A critical study of consumerist lifestyle as a 'religion'

A study of 'Consumerist Religion', as related to chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Life to the full. In three parts

A different perspective on secularisation: How consumerist lifestyle, fuelled by ‘media orchestrated imaginations of what life should be like', functions like a religion for many people: Implications for religious education

Secularisation is often understood as a decline in the prominence of religion in personal and social life. But it may well be that many secularised people are still quite religious – it is just that their functional religion is a consumerist lifestyle. This topic is specially concerned with the way the 'media-marketing-advertising' complex provides an iconography that is influential in shaping people's feelings and behaviour in relation to expectations of the 'good life' (or 'life to the full')

Part A: Emerging understandings of relationships between the media, religion, secularisation and marketing – the research literature

Click here for the introductory title powerpoint for the presentations

This is a short repeating powerpoint introducing the other presentations. It plays up the theme "Imagine a beautiful life -- Imagine a comfortable life" etc

Part A. Emerging understandings of relationships between the media, religion, secularisation and marketing – the research literature

Click here or photograph for Powerpoint Presentation A

NOTE: Audio commentaries covering the two powerpoint presentations are linked in here. The idea is to download both and play the audio (stopping and re-starting according to the slides) while going through the powerpoint. Viewers can advance the slides at their own pace. To have both the powerpoint and audio files working simultaneously, either (1) open a second window with the same web address to start the audio file and for pausing/playing the audio. OR (2) right click the icon and using the "save link" option, download the audio file completely and it can then be played/paused in the separate audio app. The material in the presentations relates to the text in chapters 5, 6 and 7. Presentation A is a summary covering chapter 5

Click for audio mp3 file that goes with the powerpoint as a commentary

ALTERNATIVE: Click here for the original text study of this Part A. It has more textual material but does not have the same video segments that are used in the Powerpoint presentation above. The two are complementary.

Part B. Decoding the mise -en- scènes of Medieval Christianity and Contemporary Consumerist Lifestyle – A research pedagogy

Presentation B summarises the issues taken up in chapter 6 of Life to the full and provides a brief introduction to the questions considered in chapter 7. More details and audiovisual materials related to chapter 7 are linked in to Part C below.

Click here or photograph for Powerpoint Presentation -B

Click for the audio mp3 file audio that goes with the powerpoint as commentary

As noted above, open both the powerpoint and the audio file. Work through the slides at your own pace, pausing the audio when you need to.

Part C. Implications for religious education: appraising the spiritual / moral dimension of consumerist lifestyle

(Main material on the critical evaluation of contemporary consumerist lifestyle) This includes and extends beyond the powerpoint summary in Part B.

Click here or the photograph for the material on critical evaluation of consumerist lifestyle which is like a contemporary 'religion'

This material has detailed extensions to the questions considered in the powerpoint summary in Part B above. (It also includes the audiovisual material from Part B) It elaborates further on similarities and differences between the mise-en-scene of medieval Christianity and contemporary consumerist lifestyle. It then provides a long segment looking into the critical evaluation of contemporary consumerist lifestyle which was only signposted in Part B.

Summary of contents of Part C

1. Teasing out the mise- en -scène of contemporary lifestyle with a view to informing education and religious education

2. From bespoke for the wealthy towards designer status for whosoever can afford it

3. Why do people shop to buy designer status? 4. Anyway, what is wrong with having designer branded goods? A question of balance.

5. How visual imagery in the media resonates with the consumerist mise- en -scène and conditions people's thinking and behaviour