Author: Liza Featherstone
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1682191079
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 366
Book Description
Over the course of the last century, the focus group has become an increasingly vital part of the way companies and politicians sell their products and policies. Few areas of life, from salad dressing to health care legislation to our favorite TV shows, have been left untouched by the questions put to controlled groups about what they do and don’t like. Divining Desire is the first-ever popular survey of this rich topic. In a lively, sweeping history, Liza Featherstone traces the surprising roots of the focus group in early-twentieth century European socialism, its subsequent use by the “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue, and its widespread deployment today. She also explores such famous “failures” of the method as the doomed launch of the Ford Edsel with its vagina shaped radiator grille, and the even more ill-fated attempt to introduce a new flavor of Coca Cola (which prompted street protests from devotees of the old formula). As elites have become increasingly detached from the general public, they rely ever more on focus groups, whether to win votes or to sell products. And, in a society where many feel increasingly powerless, the focus group has at least offered the illusion that ordinary people will be listened to and that their opinions count. Yet, it seems the more we are consulted, the less power we have. That paradox is particularly stark today, when everyone can post an opinion on social media—our 24 hour “focus group”—yet only plutocrats can shape policy. In telling this fascinating story, Featherstone raises profound questions about democracy, desire and the innermost workings of consumer society.
Divining Desire
Author: Liza Featherstone
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1682191079
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 366
Book Description
Over the course of the last century, the focus group has become an increasingly vital part of the way companies and politicians sell their products and policies. Few areas of life, from salad dressing to health care legislation to our favorite TV shows, have been left untouched by the questions put to controlled groups about what they do and don’t like. Divining Desire is the first-ever popular survey of this rich topic. In a lively, sweeping history, Liza Featherstone traces the surprising roots of the focus group in early-twentieth century European socialism, its subsequent use by the “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue, and its widespread deployment today. She also explores such famous “failures” of the method as the doomed launch of the Ford Edsel with its vagina shaped radiator grille, and the even more ill-fated attempt to introduce a new flavor of Coca Cola (which prompted street protests from devotees of the old formula). As elites have become increasingly detached from the general public, they rely ever more on focus groups, whether to win votes or to sell products. And, in a society where many feel increasingly powerless, the focus group has at least offered the illusion that ordinary people will be listened to and that their opinions count. Yet, it seems the more we are consulted, the less power we have. That paradox is particularly stark today, when everyone can post an opinion on social media—our 24 hour “focus group”—yet only plutocrats can shape policy. In telling this fascinating story, Featherstone raises profound questions about democracy, desire and the innermost workings of consumer society.
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1682191079
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 366
Book Description
Over the course of the last century, the focus group has become an increasingly vital part of the way companies and politicians sell their products and policies. Few areas of life, from salad dressing to health care legislation to our favorite TV shows, have been left untouched by the questions put to controlled groups about what they do and don’t like. Divining Desire is the first-ever popular survey of this rich topic. In a lively, sweeping history, Liza Featherstone traces the surprising roots of the focus group in early-twentieth century European socialism, its subsequent use by the “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue, and its widespread deployment today. She also explores such famous “failures” of the method as the doomed launch of the Ford Edsel with its vagina shaped radiator grille, and the even more ill-fated attempt to introduce a new flavor of Coca Cola (which prompted street protests from devotees of the old formula). As elites have become increasingly detached from the general public, they rely ever more on focus groups, whether to win votes or to sell products. And, in a society where many feel increasingly powerless, the focus group has at least offered the illusion that ordinary people will be listened to and that their opinions count. Yet, it seems the more we are consulted, the less power we have. That paradox is particularly stark today, when everyone can post an opinion on social media—our 24 hour “focus group”—yet only plutocrats can shape policy. In telling this fascinating story, Featherstone raises profound questions about democracy, desire and the innermost workings of consumer society.
