Showing papers in "Consumption Markets & Culture in 2012"

On the road to prosumption: marketing discourse and the development of consumer competencies

Abstract: This paper reveals the three major faces of the “new consumer” that has emerged during the last 30 years throughout marketing discourses. The paper shows how these faces interact to format the structure of consumer competencies: individualistic competencies of dialogue are combined with hedonistic competencies of play together with creative competencies of resources integration. The paper concludes with a discussion about the existence within these marketing discourses of a governmental process that puts pressure on today's citizens to see and think of themselves as consumers in the first instance.

Gettysburg re-imagined: The role of narrative imagination in consumption experience

Abstract: We investigate the role of imagination in the consumption experience and we theorize the ways in which important collective narratives are (re)imagined at storyscapes – consumption spaces where narratives are the focal object of consumption. We ground our empirical investigation in the historical narrative of the American Civil War and we explore ethnographically the ways in which this historical episode is (re)imagined and articulated in tourism at Gettysburg. Our research provides an alternative account to mental imagery theory that is based on restrictive cognitive conceptions of imagination and expands narrative-based theories of consumption experiences. We argue that the workings of imagination in tourism sites are inextricably linked to the production of cultural imaginaries, that is, socially important narratives invested with collective values; we illustrate the process through which cultural imaginaries are co-constructed at storyscapes; we develop theoretically the concept of consumer imaginatio...

Shaping exchanges, building markets

Abstract: This article provides a conceptual overview of theoretical approaches to the study of markets from across social science disciplines. These approaches are arranged according to the dimensions of socialization and materialization. While necessarily simplistic and non-exhaustive, such arrangement drives out some of the strengths and weaknesses of the frameworks considered. Particular attention is given to the emerging markets-as-practice approach, which loosely unites the contributions to this special issue. While the markets-as-practice framework has received considerable attention in the recent decade, much remains to be studied in and around markets. Some of the issues highlighted in this article, and explored across the five contributions in this issue, are multiplicity in markets, market changes and dynamics, the possibility of “managing” markets, and values, morals, and power in markets.

Technologies of ironic revelation: enacting consumers in neuromarkets

Abstract: Neuroscience is increasingly considered a possible basis for new business and management practices. A prominent example of this trend is neuromarketing – a relatively new form of market and consumer research that applies neuroscience to marketing by employing brain imaging or measurement technology to anticipate consumers’ response to, for instance, products, packaging or advertising. In this paper, we draw attention to the ways in which certain neuromarketing technologies simultaneously reveal and enact a particular version of the consumer. The revelation is ironic in the sense that it entails the construction of a contrast between what appears to be the case – consumers’ accounts of why they prefer certain products over others – and what can be shown to be the case as a result of the application of the technology – the hidden or concealed truth. This contrast structure characterises much of the academic and popular literature on neuromarketing, and helps explain the distribution of accountability relations associated with assessments of its effectiveness.

Market formation in subsistence contexts: a study of informal waste trade practices in Tanzania and Brazil

Abstract: The world's low-income majority is increasingly seen as a new market, the base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) market, with opportunities for new business and poverty reduction through inclusive business. This has led to research on activities geared towards this market, such as strategies for market entry and BOP business model design. However, the market itself as a dynamic entity has not been problematized. This paper suggests that defining markets in subsistence contexts as ongoing processes of economic organizing and as bundles of practices, rather than as collections of people, offers additional tools for engaging in their realization. The empirical study of informal waste trade practices suggests that the emergence of a market is linked to the economic organizing process moving from being dominated by exchange practices towards a more diversified dynamic in which these practices become linked to normalizing and representational practices. This more diversified market dynamic is intimately connected to collect...

Governing the consumer: Technologies of consumption

Abstract: One of the recurring themes within commentaries of the cultural economy is the tension between the desire of producers to exercise control over consumers and consumers' sovereignty. Using Foucault's notion of Governmentality and drawing on a study of Tesco's loyalty card programme Clubcard, the paper argues that Tesco represents an important site in the modern cultural economy. “Post-modern” producers like Tesco no longer dichotomise consumer agency and the will to power. Instead, through the mobilisation of the reflexive capacities of both producer and consumer, they seek to frame and extend agency whilst simultaneously attempting to guide how that agency is connected to acts of consumption. It is through technologies of consumption such as Clubcard that agency and consumption are connected and governed.

Retail stores as brands: performances, theatre and space

Abstract: The scholars of Consumer Culture Theory studies as well as practitioners have recognised the potential power of spatial design in stores in constructing and communicating retail brands. Retail space and the aesthetic structuring of a range of expressive artefacts have become the stage on which shop attendants perform. This paper focuses on how management and shop attendants of Dutch menswear fashion house Oger communicate and construct the Oger brand, with a special focus on the spatial settings of the retail store. This study shows how the management carefully combines elements generally found in Italian ateliers, English gentlemen's clubs and boardrooms. The symbolic message behind the spatial design of the Oger flagship store is that of human quest for wealth and fame removed from the everyday life. In addition to this earlier observed interplay between design, display and consumption processes, this study indicates the important role of shop attendants in constructing and communicating retail brands. ...

