When we study the commodity (goods/services) within the larger discourse of Cultural Studies we do not study only the commodity per se . Along with “commodity” there are other terms which are derivatives of the term commodity, for instance, Commodification and Commodity Fetishism, seminal terms in Cultural Studies and political economy. Chris Barker defines these three terms in the following way:

•  A commodity is something available to be sold in the market place.

•  Commodification is the process associated with capitalism by which all spheres of a culture are increasingly put under the sway of the market.

•  Commodity fetishism is the name Marx gives to the process through which the surface appearance of goods sold in the market place obscures the origins of commodities in an exploitative relationship.