Completing and moving on from the literature review is a huge relief and weight off my mind. I feel encouraged that I am on the right track and relieved that the assignment was well received despite my misgivings. It really feels now that CS is gaining momentum and that I am starting not only to get to grip with my topic of consumerism, but also beginning to understand how the dissertation will develop.

Here are a few further thoughts:

What is the ‘big moment’ that captures consumerism now?

Andrew has pointed me towards John Darwell’s work on Meadowhall, describing it as “a big ‘moment’ in the shift from a ‘heavy’ form of capitalism to one that is ostensibly lighter and more mobile and based on ‘information’ and consumption.” Reading this I was immediately struck that it is the uncertainty of the current economic position that interests me – where is the next shift? What will it be? The heavy industry that is described is long in the past and we are now in a position where the ‘temples of consumption’ such as Meadowhall and the Metro Centre seem threatened. The changes from shopping as a physical activity to one focused on leisure and entertainment has been challenged for some time by internet commerce, and this change has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic.

Use of visual examples:

I like the advice that I should reference “how art, culture and photography have documented/critiqued/responded to what [I] am looking at” throughout the essay rather than as a separate chapter. In ‘Capitalist Realism’, Mark Fisher uses cultural references brilliantly throughout to illustrate his points. This is a book I have come back to a number of times and while it may not be something I directly reference, Fisher’s style is something that I am sure will influence me.

The semiotics of consumption is also something that could be a major theme for both my essay and BoW.