From Ways of Life to Lifestyle

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This article attributes the popularity of lifestyle to the contemporary shift from civic to consumer culture. At the local level, `lifestyle' is replacing the traditional `way of life'. The media, culture and leisure industries have a vested economic interest in encouraging the transition to lifestyle — hence the increased popularity of lifestyle programming in British primetime television. Since the mid-1990s, however, garden lifestyle media products have multiplied alongside a concomitant growth in consumer spending on garden merchandise. This article analyses the `ordinari-ization' strategies garden lifestyle programmes use to urge ordinary gardeners to invest in lifestyle projects. Viewers witness the embrace of more ordinary subjects and garden experts are `personalityinterpreters', translating lifestyle ideas from the symbolic repertoires offered by consumer culture.