Popular Consumer Culture

The ability to buy almost anything nowadays has led to the occurrence of consumer culture which respectively led to the convergence of culture of all countries as majority of people need the same things. Moreover, the development of technology also affected almost all spheres of human life, thereby providing easier access to any type of information and again making global community even closer. However, such consumer culture due to higher demand and increased type of goods and services has gained more power than it had in history. This essay will consider the change in consumer power that took place in the last decade considering the case of internationally popular book series and film adaptations of Harry Potter. It is evident that the

In the 21st century fans have very big power that definitely is able to change the pace and order of any media product. The reason is that since the number of consumers of popular culture products significantly rose in recent decades, and since the development of informational technologies and the internet, those consumers have more access to almost every sphere of global production, they have greater participation rate than they ever had. Actually, consumer culture has been replaced by participatory culture. This became the major shift in the media production as according to Jenkins, convergence of culture hugely influences the way media works and the way of perceiving this information by consumers. If before media convergence this “ little known children’s book” fans of Harry Potter used to be only children, then, after adapting it into films which consist of 8 parts, writing a screenplay, creating video-games and theme parks, the whole fandom of this book was created and still keeps being enlarged again due to the great access to the book as well as to the films and fan fictions. Nowadays, the number of fans of Harry Potter is very difficult to calculate, however, through the Internet they are able to communicate and set online-role plays, which is the main distinctive feature of Potter fans (Rowling n.d.). Such plays and engaging in activities gave rise high demand for requisites and costumes from the story, so with the collaboration of cloth industry and food market, massive production of a new brand of things was created. This is a clear manifestation of fans’ certain influence, creating new demand for new kinds of products, which is very important as before the age of cultural integration, fans were mostly consumers only, and had only consumer power. However, now it is a bottom-up type of relationship between producer and consumer, as now producers are more likely to have