• Please answer 3 questions: at least one from each section.
• Read the questions carefully. Before answering the question, spend a few minutes to make some brief notes.
• Only authorised dictionaries should be used during the examination.
• If you require more writing paper or have any queries, please raise your hand.
• Please allow sufficient time to complete all three questions (one hour for each question).

• Students will not be allowed to leave the room 15 minutes before the end of the examination. If you have any spare time, check over your answers.

1. How does the contemporary consumer culture relate to the modern project of the Enlightenment?

2. Evaluate the liberals’ perspective on the consumer culture.

3. ‘Consumer culture produces frustrated, apolitical, joyless and conformist individuals.’ Assess this statement.

4. Why are Marxists critical of the culture of consumption and commodities?

5. Critically compare three of the following approaches to consumption:

as a sign

as a social order

as a social hierarchy

as a play-thing

6. What are the contrasting features of Fordism and Post-Fordism modes of consumption?

7. What changes have occurred with the onset of large department stores?

8. What are the effects of advertising on gendered relations?

9. ‘The social practices of food & drink are private, rational and autonomous.’ Evaluate this statement.

10. Explain how tourism can be seen either as an authentic experience or as an ironic play.

11. In what ways can fashion clothes produce status, conformity and frustration?

12. Suggest how women shape and are shaped by their consumption practices.

13. Suggest how ethnicity and consumption are inter-related.