Showing papers in "Consumption Markets & Culture in 2016"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose to get rid of the vain opposition between markets as de-socializing forces and markets as civilizing processes by exploring the close relationship between innovation and competition.
Abstract: This article proposes to get rid of the vain opposition between markets as de-socializing forces and markets as civilizing processes by exploring the close relationship between innovation and competition. This suggests abandoning the traditional view of markets as interfaces for the novel conception of market as agencements. Indeed, a thorough examination of the notion of market competition leads to distinguish two ways of describing markets, depending on the role played by product innovations. In interface-markets, innovation strategies aim to reduce competitive pressure, while in market-agencements they are the expression of competition itself. In the former, the definition of market goods is secondary, whereas in the latter it is at the heart of the confrontation between economic agents. The competitive dynamics of market-agencements, which makes the establishment of new bilateral transactions and of product innovation the dominant rule, results in the constant expansion of the market sphere. The marke...
119 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide an interdisciplinary overview of the selfie as both an object and a practice, and offer theoretical reflections on how the selfie can be seen as an important commodity form and consumer behaviour.
Abstract: Although selfies may appear to be the latest fad, their popularity has had a transformational influence on contemporary culture. Selfies invoke important issues in communication, photography, psychology, self-expression, and digital media studies – as they bring up a host of concerns about identity, privacy, security, and surveillance. This article provides an interdisciplinary overview of the selfie as both an object and a practice, and offers theoretical reflections on how the selfie can be seen as an important commodity form and consumer behaviour. The selfie is connected to concepts of authenticity, consumption, and self-expression, as well as practices of art history, media forms, and self-portraiture. Strategic use of the selfie reveals shifts in the traditional functions of the advertising photograph, from sources of information, persuasion, and representation to emblems of social currency. We position the selfie not as a postmodern anomaly but as a type of image with a history.
103 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a collection of papers that explore the notions of market agencements and market agencing, recently introduced in market studies, and reflect on their contribution to our understanding of consumption, markets and material culture are presented.
Abstract: This special issue features a collection of papers that explore the notions of “market agencements” and “market agencing,” recently introduced in market studies, and reflect on their contribution to our understanding of consumption, markets and material culture. These notions originate from the contributions of Michel Callon. They are grounded on the core notion of actor-network, which has been renewed and refined through the notion of socio-technical “agencement.” With its etymology that refers to words like “agent,” “agency” and “agencer” (i.e. disposing, in English), the notion of market agencement is a way to describe the various entities that pragmatically enact economic calculations and shape consumer behavior. Extending Callon's original contribution, this special issue proposes a subtle and yet incisive shift from the notion of “market agencement” to the “agencing of markets.” The key idea is to move the emphasis to the collective and open procedures of market processes. This program is achieved w...
82 citations
TL;DR: This article conducted a survey on 608 males in Vietnam, a country that is identified as among the world's largest recipients of illicit rhino horn trade, and examined the consumption of rhino horns.
Abstract: This article examines the consumption of illegally traded rhino horn. We conducted a survey on 608 males in Vietnam, a country that is identified as among the world's largest recipients of illicit ...
50 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the dynamic process of agencing through a practice-based historical analysis of shopping bags and show how shopping bags over time have been included in and contributed to the shaping of different practices and have been, in turn, transformed by these practices.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic process of agencing through a practice-based historical analysis of shopping bags. This paper draws upon practice-based studies regarding consumption and markets and is based on an archive study of a Swedish packaging magazine from 1935 to 2013. The paper analyses the transformation of shopping bags from their introduction in shopping to the current situation of them being taken for granted, but at the same time, contested. The paper shows how shopping bags over time have been included in and contributed to the shaping of different practices and have been, in turn, transformed by these practices. The case of shopping bags suggests that agencing is a process in which capacity to act is acquired by continuous arranging of elements in different practices, as well as adjustments of these elements in relation to each other.
50 citations
TL;DR: The emerging middle class in China as mentioned in this paper is the term most often used to describe the social changes that resulted from the political, social, and economic reforms in China since 1978, and it is the most commonly used term in the literature.
Abstract: The emerging middle class in China. That is the term most often heard to describe the social changes that resulted from the political, social, and economic reforms in China since 1978. The emerging...
50 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the development and application of focus groups and re-insert a forgotten pioneer of focus group, Herta Herzog, into their narrative.
