Introduction to Sociology

A general perspective of Sociology should provide intellectual, theoretical and methodological tools for the analysis of any complex society. The current consumer society, perhaps the most complex of all, apart from its material and productive dimension, has, like modern capitalism, a nature fundamentally semantic. Hence its enormous capacity to continually redefine itself according to the different sociohistorical contexts of the contemporary age. With the sole condition of maintaining the principle of extraction of value, collectively generated, in the form of surplus value in favor of a minority, capitalism and consumer society adapt, within an order, to any spatio-temporal circumstance.

As a consequence, concepts such as social classes, politics, groups or social organizations, so useful iIn the understanding of industrial society, must be complemented by the sociological analysis of advertising and the consumption, much more explanatory of the present postmodern society. The Sociology of the object and the satisfaction of industrial societies, evolves towards a Sociology of the symbolic and the semantic in the current consumer society. The object turned into sign endorses the passage of a society, as the industrial, based on the commodity and the satisfaction of needs to a settled in the signification, like the one of consumption. Even with the maintenance and multiplication of the essential material aspects, in the passage of industrial society to that of consumption there has been a progressive dematerialization. The object converted into a sign has raised this. The last of the real to the mythological. The consumer society itself is a myth. Everything is possible just by defining it. The myth of happiness, by simply defining it semantically, vertebra this society. The mere idea of consumption, constituted in founding myth, configures the very essence of consumer society. It is not the real enjoyment, but the anticipation of pleasure and happiness to come which generates the social integration of individuals. No change needed social in reality, it is enough to define it publicity. If the consumption of objects, mass produced at from the industrial society, is necessary for the satisfaction of material needs in any society, what defines the consumer society is the idea of consumption.

It is evident that the sociological study of a society as complex and multidimensional as the present one would lead us to the inevitable task of integrating minimally specialized knowledge. It would break like this, the perspective general of an introduction to sociology. Therefore, there is only one possibility before this problem: the analysis of a phenomenon that encompasses all the complexity of the consumer society and does not at the same time require this degree of specialization. In other words, a phenomenon that, in addition to responding to the complexity of the consumption, be simple. This phenomenon is advertising. Therefore, the objective of this subject is not the analysis of the advertising phenomenon to understand advertising, but rather the analysis of advertising to explain the consumer society.

Course will consist of 60hrs of in class work and 90 hrs of independent work outside the classroom.