Consumption and gender identity in popular media: discourses of domesticity, authenticity, and sexuality

Abstract: The goal of this research is to compare contemporary representations of masculinity and femininity in two HBO television series, Entourage and Sex and the City, and illustrate how these representations intersect with consumption. In the analysis, the authors discuss how gender fluidity gives the characters the freedom to be multifaceted in their performances – performances with regard to three emergent themes: domesticity, sexuality, and authenticity. Characters in both programs negotiate the tensions between more traditional gender roles and the assumption of contemporary roles through consumption. The characters find ways to simultaneously re-establish and reinforce their gendered identities as they create new roles, often with the aid of consumption. On the other hand, it is the consumption itself that is sometimes complicit in creating new tensions.

The dynamic signification of product qualities: on the possibility of “greening” markets

Abstract: This article addresses the “greening” of markets by inquiring into how different versions of environmental friendliness of a product are constructed and how they are placed in an order of significance in relation to each other and to other product qualities. The study extends constructivist market studies by elaborating on the dynamic signification of product qualities. The case analysis of the development and commercialization of a “polyvinylchloride-free” and “environmentally friendly” urinary drainage bag in the medical devices market shows these qualities to be temporal and fragile outcomes. It is concluded that, besides a supporting socio-technical market arrangement around the product, the ability of the product to take different matters of concern into account is crucial for the possibility of “greening” markets.

Inclusion, exclusion and identity in the consumption of families living with childhood disability

Abstract: Many households include a family member with a disability. For these households, who consumes together, where they consume and when the consumption occurs often represent a complicated, nuanced set of tradeoffs. Based on in-depth interviews with families that include a child with a disability, we examine how a family makes an inclusion/exclusion decision and how the decision factors into the ongoing project of creating the family that is uniquely theirs. The analysis suggests that the decision-making is closely tied to the nature of the child's disability and that the type of disability is central to the family's narrative regarding its decision. Also, an important driver of the family's inclusion/exclusion decision is the process of self-stigmatization by non-disabled family members. The analysis shows that the implications of who in the family is included in the consumption, and the experience the family has as a result of the inclusion/exclusion decision reflect and reinforce the collective family's id...

Mapping the imaginary of charitable giving

Abstract: The meaningfulness of charitable giving is largely owed to the imaginary conceptions that underpin this form of giving Building on Taylor's notion of “social imaginary” and Godelier's work on “gift imaginary,” we theorize the imaginary of charitable giving Through a combination of qualitative methods the charitable gift imaginary and its role in givers' meaning making are explored in a specific socio-cultural context The theoretical foundation and the generated data enable us to map the imaginary of charitable giving across four distinct clusters and theorize meaning – making as navigation across relatively stable assemblages of conceptions of poverty, donors, end-recipients and charitable giving These assemblages are suggested to form a multifaceted imaginary that is both cultural (shared) and personal (individually performed)

Political issues in advertising polysemy: The case of gay window advertising

Abstract: This study draws on minority consumers’ interpretations of purposefully polysemic commercials to explore political issues in the consumption of advertising, and highlights the sociopolitical role of niche-targeted advertising as a powerful cultural institution in informing and defining identities. The study focusses on how lesbian, gay male, and bisexual consumers make sense of gay-oriented, yet strategically polysemic, gay window commercials. Findings suggest that participants understood these messages through the lens of their unique subcultural sensitivity and in relation to their closeted experience and consciousness of marginalization. The political meanings of niche-targeted advertising are accentuated as these minority consumers negotiate the cultural tensions of their subcultural identity and their struggle between seeking subcultural validation and seeking mainstream assimilation.

Hispanic agencies and profits of distinction: an examination of the advertising industry as a field of cultural production

Abstract: This project examines the advertising industry as a self-governing space that is guided by its own internal logics, but is nonetheless influenced by social dynamics at play in the larger social space. Using Bourdieu's theory of practice as a theoretical and analytical framework, this study explores the relationship between cultural capital and economic capital. Specifically, I examine the degree to which Hispanic practitioners have leveraged their knowledge of Latina(o) culture and their proficiency in Spanish as profits of distinction within the marketplace. Qualitative interviews conducted with Hispanic ad agents, general market ad agents and clients reveal that the position that Latinas(os) occupy within the social hierarchy has created both opportunities and boundaries for Hispanic agencies. This paper focuses on the practices that allow Hispanic agencies to isolate Latinas(os) from other consumers, distinguishing them institutionally and entitling them to dedicated marketing resources, but I also dis...

