How business Transforms Culture and Society
(click on course name above to go to course website)
Business 479 Seminar with Andrew Gustafson
andrewgustafson@creighton.edu 402-669-9846
Planned Pre-Trip Schedule (Wednesdays in Feb?):
Class 1: 5pm-7pm Meet each other, go over syllabus and expectations, Watch History of Vegas video
Class 2: 5-700 Discuss Readings (On Vegas)
1. From Desert Oasis 2. Corporations and Megaresorts
Class 3: 5-700 Discuss Readings, Overview of who we are meeting (On urban development and vegas)
3. Company Town 4. Local Politics
Class 4: (If needed) overview of our trip, last minute issues.
Objectives:
Course Requirements:
1. Attendance at 4 classes in spring
2. Full participation in the 1 week travel course
3. A Presentation (photostory or audio powerpoint) to be put up on our website
4. An 8 page paper dealing with something from our trip related to business’ effect on culture and society.
5. Journal from our travel course
6. 1 Book review (3-4 pages) by end of semester. Las Vegas Bibliography
7. Review of 2 movies (2-4 pages) related to Vegas (Casino, 21, Bugsy, etc)
Questions to consider in your journals:
Tech questions:
Description: Business is not a singular institution, but is the dynamic multifaceted conglomeration of multiple interests pursuing profit through product or service distribution. In its wake, 'business' has a profound impact on the ways we think the goals we pursue, the 'norms' we consider normal, and also helps direct our interests and so, inadvertently, directs us away from particular values, goals and interests. Insofar as business does this, business helps construct our culture and our lives. This course will explore the ways in which hyperrealities (realities created through media/marketing or other technology) have become a regular part of our world through the internet, cellular phone, artificial values of marketing culture, and unnatural cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles. We will thoughtfully reflect philosophically on these events in society, and this will help us to reflect on those issues as we encounter the hyperreal cities of Las Vegas and Los Angeles, as well as experiencing the desert, devoid of hyperreal constructions. Our time will be spent alternately between the Las Vegas Strip, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree National Park, Los Angeles, and the Mohave Desert.
This course is a business course aimed to help us see ways in which business transforms culture and society through development. Business has a profound impact on society, including:
But there are subtle ways business affects our lives as well through advertising, media, fashion and entertainment industries. Through these, business has an impact on our lives in these ways:
1. What we think is worth pursuing (our values)
This course helps us see the impact of business on society and some of the struggles involved in those arenas. For example:
Consumerism can mean simply the theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is economically beneficial. But sometimes it is used to refer to the materialistic tendencies of our culture—the ways in which we gain our value or happiness through purchasing products (i.e., “shopping will make it all better”, “I am what I buy”, “I Shop, therefore I am!” It can be quite helpful for businesses to encourage us to buy things, and helping us identify a product as a means of obtaining happiness is a key way of making us want to buy more and more.
Hyperreality is an alternate reality that sometimes
takes the place of actual reality. For example, when we visit the Venetian
Casino in Las Vegas, the whole place is supposed to remind you of venice, but it
is much better than venice in some ways-- the water is clorinated and clean
(Venice's cannals are pretty dirty), its always bright and cheery in the
venetian (venice can be kind of drab and dark some days), and there is always
excitement and action going on (unlike real life, which has quite a few spots of
fairly boring mundane spaces). SO the Venetian, which is immitating Venice, is
in some ways even better than reality.
Another example of hyperreality might be Disneyland, which is an imaginary world
of escape where we can forget the worries of the world and pretend we are in a
different better reality.
Virtual reality games present a sort of hyperreality as well. But even
marketing and advertisement does this for us-- think of particular brands, such
as "Lexus" or "Gap" or "Abercrombie and Fitch" or "FUBU" or "Addidas" or
"Applebees"-- each brand wants to elicit a whole web of ideas and feelings-- all
the good vibes that go along with going out to Applebees, etc (sorry, maybe you
don't like Applebees) or the notion of what it is to be the sort of person who
owns a lexus, or who buys all their clothes at the Gap, etc etc.
Whether it is through the development of Casinos or Disneyland, or even builds
up brand names, business creates hyperrealities which affect the way we think
about life, about what is important and worthwhile. Hypperealities aren't bad
necessarily, but they do affect us and how we respond to reality, and they are
often invented and sponsored directly or indirectly by business.
Commodification: Commodification often simply refers to the process of giving non-market items marketable value through associating them with particular commodities. For example, you can’t buy love, but you can be convinced that to show love you need to purchase a card, or a ring, or flowers. You can’t buy happiness, but you can be convinced that you need to buy a lexus or a ring or the latest technology product to gain happiness. In this way then, business can play a role in helping us identify particular values in particular products. Technically, commodification is process that transforms the market for a unique, branded product into a market based on undifferentiated price competition. Commodification can be the desired outcome of an entity in the market, or it can be an unintentional outcome that no party actively sought to achieve.
As we think through the things we see, we need to ask ourselves some questions:
Most of these events are definite. We may rearrange some of the schedule but this gives you a good idea of the many things we will do in our class. There won’t be a lot of reading, but there will be discussion after and during various visits.
