘system’ had to now create another form of control. The masses are now
controlled by consumption, the new socialisation. The needs of the consumer are
now controlled and rationalised like the other forces such as labour, as they
are now productive force that can be controlled and that feed the economy. A
new morality governed by these processes creates “an objective state”
corresponding to the forces of production and socialisation.
Concluding
Baudrillard arguments and theories on modern society, consumption uses objects
and distinctions differentiating the collective and assigning a code to the
consumer. Baudrillard argues that the twentieth century consumers are, just as
the labour workers were, unorganised and producing at an unconscious level. The
consumer is portrayed as ‘public opinion’, a sovereign reality. He continues in
saying that, the consumer sovereignty is recognised by power as long as they do
not act this way socially. He states “the people – these are the labourers,
provided they are unorganized: The Public or public opinion – these are
consumers, provided they are content to consume” (Poster, 2001, page 58) as
consumption is seen as discourse to one’s own desires. This plays out and
consumption is continuously reproduced within one’s own unconscious. Baudrillard
suggests that modern society is a ‘consumer’ society due to how people
continuously consume objects that represent that person’s identity or class
status (the products are created by someone else to start with so they can
never be exclusively individual). These objects are consumed due to the system
of social values attached to the objects by the use of signs and symbols.
Society is regulated by consumer objects and these objects govern our lives,
they are not a biological necessity as food and clothing may be, but the
objects allow social differentiation via the objects; the choices made are
objective and external not internal and subjective. For example, wearing
designer clothes and driving a Bentley or a Rolls Royce, would give the
consumer the high status that the consumer
strives for and desires, ‘this is what I wear (or this is who I want to
be)… not who I am).
The consumer personalises themselves through the use of
objects, systems, values and codes. The individual does fall prey to narcissism
due to the way products are advertised. For example, Cheryl Cole is the face
for the L’Oreal Elvive shampoo advert, stating “because you worth it” (Heat
Magazine, 2010), implying that if you think anything of yourself you should use
this shampoo (and maybe look as good as Cheryl). So the notion of independent
consumerism is lost and we are collectively consuming a shared desire. As one
has shown Baudrillard does construct a valid theory of modern society through
the analysis of consumption. The modern society is a ‘consumer’ society and one
perceives that society will continuously be this way; controlled by the
collective social values that make the consumer pursue these relatively
meaningless objects, in order to create an identity or be part of a social
group (Goths – wearing dark clothing and make-up). The consumer does not care
for the function of the object, but the ideal, therefore communicating an
‘individual’ identity. Baudrillard correctly concludes that this results in
Self-integrating and class-differentiating social structure.
Bibliography
Baudrillard, J., (1996) The
System of Objects. London: Verso
Bishop, R., (2009) Baudrillard
Now: Current Perspectives in Baudrillard Studies. Cambridge: Polity Press
Gane, M., (1991) Baudrillard’s
Bestiary: Baudrillard and culture. London: Routledge
Genosko, G., (1994) Baudrillard
and Signs: Signification Ablaze. London: Routledge.
Glickman, L., (1999) Consumer
Society in American History: A Reader. United States of America: Cornell
University Press.
Hawkes, D., (1996) Ideology:
The New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge.
Heat Magazine (2010) ‘L’Oreal
Elvive Advertisement’. Issue: 23rd-29th January 2010
Kellner, D., (1989) Jean
Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Kellner, D., (1994) Baudrillard:
A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Poster, M., (2001) Jean
Baudrillard: Selected Writings (second Edition). Cambridge Polity Press.
Schweiker, W., and Mathewes, C. T, (2004) Having: Property and Possession in Religious
and Social Life. United States of America: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Strinati, D., (1995) An
Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London: Routledge.
Williamson, J., (1978) Decoding
Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. London: Marion Boyars
Publishers Ltd.
:: Cheryl Cole Advertisement taken from Heat Magazine dated
23rd-29th January 2010.
By Lea Weller BA
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