Social Class and Cultural Products

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that cultural products we produce and consume today have connections to a particular social class. The paper discusses the concept of class in relation to culture and concludes that race is significant whenever one discusses advertising in global societies because race is still another tool to be used by (Western) advertisers to market a line of products through the individual endorsing those products.

From the Paper:

"Finally, race is significant whenever one discusses advertising in global societies because race is still another tool to be used by (western) advertisers to market a line of products through the individual endorsing those products. Suffice it to say, Tiger Woods - by virtue of the fact that he is not "white" but an aggregation of different ethnicities and races - is a man whose racial identity does not so much make him unique but, lamentably, makes him just another item that can be utilized to appeal to consumers throughout the world in a global economy. In a real sense, race in this instance is meaningful because Tiger Woods is used (has arguably always been used) as a pawn in the homogenizing march of western-based globalization and consumerism over the entire world (Yu, 203-207). In the final analysis, the cultural products we consume each day are often rife with socio-economic and racial associations - and race can be used to turn a "white" cultural product (Nike shoes, for example) into something that others from different ethnic and racial backgrounds will endorse."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Barthes, Roland. "Steak and Chips." Mythologies. Transl. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill & Wang, no date provided by client. 62-64.European Sociological Review. Vol. 19 2003. Oxford Oxford University Press.
• Gladwell, Malcolm. "The Cool Hunt." New Yorker 17 Mar. 1997:
• Mihi , Mirola. Management Vol. II, 2006.
• Shipman, Alan. "Lauding the Leisure Class: Symbolic Conduct and Conspicuous Consumption". Review of Social Economy. Vol. 62, 2004.
• Turner, Katherine. Journal of Social History. Vol. 39, 2005.

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