Showing papers in "Journal of Consumer Culture in 2015"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the role of digital music players in changing the form, medium and possibly even the content of music listening practices, and present a survey of different listening practices.
Abstract: Recent discussions of music listening practices have given priority to the digitalisation of sound and the role of digital music players in changing the form, medium and possibly even the content o...
100 citations
TL;DR: Being hip is nowadays considered a crucial source of social prestige in the fields of fashion and music which are in a state of constant flux and revaluation as discussed by the authors, and being "in the know" of new developme...
Abstract: Being ‘hip’ is nowadays considered a crucial source of social prestige in the fields of fashion and music which are in a state of constant flux and revaluation. Being ‘in the know’ of new developme...
85 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors build on and expand the domain of the burgeoning literature on the human prosumer and the process of prosumption, and propose a new approach to the prosumer problem.
Abstract: This essay builds on and expands the domain of the burgeoning literature on the human prosumer and the process of prosumption. Just as the prosumer and prosumption are finally getting the attention...
68 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the issue of social media from the perspective of prosumption, and propose a prosumption-based approach to the prosumption of online social media.
Abstract: This article addresses the issue of social media from the perspective of prosumption. The term social media has recently replaced the descriptive discourse on new media and communication technologi...
60 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that producing insight involves performing a particular type of qualification of the consumer that relates to two specific processes, i.e., production and circulation of insights about consumers in advertising agencies.
Abstract: By describing how consumers are qualified and mobilised in advertising agencies, this paper aims to contribute to this increasing body of literature that explores ordinary marketing and advertising practices, knowledge and devices. This is done by unpacking and analysing a particular aspect of routine advertising work, which is the production and circulation of insights about consumers in advertising agencies. We argue that producing insight involves performing a particular type of qualification of the consumer that relates to two specific processes. Firstly, we describe these practices in terms of an a extensive process of mediation that involves the deployment of progressive definitions of products and consumers that pass by different actors in the agency and through which production and consumption are connected in the very local and specific space of the advertising agency. Secondly, we argue that this process of mediation goes together with a process of ‘purification’ that involves performing a speci...
48 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored improvisation by mothers in home cooking as an exemplary of the creative process and found that mothers' creativity in the kitchen is a normal part of everyday life in US homes.
Abstract: Creativity in the kitchen is a normal part of everyday life in US homes. This article explores improvisation by mothers in home cooking as exemplary of the creative process. Western analyses of cre...
41 citations
TL;DR: The economic crisis that Spain has been facing since 2008 has produced significant effects in the way citizens are dealing with consumption as discussed by the authors, beyond austerity practices and concerns about an uncerta...
Abstract: The economic crisis that Spain has been facing since 2008 has produced significant effects in the way citizens are dealing with consumption. Beyond austerity practices and concerns about an uncerta...
40 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the emerging relationship between commercial priorities and technological design within children's virtual worlds is explored through a comparative case study analysis of the promotional content of virtual worlds, through a case study of the advertising campaigns.
Abstract: This paper explores the emerging relationship between commercial priorities and technological design within children's virtual worlds, through a comparative case study analysis of the promotional c...
33 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on participatory forms of capitalism, children's consumer desires and engagements with a game console, and argue that the Nintendo DS is needed in order to enter a gaming world where relation relation is relation.
Abstract: This article focuses on participatory forms of capitalism, children’s consumer desires and engagements with a game console. The Nintendo DS is needed in order to enter a gaming world where relation...
24 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore key changes in orientations toward encountering and experiencing the other in new consumption venues as a result of the transformations in globalization and modern culture, and explore the means that enable people to construct new constellations of identities and experience the other.
Abstract: We explore key changes in orientations toward encountering and experiencing the ‘other’ in new consumption venues as a result of the transformations in globalization and modern culture. Our research aims to provide insights into how ‘experiencing the other’ is increasingly sought in high-society bazaars by both upper and lower social classes, respectively representing the westernized and traditional social elements in Turkey, where the West meets the East. Findings unravel the means that enable people to construct new constellations of identities and experience the other in these consumption spaces. As a result, we revisit and extend different theoretical insights on identity construction and otherness by recognizing more recent cultural trends and sensibilities that guide and motivate people to seek multiplicity and to experience difference.
23 citations
TL;DR: In the summer of 2011, in the wake of some of India's worst corruption scandals, a civil society group called India Against Corruption was mobilizing unprecedented nationwide support for the passage of a strong Jan Lokpal (Citizen's Ombudsman) Bill by the Indian Parliament.
Abstract: In the summer of 2011, in the wake of some of India’s worst corruption scandals, a civil society group calling itself India Against Corruption was mobilizing unprecedented nation-wide support for the passage of a strong Jan Lokpal (Citizen’s Ombudsman) Bill by the Indian Parliament. The movement was, on its face, unusual: its figurehead, the 75-year-old Gandhian, Anna Hazare, was apparently rallying urban, middle-class professionals and youth in great numbers—a group otherwise notorious for its political apathy. The scale of the protests, of the scandals spurring them, and the intensity of media attention generated nothing short of a spectacle: the sense, if not the reality, of a united India Against Corruption. Against this background, we ask: what shared imagination of corruption and political dysfunction, and what political ends are projected in the Lokpal protests? What are the class practices gathered under the “middle-class” rubric, and how do these characterize the unusual politics of summer 2011? ...
TL;DR: The authors unpack a blurring of public and private space expressed through clothing, and show how personal and collective consumption bound up with comfort and city life can be understood with reference to changing temporal and spatial imaginaries and experiences of claiming a material 'right to the city'.