Abstract: This paper provides an overview of the development and application of focus groups. It rethinks the conventional history associated with this approach in at least four ways. We reinsert a forgotten pioneer of focus groups, Herta Herzog, into our narrative. Secondly, we trace the emergence of group-based research to the work of applied psychologists in the early twentieth century and argue that the conditions of possibility for the uptake of this method were contingent on the asking of “why” questions. We follow the thread of “why” questions from the applied psychologists through to motivation research and the promotion of focus groups by Herzog to practitioners. Exploring the literature on motivation research unearths a further novel contribution: we excavate the use of “interpretative focus groups” by this community of practice. In addition, our close reading of motivation research and focus groups permits us to problematise the distinctions made by Calder [1977. “Focus Groups and the Nature of Q...
45 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a discourse analysis of food date labeling regulation is conducted, focusing on how labeling actualizes a form of neo-liberal consumerism within manufacturing and retail in which consumption is enacted as a site of bio-political control.
Abstract: How consumerism proliferates in society is central to consumer culture studies, yet little research has examined the power of consumerist discourses in shaping consumption at the intersection of marketing with State regulation. Drawing on Foucault's notions of governmentality and bio-power, a discourse analysis is conducted of food date labeling regulation. The study problematizes how labeling actualizes a form of neo-liberal consumerism within manufacturing and retail in which consumption is enacted as a site of bio-political control. Labeling, it is argued, fosters unsustainable excess consumption in the name of life and health of people by temporalizing and standardizing consumption, as well as disembodying the marketplace as an area for knowledge creation in consumption. Accordingly, the study discusses two processes “bio-politicizing” consumption that seek to dispense responsibility and re-distribute embodied consumption competence. Finally, it highlights the potential in people to resist suc...
38 citations
34 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the various associations, conflicts, and resolutions that converge in consumer research to produce an advertising campaign for a feminine hygiene product and found that women adopt a "natural" discourse of menstruation, while women adopt discourses of "protection" still dominate marketing.
Abstract: This essay explores the various associations, conflicts, and resolutions that converge in consumer research to produce an advertising campaign for a feminine hygiene product. Ethnographic research identified a correspondence in beliefs and values among women who discuss menstruation as a natural process of rhythms and flow in their changing bodies. Building off the work of gender discourses in advertising, this paper claims women's “natural” discourse located in research differs from “protection” discourse in advertising, which holds a binary view of menstruation and associates menstruation socially with shame and secrecy. The research reveals that while women adopt a “natural” discourse of menstruation, discourses of “protection” still dominate marketing. Paradoxically, women incorporate both discourses in assemblages of constructing “feminine identities.” This research proposes a correspondence model that regards the consumption of consumer personal-care products in terms of embodiment rather th...
28 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a study of vehicular agencies, which are defined as hybrid moving entities comprising individuals and their possessions (e.g., a consumer, the bags she carries, and the clothes and other items she wears).
Abstract: The authors propose a study of “vehicular agencies,” which are defined as hybrid moving entities comprising individuals and their possessions (e.g. a consumer, the bags she carries, and the clothes and other items she wears). Today, it is such assemblages that direct the course of action, rather than the people or the things they are made of. After presenting the theoretical contribution of the paper (i.e. defining vehicular agencies as short-range “actor-networks” and “market agencements”) and the quantitative observation method liable to capture these moving entities (i.e. filming and coding the material and social constituencies of the observed population) based on video records, the authors trace the logics of action that animate these vehicular agencies. They conclude in stressing the potential of this approach and topic, both for research purposes and public policy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the discriminatory representation of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong advertisements through a semiotic analysis of a TV commercial for an insurance company is analyzed, and the ridiculing of a foreign domestic helper through a colorist representation is inscribed in an ethnographic inquiry that explores how the representation of the foreign "other" in terms of dark skin color serves to project a common conceptualization of Hongkongers' own identity.