Moving (Euro American) consumers in mysterious ways with African-American social dance in commercials

Abstract: Dance is an integral part of culture, as is consumption. However, there is a paucity of published research regarding the effect of dance on consumption. In particular, studies on how black social dance in commercials depicts culturally defining racial tensions and stereotypes, and its effect on Euro American consumption are scant. Consequently, qualitative research was employed to survey and interview a small group of Euro American respondents. A Diet Pepsi commercial served as the research text. A consuming value system reinforced the association of the dance with consumption of individual identity as cool; fractured conformity away from the defining macro social structure; and provided for resistive self and community identities. Three contributions result from the research. First, an alternative way of seeking knowledge through dance theory demonstrated dance's value for consumer's lives. Second, Holt's 2004 work was built upon. The dance demonstrated cultural myth recreation in a “macro dance” perform...

Developing uses, qualifying goods: on the construction of market exchange for Internet access services

Abstract: What role does the use of goods play in the shaping of commercial exchange? This question is investigated through a case study of the commercialization of Internet access services in France at the end of the 1990s. Specifically, the study traces how the uses of the Internet were made part of the process of qualifying Internet access as a commercial good in the NetStations launched and operated by France Telecom. Drawing on an analysis of the interactions between staff and customers in these NetStations, the article shows the diverse configurations through which use development and qualification of goods are intertwined in the course of commercial exchange. These observations are used as a basis for discussing the strategic incidence of the management of uses for commercial organizations operating in a competitive environment.

National market communities: bicycle use and civil society in France and the United States, 1867–1910

Abstract: Ethnographic studies within consumer culture theory examine the cultural and personal aspects of consumer communities, often focusing on brands. While fascinating, such studies often ignore market-oriented communities spanning national states. To address these gaps, the author introduces the concept of “national market community.” Using comparative–historical methods, I examine how bicycle consumers organized national, market-oriented communities in France and the USA around 1880. These communities consisted of social networks and voluntary associations on multiple geographic scales, and publications that integrated consumers into an imagined national community. State institutions and market characteristics shaped these social structures. Communities provided consumers a mix of public, quasi-public, and private goods and services that improved product use. As the markets changed over time, national communities changed with them. When the two markets diverged, communities continued to support leisure use o...

Outsider's insights: (mis)understanding A. Fuat Fırat on consumption, markets and culture

Abstract: Fuat Firat has for a long time maintained a radical, outside and critical voice within marketing and consumption theory. He was one of the editors of the landmark book Radical and Philosophical Theory in Marketing, published in 1987, which sought to develop alternative modes of theorizing and conceptualizing both marketing practice and the consuming subject. The continuation of that wider project eventually lead to the foundation of Consumption Markets & Culture, the journal for which Fuat served as Editor-in-Chief for its initial 10 years of existence. Fuat also co-authored the book Consuming People (1998) in collaboration with Nikhilesh Dholakia. By that stage, in particular following his seminal article on the re-enchantment of consumption, written with Alladi Venkatesh, Fuat had helped to pioneer the study of postmodernism within consumer culture. In this interview, Fuat Firat discusses his research projects including consumption patterns, postmodernity, theatre, new literacy and also presents more ge...

Marketing ‘ethically questionable’ politics: the case of a xenophobic political party

Abstract: The success experienced by the extreme right parties across Western Europe and the persistent loyalty of their voters has sparked the interest of academics and broader society. Some of their theses are controversial, if not unethical, but nevertheless increasingly successful in Western European democracies. This paper seeks to explain how extreme right parties address the voters and manage to overcome people's aversion for racism and xenophobia in their marketing communications. Neutralisation theory is applied as a useful theoretical framework for uncovering the ways through which racism and xenophobia are reframed and normalised, ultimately providing a political “product” which is dissociated from its ethically questionable features and becomes less problematic for voters’ consumption. Thematic analysis of communication material from a particularly successful extreme right party, i.e. the Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang, provides an early indication that neutralisation may indeed be a viable route for underst...

Taking a hit: the consumptive spectacle of marijuana in a celebrity visual culture

Abstract: I consider modern society's scopophilic fascination with, and hegemonic insistence on, seeing and consuming, especially that which it considers at once reprehensible and desirable. I examine the context and consequences of the publishing of a photograph of a purportedly marijuana-smoking Michael Phelps, who had recently won a record eight Gold Medals at the Summer Olympic Games in 2008. By reading the photo and its repercussions through a visual culture lens, I demonstrate how America's powerful mythic construction of its newly minted ideal athlete-hero became vulnerable. Building on previous work on deviant social spaces and activities, I interrogate this image as an (1) instantiation of the social containment of illicit pleasure, (2) example of an unwieldy image refusing to disclose what it “wants,” (3) embodiment of polysemic interpretations (exhibitionist, disciplinary, casual, spectacular, and banal), and (4) as an indicator of our predictably unstable cultural addictions. Implications follow.