Methods of Desire
Author: Aurora Donzelli
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824880471
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia has undergone a radical program of administrative decentralization and neoliberal reforms. In Methods of Desire, author Aurora Donzelli explores these changes through an innovative perspective—one that locates the production of neoliberalism in novel patterns of language use and new styles of affect display. Building on almost two decades of fieldwork, Donzelli describes how the growing influence of transnational lending agencies is transforming the ways in which people desire and voice their expectations, intentions, and entitlements within the emergent participatory democracy and restructuring of Indonesia’s political economy. She argues that a largely overlooked aspect of the Era Reformasi concerns the transition from a moral regime centered on the expectation that desires should remain hidden to a new emphasis on the public expression of individuals’ aspirations. The book examines how the large-scale institutional transformations that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime have impacted people’s lives and imaginations in the relatively remote and primarily rural Toraja highlands of Sulawesi. A novel concept of the individual as a bundle of audible and measurable desires has emerged, one that contrasts with the deep-rooted reticence toward the expression of personal preferences. The spreading of foreign discursive genres such as customer satisfaction surveys, training sessions, electoral mission statements, and fundraising auctions, and the diffusion of new textual artifacts such as checklists, flowcharts, and workflow diagrams are producing forms of citizenship, political participation, and moral agency that contrast with the longstanding epistemologies of secrecy typical of local styles of knowledge and power. Donzelli’s long-term ethnographic study examines how these foreign protocols are being received, absorbed, and readapted in a peripheral community of the Indonesian archipelago. Combining a telescopic perspective on our contemporary moment with a microscopic analysis of conversational practices, the author argues that the managerial forms of political rationality and the entrepreneurial morality underwriting neoliberal apparatuses proliferate through the working of small cogs, that is, acts of speech. By examining these concrete communicative exchanges, she sheds light on both the coherence and inconsistency underlying the worldwide diffusion of market logic to all domains of life.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824880471
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia has undergone a radical program of administrative decentralization and neoliberal reforms. In Methods of Desire, author Aurora Donzelli explores these changes through an innovative perspective—one that locates the production of neoliberalism in novel patterns of language use and new styles of affect display. Building on almost two decades of fieldwork, Donzelli describes how the growing influence of transnational lending agencies is transforming the ways in which people desire and voice their expectations, intentions, and entitlements within the emergent participatory democracy and restructuring of Indonesia’s political economy. She argues that a largely overlooked aspect of the Era Reformasi concerns the transition from a moral regime centered on the expectation that desires should remain hidden to a new emphasis on the public expression of individuals’ aspirations. The book examines how the large-scale institutional transformations that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime have impacted people’s lives and imaginations in the relatively remote and primarily rural Toraja highlands of Sulawesi. A novel concept of the individual as a bundle of audible and measurable desires has emerged, one that contrasts with the deep-rooted reticence toward the expression of personal preferences. The spreading of foreign discursive genres such as customer satisfaction surveys, training sessions, electoral mission statements, and fundraising auctions, and the diffusion of new textual artifacts such as checklists, flowcharts, and workflow diagrams are producing forms of citizenship, political participation, and moral agency that contrast with the longstanding epistemologies of secrecy typical of local styles of knowledge and power. Donzelli’s long-term ethnographic study examines how these foreign protocols are being received, absorbed, and readapted in a peripheral community of the Indonesian archipelago. Combining a telescopic perspective on our contemporary moment with a microscopic analysis of conversational practices, the author argues that the managerial forms of political rationality and the entrepreneurial morality underwriting neoliberal apparatuses proliferate through the working of small cogs, that is, acts of speech. By examining these concrete communicative exchanges, she sheds light on both the coherence and inconsistency underlying the worldwide diffusion of market logic to all domains of life.
The Psychology of Desire
Author: Wilhelm Hofmann
Publisher: Guilford Publications
ISBN: 146252768X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
Providing a comprehensive perspective on human desire, this volume brings together leading experts from multiple psychological subdisciplines. It addresses such key questions as how desires of different kinds emerge, how they influence judgment and decision making, and how problematic desires can be effectively controlled. Current research on underlying brain mechanisms and regulatory processes is reviewed. Cutting-edge measurement tools are described, including practical recommendations for their use. The book also examines pathological forms of desire and the complex relationship between desire and happiness. The concluding section analyzes specific applied domains--eating, sex, aggression, substance use, shopping, and social media.
Publisher: Guilford Publications
ISBN: 146252768X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
Providing a comprehensive perspective on human desire, this volume brings together leading experts from multiple psychological subdisciplines. It addresses such key questions as how desires of different kinds emerge, how they influence judgment and decision making, and how problematic desires can be effectively controlled. Current research on underlying brain mechanisms and regulatory processes is reviewed. Cutting-edge measurement tools are described, including practical recommendations for their use. The book also examines pathological forms of desire and the complex relationship between desire and happiness. The concluding section analyzes specific applied domains--eating, sex, aggression, substance use, shopping, and social media.