Abstract: This article analyzes the discriminatory representation of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong advertisements through a semiotic analysis of a TV commercial for an insurance company. The ridiculing of a foreign domestic helper through a colorist representation is inscribed in an ethnographic inquiry that explores how the representation of the foreign “other” in terms of dark skin color serves to project a common conceptualization of Hongkongers’ own identity. The discussion explores the paradoxical understanding of Hong Kong as a multicultural and global city, in contrast with the apparently homogenous Chinese mainland, while excluding from the concept of “multiculturalism,” non-Chinese ethnicities through discrimination based on skin color. Thus, the role the TV commercial plays is to shape and reinforce this paradox, perpetuating the idea of the Hong Kong identity as Chinese, but multicultural at the same time.†
TL;DR: Brands are increasingly recognised as prominent entities imbued with meanings that stem well beyond signifying a consumable object as mentioned in this paper. Associations evoked by and assigned to a given brand can be inter...
Abstract: Brands are increasingly recognised as prominent entities imbued with meanings that stem well beyond signifying a consumable object. Associations evoked by and assigned to a given brand can be inter...
TL;DR: This paper examined the process of subcultural commodification where group meanings of a Japanese youth consumer subculture (i.e. Harajuku) are created, fragmented, and then commodified by the mainstream culture.
Abstract: We examine the process of subcultural commodification where group meanings of a Japanese youth consumer subculture (i.e. Harajuku) are created, fragmented, and then commodified by the mainstream culture. We consider the role of authenticity in subcultures and specifically what it means to reclaim meanings and group identity after commodification. Using a multi-method ethnographic approach, we explore how a subculture reacts when faced with co-optation. In light of the Harajuku group's attempt to preserve a meaningful form of their community, we illuminate the consumption processes through which their group identity is re-negotiated and sustained. This analysis promotes understanding of how a non-Western subculture reacts after mainstream commodification, and the strategies they employ to regain control of their community by reclaiming authenticity, maintaining collective belonging, and uniting with a common cause.
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the role and function of the Chief Marketing Executive and the Marketing Department in medium-Sized companies in the UK and the commercialization of Youth.
Abstract: Information is everywhere. Concepts such as big data, mass media, and so on have only been present in our society for the past century or so. Humanity as a species is gathering, creating, and stori...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate a body of data emanating from the 2008/2009 EU Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry, interpreting the collection of submissions to it as a concerted attempt at market innovation that becomes fraught with challenge and contest.
Abstract: We investigate a body of data emanating from the 2008/2009 EU Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry, interpreting the collection of submissions to it as a concerted attempt at market innovation that becomes fraught with challenge and contest. In the pharmaceutical market, interests associated with patient concerns, government budgets, global “Big Pharma,” and local “small pharma” coalesce and compete with patent law, technological innovation and drug lifecycles. Our research question is: What role do market narratives play in shaping the market's socio-technical agencements? By introducing market narratives, we focus on the performative effects of temporality and iteration. Our argument is that by acting as (contested) promissories, market narratives contribute to “agencing” a market, such that actors are engaged continually in juxtaposing and adjusting their representations of it and putting in place those socio-technical agencements that make the markets resemble those narratives. Narrating a market becomes a c...
TL;DR: This article explored the consumption experiences of women who opt for an environmentally conscious approach to pregnancy and found that consumption decisions are simultaneously coupled with tensions between needing to make informed choices and being overwhelmed with information; feeling confident about seeking consumption information and lacking the confidence to share it; and resorting to internal instincts.
Abstract: We explore the consumption experiences of women who opt for an environmentally conscious approach to pregnancy. Our findings reveal that environmentally conscious mothers conduct extensive scientific research about the products that they purchase during pregnancy and the associated risks of using such products. They believe that their efforts to find and process such information make them experts on what is best for their babies’ health and proclaim some micromanaging powers in an uncontrollable environment. Alas, consumption decisions are simultaneously coupled with tensions between (1) needing to make informed choices and being overwhelmed with information; (2) feeling confident about seeking consumption information and lacking the confidence to share it; and (3) pursuing external expertise and resorting to internal instincts. Thus, although consumption is often perceived as a helpful coping mechanism when transitioning to new life roles, we find that it also contributes to the complexity of suc...
TL;DR: This paper examined how perceptions, practices, and discourses of advertising practitioners in the Middle East and North Africa influence the advertising field's habitus and doxa, and demonstrated that understanding ethical problems is enhanced by examining them as macro, meso, and micro phenomena.
