Estonian Human Development Report

CHAPTER 5
Quality of life in a consumer
and information society
5.1. Defining consumer and
information society
The concepts of consumer society and culture are usually
associated with modern Western countries. The main agent
here is the consumer (not, for example, “the worker” or
“the citizen”); important values like freedom and progress
are evaluated according to consumerist criteria (breadth
of choice and growth of well-being) and commercial signs
(e.g. advertisements) play an important role in the cultural
sphere (Ritzer & Slater 2001: 6). It is more difficult to treat
the consumer society as a clearly defined type of society
than to analyze consumer culture which combines various
values, opinions and activities related to consumption in
one way or another. Thus, “consumer society” will remain
a rather arbitrary term which is nonetheless used below
for the sake of conciseness. One of the aims of this chapter
is to look at the current consumption of both material
and non-material goods in Estonia from the two following
aspects: comparing Estonia to other European countries
and describing the development dynamics and changes
within Estonia, while attempting to interpret them within
the context of people’s quality of life.
To a certain extent, consumption in Estonia today
must be interpreted through the prism of Soviet consumer
culture. The keywords in those times were shortages, the
use of networks based on social capital to acquire desirable
goods, and the particularly strong symbolic value of
Western goods. Transition from socialism to capitalism
has thoroughly changed the relationship between people
and goods. Among other things, consumer culture has
brought about various tensions that were not experienced
as acutely in the Soviet society (see Keller 2004). Both
the routine consumption of goods and services to satisfy
daily needs (see Gronow & Warde 2001) and the purchasing
of goods with greater symbolic value (e.g. buying a
car) constitute a kind of charged semantic field. Clashes
occur along the temporal axis between the Soviet culture
of shortages and the current abundance (which is often
only seeming, however) that require the use of completely
different skills and coping strategies. It is also possible
to explain consumers’ satisfaction with their lives today
through a comparison with the past. In addition, there is
a charged spatial field, meaning that Estonia can be compared
with other European countries in terms of whether
and to what extent Estonia’s consumerism has “caught up
with” the Western world and what differences exist.
We will proceed from the premise that achieving a certain
imaginary “normal” Western level of consumption
(which is not based on objective standards but is subjective
by its very nature) is part of the quality of life of Estonian residents
today, or that at least the perceived absence thereof is
more likely to cause dissatisfaction than satisfaction. The low
general quality of life and liveability exhibited by the Estonian
society as described earlier in Chapter 3 is also often
related to our absence of wealth, i.e. our relatively scant consumption
opportunities (which have, admittedly, increased
rather quickly in recent years). This means that in our current
young and undeveloped consumer culture it is impossible to
condemn everyone on an equal basis for over-consumption.
This chapter does, however, question the capability of today’s
consumers to assess the existing selection of consumption
opportunities as well as to know their rights and have the
courage to stand up for them. The subject of sustainable consumption
is treated in this chapter in the context of environmental
conservation, rather than that of moral attitudes.
The concept of an information society is an indication
of the development of a new social structure that modifies
the values, ways of life and economic models characteristic
of an industrial society. The expected changes are primarily
associated with the implementation of information
and communication technology (ICT) both by the government
and the business sector, as well as the use of ICT facilities
by individuals. Although mobile phones, computers
and the Internet are being used by an increasing number of
Estonian residents daily for the purpose of work, communication
and recreation, the use of the term “information
society” in this context does not signify the use of ICT as a
means of creating a qualitatively new society.
Unlike the concept of consumer society, information
society has mainly acquired a positive connotation in public
texts. It has been used often by the press, in politics, and
in social sciences (an overview of the debate in Estonian is
provided by Kanger 2007). Partly due to the overexploitation
of the term, it lacks a clear, unambiguous and standardized
definition. Many documents, including Estonia’s
plans for future development, see the implementation of
information and communication technology as a driving
force behind economic growth and the means of developing
a democratic civil society. On the other hand, it is clear
that information technology has become a part of many
people’s daily lives and a factor in their quality of life.
Several previous studies (Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt,
Vihalemm, Viia 2007; Runnel, Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt,
Reinsalu 2009; Reinsalu 2008) indicate a gap between the
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