consumers republic

As I read the Cohen book my first thoughts revolved around how Cohen defines how corporations and individuals interact. Does Cohen focus to much on the business side of the transaction? Can the phenomena of mass consumption and consumerism be fully explained simply through looking at how corporations used advertising and products? What is the role of the consumer, are their tastes the results of the products offered or do they influence what is sold? For this I am thinking about how so many products are released that never gain popularity despite large advertising campaigns, were they simply failed ideas or does the consumer ultimately decide what is bought or sold?

As I continued to read the book, I could not help but think about what we can learn from this story to help solve our current problem. If Cohen were to update the epilogue, how would she view the current policies and bailouts. How has the recent shift from government subsidies to the people to subsidies to corporations affected their relationship? Are businesses actually to big to fail? Throughout this book it seemed as if higher wages for workers fueled their desires to purchase more products. Businesses had to continually evolve in order to stay in business and the hope of higher profits caused corporations to need to continually readjust and change business models. Do bailouts take away the incentive to change and evolve leading to a stale economy?

Finally I was most struck by the section about specialized products and advertising. I understand that children would want to view different products then their parents yet I felt as if Cohen was making this practice seem more successful then it is in reality. The cartoon on pg 300 seems to sum up my feelings. While selective advertising may show me more products that are interesting to me, the idea that these ads shape my identity seem farfetched. Look around the classroom, we are all of similar ages living in the same city, yet many different styles and tastes are displayed by all. Are we more tied to tastes from our race, age, and sex? Or can we look for other examples such as parents, values, and personal views? I began thinking about this as I watched a video on hulu where I was asked to pick which advertisement I wanted to watch. Would the statistics of this survey follow what Cohen claims or are there other factors that need to be considered?