Abstract: The advertising industry influences culture through its pervasive messages that reflect and shape culture and through the role that advertising practitioners play as cultural intermediaries. As such, the manner in which advertising practitioners confront ethical issues is important. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of practice, this paper examines how the perceptions, practices, and discourses of advertising practitioners in the Middle East and North Africa influence the advertising field's habitus and doxa. It demonstrates that understanding ethical problems is enhanced by examining them as macro, meso, and micro phenomena. However, that is not enough. Understanding how factors at the three levels interrelate, interact, and reinforce one another is critical to understanding the habitus. Underlying biases that shape the doxa can be explained by ideas central to behavioral ethics. A better understanding of the forces that shape the habitus and doxa with respect to ethics is key to moving toward a culture that ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the marketing strategy employed by Israeli sperm banks as sites for biopolitical governmentality of sperm consumers and provide evidence for the transfusion of militaristic Zionist ideology into sperm.
Abstract: The article critically examines the marketing strategy employed by Israeli sperm banks as sites for biopolitical governmentality of sperm consumers. The dataset comprise multiple sources which converge to provide evidence for the transfusion of militaristic Zionist ideology into sperm. The biopolitics of sperm marketing involves the naturalization of militaristic Zionism as a dogmatic basis for a “dividing practice” for the inclusion and exclusion of particular types of personified gametes in the symbolically constructed collective gene pool. The image of the military man is the idealized type of hegemonic masculinity in the Israeli nation-in-arms. The warrior-donor is both the supplier of the product and the core product itself, and his semen constitutes the materialistic carrier of his spiritual essence. Using Foucault's notion of biopolitical governmentality suggests why militaristic Zionism discourse has such potency in sperm marketing, and raises questions about contemporary “technologies of ...
TL;DR: This article explored commercial mythmaking at the nexus of consumption, markets, and religion, where firms create myths that negotiate between market and religious logics, and identified three prominent politico-religious themes re-cast at the park as commercial myths.
Abstract: Commercial mythmaking, where firms create, appropriate, and cultivate myths, plays an important role in creating and disseminating ideologies that help consumers manage tensions in the marketplace. Commercial mythmaking remains under-researched. In response we explore commercial mythmaking at the nexus of consumption, markets, and religion, where firms create myths that negotiate between market and religious logics. Some evangelical Christians hold beliefs that create tension with consumer culture, which they perceive to be secular and amoral. A religious theme park in the United States that appeals to this sub-segment serves as the empirical context. We identify three prominent politico-religious themes re-cast at the park as commercial myths. They are: redemption, authentic connection to the sacred, and American exceptionalism. These commercial myths aid consumers in resolving ideological tensions by infusing a politically conservative religious ideology into the brand's basic value proposition.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the modalities of integration of social, political and moral issues in urban consumption markets and examine the specific shaping of urban market agencements at play in this context.
Abstract: This article investigates the modalities of integration of social, political and moral issues in urban consumption markets. Drawing on the concept of “concerning process,” it examines the specific shaping of urban market agencements at play in this context. The analysis follows the history of the reforms of the French retail implementation provisions over the past 40 years. By examining three significant episodes of this history, it highlights the importance of interweaving concerned actors in market agencements, and shaping market boundaries.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that there are spaces where emergent “counter-agencing” debtor publics can be detected, however, these are organizing less around the issue of consumer credit borrowing than default.
Abstract: In the context of apparently ubiquitous relations of debt, it has been argued that the debtor possesses a unique, revolutionary potential. Why is this potential seemingly as yet unrealised? Where might nascent debtor publics be found? And what conditions, what infrastructures, might facilitate their emergence? In answering these questions, this paper argues that there are spaces where emergent “counter-agencing” debtor publics can be detected – however, these are organising less around the issue of (consumer credit) borrowing than default. By analysing a prominent online debtor's forum in the UK – the Consumer Action Group debt collection industry sub-forum – the paper argues that such spaces contain important insights into the politics of credit markets and debt default, collective practices of calculation, and the formation of publics.
TL;DR: The authors argue that although it is often difficult to determine the origins of social transformations, there are reasons to believe that there exists not only a co-option but also a conscious shaping of social changes by political projects or governments for their own benefit.
