Explorations in Consumer Culture Theory

Explorations in Consumer Culture Theory
Author: John F. Sherry
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2008-11-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1135971331

The literature of marketplace behaviour, long dominated by economic and psychological discourse, has matured in the last decade to reveal the vast expanse of consumption activity not adequately addressed – in either theoretical or empirical perspective - by the discipline's favoured approaches. The lived experience of consumption in cultural and historical context, rendered in a fashion that is both intellectually insightful and authentically evocative, and that recognizes the dynamics of accommodation and resistance that characterize the individual's relationship with the market, is the central interpretive thrust of an emerging interdisciplinary field inquiry broadly labelled "consumer culture theory." In this volume, some of the leading scholars of this field explore in great empirical detail and theoretical depth the relationships that the consumer has developed both with goods and services and with the stakeholders that animate markets. Beginning with an examination of the underpinnings of cultural inquiry, the focus then shifts to specific consumption venues. Analyses of advertising in personal, critical and historical perspective, examination of lifestyle trends from dwelling practices of transnational nomads and regimes of personal training to genetic testing and gambling, interpretations of the dynamics of brand loyalty and corporate image management, and investigation of family consumption rituals are among the topics explored in ethnographic and humanistic perspective.

Multifaceted Explorations of Consumer Culture and Its Impact on Individuals and Society

Multifaceted Explorations of Consumer Culture and Its Impact on Individuals and Society
Author: Burns, David J.
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2018-10-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1522561218

Consumer culture influences virtually all activities within modern societies and has become an important area of study for businesses. Logical analysis of consumer behavior is difficult as humans have different reasons for repeatedly buying products they need or want, and it is challenging to follow why they buy unneeded or unwanted products regularly. Without a comprehensive understanding of consumer culture as the basis, market discussions become empty and produce little insight into the power consumers hold in affecting other individuals and society. Multifaceted Explorations of Consumer Culture and Its Impact on Individuals and Society provides emerging research from different perspectives on the basis and ramifications of consumer culture, as well as how it affects all aspects of the lives of individuals. While providing a platform for exploring interpersonal interactions and issues related to ethics in marketing, readers will gain valuable insight into areas such as consumer vs. producer mentality, the effects of consumerism on developing countries, and the consequences of consumerism. This book is an important resource for marketing professionals, business managers, sociologists, students, academicians, researchers, and consumer professionals.

Consumer Culture Theory

Consumer Culture Theory
Author: Eric J. Arnould
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2018-06-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1526452138

Outlining the key themes, concepts and theoretical areas in the field, this book draws on contributions from prominent researchers to unravel the complexities of consumer culture by looking at how it affects personal identity, social interactions and the consuming human being. A field which is characterised as being theoretically challenging is made accessible through learning features that include case study material, critical reflection, research directions, further reading and a broad mix of the types of consumers and consumption contexts including emerging markets and economies. The structure of the book is designed to help students map the field in the way it is interpreted by researchers and follows the conceptual mapping in the classic Arnould & Thompson 2005 journal article. The book is organised into three parts - the Consumption Identity, Marketplace Cultures and the Socio-Historic Patterning of Consumption. Insight is offered into both the historical roots of consumer culture and the everyday experiences of navigating the contemporary marketplace. The book is supported by a collection of international case studies and real world scenarios, including: How Fashion Bloggers Rule the Fashion World; the Kendall Jenner Pepsi Commercial; Professional Beer Pong, Military Recruiting Campaigns, The World Health Organization and the Corporatization of Education. The go-to text for anyone new to CCT or postgraduate students writing a CCT-related thesis.

The Oxford Handbook of Consumption

The Oxford Handbook of Consumption
Author: Dr. Frederick F. Wherry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 646
Release: 2019-09-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190695617

The Oxford Handbook of Consumption consolidates the most innovative recent work conducted by social scientists in the field of consumption studies and identifies some of the most fruitful lines of inquiry for future research. It begins by embedding marketing in its global history, enmeshed in various political, economic, and social sites. From this embedded perspective, the book branches out to examine the rise of consumer culture theory among consumer researchers and parallel innovative developments in sociology and anthropology, with scholarship analyzing the roles that identity, social networks, organizational dynamics, institutions, market devices, materiality, and cultural meanings play across a wide variety of applications, including, but not limited to, brands and branding, the sharing economy, tastes and preferences, credit and credit scoring, consumer surveillance, race and ethnicity, status, family life, well-being, environmental sustainability, social movements, and social inequality. The volume is unique in the attention it gives to consumer research on inequality and the focus it has on consumer credit scores and consumer behaviors that shape life chances. The volume includes essays by many of the key researchers in the field, some of whom have only recently, if at all, crossed the disciplinary lines that this volume has enabled. The contributors have tried to address several key questions: What motivates consumption and what does it mean to be a consumer? What social, technical, and cultural systems integrate and give character to contemporary consumption? What actors, institutions, and understandings organize and govern consumption? And what are the social uses and effects of consumption?

Consumer Culture and Society

Consumer Culture and Society
Author: Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1483358143

Consumer Culture and Society offers an introduction to the study of consumerism and consumption from a sociological perspective. Author Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy examines what we buy, how and where we consume, the meanings attached to the things we purchase, and the social forces that enable and constrain consumer behavior. Opening chapters provide a theoretical overview and history of consumer society and featured case studies look at mass consumption in familiar contexts, such as tourism, food, and higher education. The book explores ethical and political concerns, including consumer activism, indebtedness, alternative forms of consumption, and dilemmas surrounding the globalization of consumer culture.

Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption

Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption
Author: George Ritzer
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2001-06-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780761971207

In this book, one of the leading social theorists and cultural commentators of modern times, turns his gaze on consumption. George Ritzer, author of the famous McDonaldization Thesis, demonstrates the irrational consequences of the rational desire to consume and commodify. He examines how McDonaldization might be resisted, and situates the reader in the new cultural spaces that are emerging in society: shopping malls, casino hotels, Disneyfied theme parks and Las Vegas -- the new `cathedrals of consumption' as he calls them. The book shows how new processes of consumption relate to globalization theory. In illuminating discussions of the work of Thorstein Veblen and the French situationists, Ritzer unearths the roots of problems of consumption in older sociological traditions. He indicates how transgression is bound up with consumption, through an investigation of the obscene in popular and postmodern culture.

New Perspectives on Consumer Culture Theory and Research

New Perspectives on Consumer Culture Theory and Research
Author: Renáta Sedláková
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2013-02-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1443846643

In the post-socialist countries, the subject of consumption has not received sufficient attention from the perspective of Consumer Culture Theory. The opinion has long prevailed among the majority of social scientists from this region that consumer society and consumptive behaviour is a socially destructive phenomenon and one of the main causes of problems in contemporary society. This impression has prevented them from scrutinizing the symbolic dimension of consumption and led them to a critical analysis of the social causes and environmental consequences of excessive consumption. The examination of symbolic aspects of consumer culture or the mutual interaction of culture and marketing communication, for example, have remained outside the realm of academic interest. The absence of comprehensive academic interest in the topic of consumer culture does not, however, mean that consumer culture is not a subject of research. Such research, instead, takes place outside of the sphere of the university in the commercial sector and is primarily focused on issues of how to successfully sell products and services. Due to competitive concerns, commercial research into consumer culture has led to the privatization of its results, which runs contrary to the ideal of science as an open and critical project. The goal of this book is to create a counterbalance to this “science in the shadows” and overcome the mutual distrust between the academic and commercial spheres and make possible the transfer of recent discoveries between the two parties. This publication is dedicated to the exploration of three areas of consumer culture: research on consumer culture and consumer behaviour in post-socialist countries (especially in the Czech Republic), new developments in the theory of consumer culture and innovative methodological approaches to its research and, finally, to recent criticism of consumer culture and consumerism. It emerged from the collaboration of a team of authors made up of leading European researchers in the field of consumer culture, such as Kate Soper (London Metropolitan University), Franz Liebl (Berlin University of the Arts) and Rainer Gries (University of Vienna), as well as promising young scholars from the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Sweden, Serbia, Poland and Portugal. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sociology, cultural studies, marketing and market research.

Consumer Culture and Modernity

Consumer Culture and Modernity
Author: Don Slater
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1999-02-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780745603049

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the issues, concepts and theories through which people have tried to understand consumer culture throughout the modern period, and puts the current state of thinking into a broader context. Thematically organized, the book shows how the central aspects of consumer culture - such as needs, choice, identity, status, alienation, objects, culture - have been debated within modern theories, from those of earlier thinkers such as Marx and Simmel to contemporary forms of post-structuralism and postmodernism. This approach introduces consumer culture as a subject which - far from being of narrow or recent interest - is intimately tied to the central issues of modern times and modern social thought. With its reviews of major theorists set within a full account of the development of the subject, this book should be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the many disciplines which now study consumer culture, including communications and cultural studies, anthropology and history.

The Road to Wicked

The Road to Wicked
Author: Kent Drummond
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2018-07-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319931067

The Road to Wicked examines the long life of the Oz myth. It is both a study in cultural sustainability— the capacity of artists, narratives, art forms, and genres to remain viable over time—and an examination of the marketing machinery and consumption patterns that make such sustainability possible. Drawing on the fields of macromarketing, consumer behavior, literary and cultural studies, and theories of adaption and remediation, the authors examine key adaptations and extensions of Baum’s 1900 novel. These include the original Oz craze, the MGM film and its television afterlife, Wicked and its extensions, and Oz the Great and Powerful—Disney’s recent (and highly lucrative) venture that builds on the considerable success of Wicked. At the end of the book, the authors offer a foundational framework for a new theory of cultural sustainability and propose a set of explanatory conditions under which any artistic experience might achieve it.

Culture and Consumption

Culture and Consumption
Author: Grant David McCracken
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1990-11-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780253206282

"This book compiles and integrates highly innovative work aimed at bridging the fields of anthropology and consumer behavior." —Journal of Consumer Affairs " . . . fascinating . . . ambitious and interesting . . . " —Canadian Advertising Foundation Newsletter " . . . an anthropological dig into consumerism brimming with original thought . . . " —The Globe and Mail "Grant McCracken has written a provocative book that puts consumerism in its place in Western society—at the centre." —Report on Business Magazine " . . . a stimulating addition to knowledge and theory about the interrelationship of culture and consumption." —Choice "[McCracken's] synthesis of anthropological and consumer studies material will give historians new ideas and methods to integrate into their thinking." —Maryland Historian "The book offers a fresh and much needed cultural interpretation of consumption." —Journal of Consumer Policy "The volume will help balance the prevailing cognitive and social psychological cast of consumer research and should stimulate more comprehensive investigation into consumer behavior." —Journal of Marketing Research " . . . broad scope, enthusiasm and imagination . . . a significant contribution to the literature on consumption history, consumer behavior, and American material culture." —Winterhur Portfolio "For this is a superb book, a definitive exploration of its subject that makes use of the full range of available literature." —American Journal of Sociology "McCracken's book is a fine synthesis of a new current of thought that strives to create an interdisciplinary social science of consumption behaviors, a current to which folklorists have much to contribute." —Journal of American Folklore This provocative book takes a refreshing new view of the culture of consumption. McCracken examines the interplay of culture and consumer behavior from the anthropologist's point of view and provides new insights into the way we view ourselves and our society.