Abstract: This paper works at the intersection of three bodies of writing: theories relating to fashion, identity and the city; debate relating to urban materialities, assemblages and context; and cultural interventions advancing the study of post-socialism. Drawing on empirical research undertaken in Bratislava, Slovakia, we unpack a blurring of public and private space expressed through clothing. In contrast to elsewhere in the city, in Petržalka, a high-rise housing estate from the socialist period, widely depicted as anonymous and hostile since 1989, residents are renowned for wearing ‘comfortable’ clothes in order to ‘feel at home’ in public space. We describe the relationship between fashion, identity and comfort as an everyday ‘political’ response to state socialism and later the emergence of consumer capitalism. We argue, however, that by considering materialities, assemblages and context that studies of fashion and consumer culture can offer more complex political, economic, social, cultural and spatial analysis. To that end, we show how personal and collective consumption bound up with comfort and city life can be understood with reference to changing temporal and spatial imaginaries and experiences of claiming a material ‘right to the city’.
TL;DR: Although expectant mothers have long purchased items in preparation for their baby’s birth, the timing and type of purchases being made have changed in response to pregnant women routinely learning the sex of their fetus through ultrasound, which inspires earlier purchases of baby items than was normative 30 years before.
Abstract: Although expectant mothers have long purchased items in preparation for their baby’s birth, the timing and type of purchases being made have changed in response to pregnant women routinely learning the sex of their fetus through ultrasound. This article examines changes in these consumption patterns through data drawn from personal narratives with 25 women divided between two cohorts—those who gave birth in the 2000s and those who gave birth in the1970s. The routine use of ultrasound has encouraged changes in beliefs about the relationship between a fetus and its mother in younger women, which in turn inspires earlier purchases of baby items than was normative 30 years before. Not enough attention is being paid to the fact that newborn babies are more likely today than three decades ago to spend their first few months wearing gendered clothing and being surrounded by gender-specific furniture and objects, which their mothers are purchasing during pregnancy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how material poverty functions as a cultural space, specifically addressing when it becomes a strategy, that is, when an individual with cultural and social capital adopts a life of...
Abstract: We investigate how material poverty functions as a cultural space, specifically addressing when it becomes a strategy, that is, when an individual with cultural and social capital adopts a life of ...
TL;DR: This article explored the role of historical resources in rendering food commodity systems intelligible and argued for further attention to the symbolic work that historical resources perform in contemporary consumer culture, and revealed some of the ways in which historical geographies of consumption may shape consumer imaginaries.
Abstract: Themes of rationing, scarcity and frugality have become increasingly prominent in UK food discourses of recent years, and the historical period of ‘austerity Britain’ (1939-54) has proved to be a key symbolic resource in these debates. This article considers the conjunction of food, culture and ‘austerity’, and explores how austerity discourse might inform British consumers’ understanding of global food systems. It notes that critical work on commodity de/fetishization tends to focus on geographical knowledges, and seeks to complement this research by attending to the role that historical resources play in rendering food commodity systems intelligible. Through an analysis of an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum London, and in particular the iconographic site of the ‘austerity larder’, the article considers the extent to which austerity discourse offers a legible index of food commodity chains, raises questions about fragility of supply, and makes food scarcity visible. The analysis reveals some of the ways in which historical geographies of consumption may shape consumer imaginaries. The article concludes by identifying some of the issues that arise from the recourse to history, and by arguing for further attention to the symbolic work that historical resources perform in contemporary consumer culture.
TL;DR: A sociological understanding of the role of catalogue shopping in women's everyday lives is presented in this paper, based on qualitative data generated from interviews with women working at the returns department of the Kays catalogue warehouse in Worcester.
Abstract: This article offers a sociological understanding of the role of catalogue shopping in women’s everyday lives. The article draws on qualitative data generated from interviews with women working at the returns department of the Kays catalogue warehouse in Worcester. During the time of writing, Shop Direct, owners of Kays closed down the historic warehouse in Worcester, effectively bringing over 200 years of Worcester’s association with Kays and the catalogue industry to an end, and leading to 500 job losses, including those of the women taking part in the research. Once the largest private employer in Worcester, Kays occupies an important role in local cultural and social identities, and in this article, I will argue that a sociological account of catalogue shopping is apt and timely given such significant social changes, the recent economic downturn and social problems that have long been associated with this form of consumption. In addition, the article will show that to date, much research into catalogue...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors contribute to an understanding of the phenomenon of the commercialization of education, through an analysis of the messages of a consumer education curriculum which was created by a company.
Abstract: This article aims to contribute to an understanding of the phenomenon of the commercialization of education, through an analysis of the messages of a consumer education curriculum which was initiat...
TL;DR: These mothers navigate an information-rich environment to make decisions on what medications their children will consume, and ideas about gifting provide new insights into the appropriation and transformation of medications within familial caregiving practices.
Abstract: Today, medications are central to both formal and familial healthcare systems. This article examines medications as ingrained and socio-culturally significant features of domestic landscapes. We co...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that Hello Kitty articulates the combination of both soft and hard power, which Nye defined as smart power, and demonstrate that the cash cat has economic hard power.
Abstract: project on global denim. Their key idea is to take one product (e.g. blue jeans) to multiple locations across various continents to study the variation of social and cultural meanings. Finally, Jano’s example of Sanrio being listed on the New York Stock Exchange (p. 252) clearly shows the cash cat has economic hard power. Thus, contrary to one of the theses of the book that Hello Kitty expresses soft power, my alternative reading is that Hello Kitty articulates the combination of both forms of power, which Nye (2009) defined as smart power. Overall, this book offers non-specialists an introduction to Japanese popular culture but may leave specialists wanting more.