Abstract: Do contemporary governments adapt to rising social movements or do they actually cause them? This paper endeavours to argue that although it is often difficult to determine the origins of social transformations, there are reasons to believe that there exists not only a co-option but also a conscious shaping of social changes by political projects or governments for their own benefit. Building on other contributions that state that popular culture and youth consumerism are used in favour of nation branding, the present study moves beyond this to analyse the active role that governments play in the marketisation and consumption of culture, thus artificially multiplying the effective impact of some cultural waves that ultimately serve political purposes. In particular, I examine the so-called “Cool Britannia” phenomenon that, founded on the flourishing of new creative industries, with Britpop in the lead, had a significant historic impact in Britain.
TL;DR: A Marketplace Icon contribution as discussed by the authors speculates on the iconicity of celebrity from a spiritual perspective, and suggests that the powerful presence of celebrity in Western consumer culture to some extent reflects and exploits a latent need for myths of redemption through the iconic character of many, t...
Abstract: Celebrity has a powerful material presence in contemporary consumer culture but its surface aesthetic resonates with the promise of deeper meanings. This Marketplace Icon contribution speculates on the iconicity of celebrity from a spiritual perspective. The social value or authenticity of contemporary celebrity, and the social processes through which it emerges, are matters of debate amongst researchers and competing approaches include field theory, functionalism, and anthropologically inflected accounts of the latent need for ritual, myth and spiritual fulfillment evinced by celebrity “worship.” We focus on the latter area as a partial explanation of the phenomenon whereby so many consumers seem so enchanted by images of, and stories about, individuals with whom they, or we, often have little in common. We speculate that the powerful presence of celebrity in Western consumer culture to some extent reflects and exploits a latent need for myths of redemption through the iconic character of many, t...
TL;DR: In this article, an economic geographer's take on recent trends in the globalization of finance and its effects on firms, economic regions, and especially regions in the Middle East is presented.
Abstract: This book's title concisely describes its subject matter – an economic geographer's take on recent trends in the globalization of finance and its effects on firms, economic regions, and especially ...
TL;DR: In this paper, an exploratory study employs a set of sleep-related cultural data to illustrate how consumption in sleeping practices is present in many previously unrecognized ways, and sheds new light on the previously identified emotional, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions that structure and organize intimate practices.
Abstract: Previous consumer research has generated rich knowledge about the dynamics of everyday intimacy. However, what is lacking is an understanding of the role the body plays in intimacy. To redress this gap, we set out to think of consumers’ intimate lives from an embodied perspective. To this aim, we take a practice lens to study the intimate practice of sleeping that offers, we argue, a fruitful context for highlighting the significance of bodily aspects. It also enables us to shed new light on the previously identified emotional, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions that structure and organize intimate practices. Our exploratory study employs a set of sleep-related cultural data to illustrate how consumption in sleeping practices is present in many previously unrecognized ways.
TL;DR: The Global Social Media Impact Study (GSIS) as discussed by the authors ) is a five-year European Research Council grant to study the impact of social media on migration, family, politics, education, and commerce.
Abstract: Daniel Miller is Professor of Material Culture at University College London. His prolific work in consumption studies, material culture studies and, more recently, digital anthropology has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of consumption, markets and culture. Miller is currently in the midst of a five-year European Research Council grant titled, Social Network Sites and Social Science, which funds the Global Social Media Impact Study. Developing concepts such as scalable sociality and understandings of “Why We Post,” anthropologists in nine locations around the world have conducted ethnographies, each of 15 months, focusing on everyday social media use in relation to issues of migration, family, politics, education, and commerce, as well as, on the ways in which genres of content flow through different platforms. The project's output includes 11 scholarly books, the launch of the Why We Post website, and an online university course, all of which are open access and have creative ...
TL;DR: In this paper, a consumer-led market where network of consumers aided by social media take responsibility for its maintenance and development, specifically the market for indie music in South Korea, is described.
Abstract: This article examines the “indie” music industry in South Korea. It describes a consumer-led market where network of consumers aided by social media take responsibility for its maintenance and development, specifically the market for indie music in South Korea. With the emergence of digital technology and a participatory culture, the roles of consumers have expanded. Through their commitment and passion for independent music, aided by social media, these consumers have developed a virtual indie music community, which uses a variety of mechanisms, such as producing podcasts, to promote its music. These non-traditional producers regard indie music as an important part of their lives and their existence, which is why they take responsibility for developing the indie community rather than leaving this to a profit-orientated music industry. Therefore, we demonstrate how in South Korea the production of indie music has ceased to be dominated by traditional actors, such as record labels, and is driven by...