Abstract:

This study focuses on three of the main shopping centers in Istanbul (Olivium, Capitol and Canyon) and examines why young participants prefer these shopping centers. The study discusses how the forms of socialization in the 21st century metropolities, socio-economic divisions, shopping centers and new spatial organizations transform identity formations and forms of social identification. In the postmodern society where economic, social and cultural values are transformed, perception, pleasure, socialization and consumption habits are altered, the shopping centers visited by large masses have gone from being places that reinforce consumption, become “organic” places that are enriched with certain indicators and symbols, serving the diversity of people’s socialization and pleasure. In this process, consumption has turned away from the "consumption of needs" in the classical sense, into "consumption of comfort and pleasure", this new consumption has become concrete in the AVMs with the goal of "consumption of space". The intense flow of information, by transforming the speed and shape of consumption, has led to the creation of spaces that fit this new structure, the individual through these spaces creates new spaces of socialization and strengthens his social identity within the framework of the spaces. Keywords: consumption, culture, popular culture, identity, socialization, postmodernism, shopping center, space consumption, globalization

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