Three Faces of Desire
Author: Timothy Schroeder
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190291508
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
To desire something is a condition familiar to everyone. It is uncontroversial that desiring has something to do with motivation, something to do with pleasure, and something to do with reward. Call these "the three faces of desire." The standard philosophical theory at present holds that the motivational face of desire presents its unique essence--to desire a state of affairs is to be disposed to act so as to bring it about. A familiar but less standard account holds the hedonic face of desire to reveal to true nature of desire. In this view, to desire something is to tend to pleasure if it seems that the desired state of affairs has been achieved, or displeasure if it seems otherwise, thus tying desire to feelings instead of actions. In Three Faces of Desire, Schroeder goes beyond actions and feelings to advance a novel and controversial theory of desire that puts the focus on desire's neglected face, reward. Informed by contemporary science as much as by the philosophical tradition, Three Faces of Desire discusses recent scientific discoveries that tell us much about the way that actions and feelings are produced in the brain. In particular, recent experiments reveal that a distinctive system is responsible for promoting action, on the one hand, and causing feelings of pleasure and displeasure, on the other. This system, the brain's reward system, is the causal origin of both action and feeling, and is the key to understanding the nature of desire.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190291508
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
To desire something is a condition familiar to everyone. It is uncontroversial that desiring has something to do with motivation, something to do with pleasure, and something to do with reward. Call these "the three faces of desire." The standard philosophical theory at present holds that the motivational face of desire presents its unique essence--to desire a state of affairs is to be disposed to act so as to bring it about. A familiar but less standard account holds the hedonic face of desire to reveal to true nature of desire. In this view, to desire something is to tend to pleasure if it seems that the desired state of affairs has been achieved, or displeasure if it seems otherwise, thus tying desire to feelings instead of actions. In Three Faces of Desire, Schroeder goes beyond actions and feelings to advance a novel and controversial theory of desire that puts the focus on desire's neglected face, reward. Informed by contemporary science as much as by the philosophical tradition, Three Faces of Desire discusses recent scientific discoveries that tell us much about the way that actions and feelings are produced in the brain. In particular, recent experiments reveal that a distinctive system is responsible for promoting action, on the one hand, and causing feelings of pleasure and displeasure, on the other. This system, the brain's reward system, is the causal origin of both action and feeling, and is the key to understanding the nature of desire.
Focus of Desire
Author: Kim Baldwin
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books Inc
ISBN: 1602823197
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
There are times when a picture doesn't just say it all - it changes everything. Isabel Sterling isn't even aware she has been entered in the Sophisticated Women 'Watch Your Dreams Come True' contest, so it comes as a complete surprise to learn she has won not only a makeover she doesn't want or need, but also the chance to appear on the cover of a national magazine and an all expense paid trip for two to exotic locales. Photographer Natasha Kashnikova is a cynical celebrity playgirl who is barreling toward full, midlife-crisis mode when she agrees to take on the Sophisticated Women shoot as a favor for a friend. Kash is convinced that every woman who shows an interest in her has ulterior motives, so love is not on her agenda—and certainly not with some naive romantic during an assignment from Hell.
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books Inc
ISBN: 1602823197
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
There are times when a picture doesn't just say it all - it changes everything. Isabel Sterling isn't even aware she has been entered in the Sophisticated Women 'Watch Your Dreams Come True' contest, so it comes as a complete surprise to learn she has won not only a makeover she doesn't want or need, but also the chance to appear on the cover of a national magazine and an all expense paid trip for two to exotic locales. Photographer Natasha Kashnikova is a cynical celebrity playgirl who is barreling toward full, midlife-crisis mode when she agrees to take on the Sophisticated Women shoot as a favor for a friend. Kash is convinced that every woman who shows an interest in her has ulterior motives, so love is not on her agenda—and certainly not with some naive romantic during an assignment from Hell.
The Ways of Desire
Author: Joel Marks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351316141
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
This volume marks the coming into its own of a discipline in philosophy: theory of desire. It presents discussions whose primary focus is on desire, with secondary mention of its implications for ethics, action, emotion, mind, and so forth.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351316141
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
This volume marks the coming into its own of a discipline in philosophy: theory of desire. It presents discussions whose primary focus is on desire, with secondary mention of its implications for ethics, action, emotion, mind, and so forth.
In Praise of Desire
Author: Nomy Arpaly
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199348162
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Joining the ancient debate over the roles of reason and appetite in the moral mind, In Praise of Desire takes the side of appetite. The book makes the claim that acting for moral reasons, acting in a praiseworthy manner, and acting out of virtue amount to nothing more than acting out of intrinsic desires for the right or the good, correctly conceived. In Praise of Desire shows that a desire-centered moral psychology can be richer than philosophers commonly think, accommodating the full complexity of moral life.
