Consumption, Media and the Global South

In the age of globalization, consumer culture is linked inextricably with neoliberalism. The majority of countries in the world have been historically and systemically excluded from the prosperity brought about by the globalized economic and financial system spawned by western colonialism and imperialism. Yet thanks to globalized media systems, those countries and their populations — the majority of which remain trapped in poverty — are exposed to knowledge about the commodities, consumption practices and individualistic values that their more economically privileged counterparts enjoy. This inherent paradox — the extreme visibility of consumer culture in global media discourses and the deprivation of all but the most basic material opportunities to most of the 7 billion people living on the planet — is the driving force behind this book. What does it mean that consumption is so visible in global media, yet despite economic growth and westernization, it is still so difficult to access for many people? This is a question of material resources and their distribution, true, but it is also a question about discourse: the stories that we tell ourselves and each other about the world and how it operates, and the relationships that we are invited to forge by the narratives and ideas that circulate through the media.

This chapter provides a conceptual matrix for the series of case studies examined in the rest of this book. It draws together relevant scholarly work that relates to, or directly addresses, the empirical theme of media representations of consumption in the global south. Because the book focuses on media representations that are embedded in global culture, either by virtue of the media texts themselves being transnational objects, or by virtue of the texts dealing with material explicitly linked to globalized consumers and practices of consumption, it is important to first set out the rationale for the focus on media representations as well as discuss the relationship between media and globalization. Next the chapter turns to a discussion of globalized consumer culture: tracing a history of colonial power and showing how that produced the contemporary political economy of consumption in which colonial legacies remain visible. Then the discussion turns to the ways in which consumption in the global south has been theorized, and how two quite different moral ideologies underpin celebrations of southern consumption and consumer cultures, and condemnations thereof. By putting into dialogue developmentalist arguments about the desirability of neoliberal market economies and vociferous critiques of conspicuous consumption by “newly” wealthy southern elites, the discussion highlights how consumption in the south is moralized — and therefore inherently always politicized when placed in the public eye.

This chapter examines one of the ways in which pervasive stereotypes of the global south as a place of poverty, unemployment and economic subsistence are maintained and contested in the media of the global north. Focusing on TripAdvisor reviews of “slum” tours in three locations — namely, Langa in Cape Town, Dharavi in Mumbai, and Santa Marta in Rio de Janeiro — it explores how poverty is narrated as a natural feature of these tourist destinations, and how low-income communities and lifestyles are commoditized for and by the gaze of the west as an “authentic” adventure experience. The chapter explores aspects of globalized consumer culture that exist at the level involving the most obviously poor and systematically exploited groups who subsist at the “bottom” of globalized consumer culture, in a touristic practice that brings the haves into an encounter (mediated by tour guides and media culture) with the have-nots, in a setting in which the complexities of development, privilege and its lack, quality of life and leisure are laid bare. Although slum tourism and media coverage about it undeniably adds to the aestheticization and commoditization of poverty, another layer of representation is also at play. This involves the perpetuation of old stereotypes of the global south as a place of poverty, in which people struggle to survive (where this struggle is defined partly by access to consumer opportunities taken for granted in the global north), and their challenging by counterdiscourses which seek to make legible the forms of agency and consumerist modernity coexisting with that poverty.

This chapter examines documentary film representations of young, upwardly mobile professionals in China and South Africa. Although not always explicitly labelled as “yuppies” in the films analysed, their lifestyles are presented as part of a vanguard of new middle-class status and rising wealth, and much emphasis is placed on their consumption habits, and narratives about success. By examining film narratives of their “yuppie” lifestyles and theorizing these in relation to global debates about middle-class upward mobility, this chapter contributes to theories of how consumption links with ideas of a “better” life in the global south. Lauded by politicians all over the world as a marker for economic growth and political stability, the middle class is a routine character in media discourses about economic development in nations in the global south. Consumption is a central aspect to media characterizations of middle-class status and identity. Because it is not possible to explore all media representations of global south middle classes in just one chapter, this chapter takes two examples from the global south — post-liberalization China and post-liberation South Africa — and looks at how new middle classes or “yuppies” are presented in three documentary films from each context.

This chapter explores the discursive links between consumption and corruption, as manifested in news reports of cases of corruption by wealthy political elites in India and South Africa. When public attention is focused on the material excesses of public officials, important questions come up about the links between economic agency and political power. This allows for an exploration of questions about inequality, the exercise of power and their relations to conspicuous consumption. Media coverage of corrupt acts explicitly linked to luxury lifestyles, wealth and consumption practices are an important empirical location for the social construction and contestation of ideas about wealth and power. In order to explore the associations between corruption and consumption, this chapter first takes the reader on a tour of theoretical perspectives on corruption in order to show how there is a need for more work on the materialistic, cultural, consumerist aspects of corruption. One input to this research agenda is presented in the examination of four cases of news reports of corruption featuring Indian politicians Jaganmohan Reddy and Mayawati Kumari, and South Africans Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Tony Yengeni (generally referred to in the media as Jagan, Mayawati, Winnie and Yengeni). These cases provide an empirical basis for a theoretical contribution theorizing the links between corruption and consumption.

This chapter explores a refraction of consumer culture as exercised by a cultural elite in global south consumer culture: celebrities. Focusing on black women celebrities and their self-portraiture in social media spaces, it theorizes commoditized beauty as the intersection of post-femininity and critical race studies. Celebrities are a fundamental component of consumer culture. Their public images are commodities in their own right, traded as they are for corporate sponsorship, endorsements and public appearances. Celebrities are also linked to a wide variety of products: those they endorse and advertise, and those they market and brand in connection with their own names. Celebrities wield huge cultural power, standing as icons of success and beauty to millions of people around the globe, who either aspire to be like them or treat them as screens onto which they can project their own hopes for wealth and success, or their sexual desires and fantasies. Taking a methodological approach that examines the role of visual communication, especially glossiness, in producing the aesthetic and semiotic power of celebrity (Iqani, 2012a, 2012b), this chapter explores the theme of celebrity portraits in the global south, showing how beauty is at once commoditized and globalized in complex ways.

As I was writing this conclusion, a Facebook friend of mine shared a status update posted by someone in their network. My friend had grown up in one of the townships of the industrial East Rand; as a teenager I’d lived in one of the white suburbs close by, also east of Johannesburg. From what I could tell from the limited public profile of the Facebook member from whom the post originated, they came from a similar background to my friend: township born and raised. The status update said:

You Were Born In A First Class Clinic, I Was Delivered At Home But We Both Survived. You Went To A Private School And I Went To Township Government School But We Both In The Same Varsity/College. You Woke Up From The Bed And I Woke Up Woke From The Floor But We Both Had A Peaceful Rest. You Drank Hennessy & Champagne & I Drank Four Cousins Wine But We Both Still Got Drunk. Your Outfits Are All Expensive, Mine Are All Simple And Cheap But We Still Cover Our Nakedness. You Ate Fried Rice And Roasted Chicken, I Ate Pap And Tomato But We Still Ate To Our Satisfaction. You Ride On Lexus Jeep And I Use Public Transport But We Still Got To Our Various Destination. You May Be Reading This Post From Your Sony Xperia & I Typed It With My Outdated Nokia But We Still Understand The Same Thing… You See Life Isn’t About What You Don’t Have But About What You Have & How You See Yourself. One Is Only Poor If They Choose To Be. Make Yourself Proud And Keep The Hustling Spirit Going And Remember Better Days Are Coming Because After a Dark Tunnel There Is Always Light.