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199348162
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Joining the ancient debate over the roles of reason and appetite in the moral mind, In Praise of Desire takes the side of appetite. The book makes the claim that acting for moral reasons, acting in a praiseworthy manner, and acting out of virtue amount to nothing more than acting out of intrinsic desires for the right or the good, correctly conceived. In Praise of Desire shows that a desire-centered moral psychology can be richer than philosophers commonly think, accommodating the full complexity of moral life.
The Energy Bus Field Guide
Author: Jon Gordon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119412463
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 147
Book Description
A Road Map for living and implementing the 10 Principles of The Energy Bus The Energy Bus Field Guide is your roadmap to fueling your life, work and team with positive energy. The international bestseller The Energy Bus has helped millions of people from around the world shift to a more positive outlook; the story of George and Joy bus driver has resonated with people from all walks of life, each with their own individual vision of "success." This guide is designed as a practical companion to help you live and share the ten principles every day, with real, actionable steps you can immediately put into practice in your life, work, team and organization. Navigate the twists and turns that sabotage success. Cultivate positive energy and bring out the best in your team. Create a compelling vision for your life and team. Cultivate positivity and remove negativity from your life and organization. Learn how every day people and organizations utilized the Energy Bus to create amazing success and results. Filled with insightful questions, practical action steps, best practices and inspiring case studies you’ll be equipped to energize yourself and your team in new and powerful ways. Whether it’s a family team, work team, sports team, or school team, everyone benefits from getting on the bus.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119412463
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 147
Book Description
A Road Map for living and implementing the 10 Principles of The Energy Bus The Energy Bus Field Guide is your roadmap to fueling your life, work and team with positive energy. The international bestseller The Energy Bus has helped millions of people from around the world shift to a more positive outlook; the story of George and Joy bus driver has resonated with people from all walks of life, each with their own individual vision of "success." This guide is designed as a practical companion to help you live and share the ten principles every day, with real, actionable steps you can immediately put into practice in your life, work, team and organization. Navigate the twists and turns that sabotage success. Cultivate positive energy and bring out the best in your team. Create a compelling vision for your life and team. Cultivate positivity and remove negativity from your life and organization. Learn how every day people and organizations utilized the Energy Bus to create amazing success and results. Filled with insightful questions, practical action steps, best practices and inspiring case studies you’ll be equipped to energize yourself and your team in new and powerful ways. Whether it’s a family team, work team, sports team, or school team, everyone benefits from getting on the bus.
Aristotle on Desire
Author: Giles Pearson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139561014
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Desire is a central concept in Aristotle's ethical and psychological works, but he does not provide us with a systematic treatment of the notion itself. This book reconstructs the account of desire latent in his various scattered remarks on the subject and analyses its role in his moral psychology. Topics include: the range of states that Aristotle counts as desires (orexeis); objects of desire (orekta) and the relation between desires and envisaging prospects; desire and the good; Aristotle's three species of desire: epithumia (pleasure-based desire), thumos (retaliatory desire) and boulêsis (good-based desire - in a narrower notion of 'good' than that which connects desire more generally to the good); Aristotle's division of desires into rational and non-rational; Aristotle and some current views on desire; and the role of desire in Aristotle's moral psychology. The book will be of relevance to anyone interested in Aristotle's ethics or psychology.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139561014
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Desire is a central concept in Aristotle's ethical and psychological works, but he does not provide us with a systematic treatment of the notion itself. This book reconstructs the account of desire latent in his various scattered remarks on the subject and analyses its role in his moral psychology. Topics include: the range of states that Aristotle counts as desires (orexeis); objects of desire (orekta) and the relation between desires and envisaging prospects; desire and the good; Aristotle's three species of desire: epithumia (pleasure-based desire), thumos (retaliatory desire) and boulêsis (good-based desire - in a narrower notion of 'good' than that which connects desire more generally to the good); Aristotle's division of desires into rational and non-rational; Aristotle and some current views on desire; and the role of desire in Aristotle's moral psychology. The book will be of relevance to anyone interested in Aristotle's ethics or psychology.
Befriending Our Desires
Author: Philip Sheldrake
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814647170
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
Befriending Our Desires portrays the intimate connection between desire and the spiritual journey. Philip Sheldrake explores the role of desire in relation to God, prayer, sexuality, making choices, and responding to change.
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814647170
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
Befriending Our Desires portrays the intimate connection between desire and the spiritual journey. Philip Sheldrake explores the role of desire in relation to God, prayer, sexuality, making choices, and responding to change.