Consumer culture theory

Last updated

Consumer culture theory (CCT) is the study of consumption from a social and cultural point of view, as opposed to an economic or psychological one.

Contents

CCT does not offer a grand unifying theory but "refers to a family of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationships between consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural meanings". [1] Reflective of a post-modernist society, CCT views cultural meanings as being numerous and fragmented [2] and hence views culture as an amalgamation of different groups and shared meanings, rather than a homogeneous construct (such as the American culture).

Consumer culture is viewed as "social arrangement in which the relations between lived culture and social resources, between meaningful ways of life and the symbolic and material resources on which they depend, are mediated through markets" [3] and consumers as part of an interconnected system of commercially produced products and images which they use to construct their identity and orient their relationships with others. [4] This evolution underscores the intricate relationship between technology, consumer behavior, and cultural production in contemporary society. [5]

Methodology

There is a widely held misperception by people outside CCT researchers that this field is oriented toward the study of consumption contexts. [1] Memorable study contexts, such as the Harley-Davidson subculture [6] or the Burning Man festival [7] probably fueled this perspective, which is far from the theory development aim of this school of thought.

CCT is often associated with qualitative methodologies, such as interviews, case studies, ethnography, and netnography, [8] because they are suitable to study the experiential, sociological and cultural aspects of consumption. However, CCT researchers use a variety of methods [1]

Fields of study

Arnould & Thompson [1] identifies four research programs in CCT:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subculture</span> Smaller culture within a larger culture

A subculture is a group of people within a cultural society that differentiates itself from the conservative and standard values to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, political, and sexual matters. Subcultures are part of society while keeping their specific characteristics intact. Examples of subcultures include BDSM, hippies, hipsters, goths, steampunks, bikers, punks, skinheads, gopnik, hip-hoppers, metalheads, cosplayers, otaku, otherkin, furries, and more. The concept of subcultures was developed in sociology and cultural studies. Subcultures differ from countercultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumerism</span> Socio-economic order that encourages the purchase of goods/services in ever-greater amounts

Consumerism is a social and economic order in which the aspirations of many individuals include the acquisition of goods and services beyond those necessary for survival or traditional displays of status. It emerged in Western Europe before the Industrial Revolution and became widespread around 1900. In economics, consumerism refers to policies that emphasize consumption. It is the consideration that the free choice of consumers should strongly orient the choice by manufacturers of what is produced and how, and therefore orient the economic organization of a society. Consumerism has been criticized by both individuals who choose other ways of participating in the economy and environmentalists concerned about its impact on the planet. Experts often assert that consumerism has physical limits, such as growth imperative and overconsumption, which have larger impacts on the environment. This includes direct effects like overexploitation of natural resources or large amounts of waste from disposable goods and significant effects like climate change. Similarly, some research and criticism focuses on the sociological effects of consumerism, such as reinforcement of class barriers and creation of inequalities.

Commodification is the process of transforming inalienable, free, or gifted things into commodities, or objects for sale. It has a connotation of losing an inherent quality or social relationship when something is integrated by a capitalist marketplace. Concepts that have been argued as being commodified include broad items such as the body, intimacy, public goods, animals and holidays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumer behaviour</span> Study of individuals, groups, or organisations and all the activities associated with consuming

Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organisations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services. Consumer behaviour consists of how the consumer's emotions, attitudes, and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940–1950s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an interdisciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, marketing, and economics.

In the field of consumer behavior, an impulse purchase or impulse buying is an unplanned decision by a consumer to buy a product or service, made just before a purchase. One who tends to make such purchases is referred to as an impulse purchaser, impulse buyer, or compulsive buyer. Research findings suggest that emotions, feelings, and attitudes play a decisive role in purchasing, triggered by seeing the product or upon exposure to a well crafted promotional message.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-consumerism</span> Opposition to excessive systemic buying and use of material possessions

Anti-consumerism is a sociopolitical ideology that is opposed to consumerism, the continual buying and consuming of material possessions. Anti-consumerism is concerned with the private actions of business corporations in pursuit of financial and economic goals at the expense of the public welfare, especially in matters of environmental protection, social stratification, and ethics in the governing of a society. In politics, anti-consumerism overlaps with environmental activism, anti-globalization, and animal-rights activism; moreover, a conceptual variation of anti-consumerism is post-consumerism, living in a material way that transcends consumerism.

Celebrity worship syndrome (CWS) or celebrity obsession disorder (COD) is an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity's personal and professional life. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over film, television, sport and pop stars, the only common factor between them is that they are all figures in the public eye. Written observations of celebrity worship date back to the 19th century.

A brand community is a concept in marketing and consumer research which postulates that human beings form communities on the basis of attachment to a brand or marque. A brand community refers to structured social relationships in which participants share admiration and connection of a brand that they experience through shared rituals, traditions and a sense of responsibility towards other members. The term often refers to the intersection between brand, individual identity and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seasonal packaging</span>

Seasonal packaging is a way of marketing a product and sparking sales in consumer segments that infrequently buy the product, by wrapping the product in a package closely related to seasons or holidays such as Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, back-to-school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. It is efficient as a marketing tool.

Macromarketing is an interdisciplinary field that studies marketing as a provisioning technology of society. It focuses on marketing-society interactions including such topics as marketing systems, aggregate consumer behavior, market regulation, social responsibility, justice and ethics in markets, and sustainable marketing. By comparison, "micromarketing" deals with how firms decide what to make, how to market it, and how much to price it. Some of key topics include the tragedy of the commons, subliminal advertising, market symbolism and environmental sustainability. The notion of "marketing systems" is at the heart of macromarketing thought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumer activism</span> Type of activist behavior

Consumer activism is a process by which activists seek to influence the way in which goods or services are produced or delivered. Kozinets and Handelman define it as any social movement that uses society's drive for consumption to the detriment of business interests. For Eleftheria Lekakis, author of Consumer Activism: Promotional Culture and Resistance, it includes a variety of consumer practices that range from boycotting and ‘buycotting’ to alternative economic practices, lobbying businesses or governments, practising minimal or mindful consumption, or addressing the complicity of advertising in climate change. Consumer activism includes both activism on behalf of consumers for consumer protection and activism by consumers themselves. Consumerism is made up of the behaviors, institutions, and ideologies created from the interaction between people and the materials and services they consume. Consumer activism has several aims:

Netnography is a specific type of qualitative social media research. It adapts the methods of ethnography to understand social interaction in contemporary digital communications contexts. Netnography is a specific set of research practices related to data collection, analysis, research ethics, and representation, rooted in participant observation. In netnography, a significant amount of the data originates in and manifests through the digital traces of naturally occurring public conversations recorded by contemporary communications networks. Netnography uses these conversations as data. It is an interpretive research method that adapts the traditional, in-person participant observation techniques of anthropology to the study of interactions and experiences manifesting through digital communications.

A brand tribe is a concept in marketing that refers to ephemeral groups that enable connections among consumers sharing passions or interests. A brand tribe is part of a tribal marketing strategy fostering engagement among consumers, as opposed to emphasizing the functionality of products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumer socialization</span>

Consumer socialization is the process by which young people acquire skills, knowledge and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace. It has been argued, however, that consumer socialization occurs in the adult years as well. This field of study is a subdivision of consumer behavior as its main focus is on how childhood and adolescent experiences affect future consumer behavior. It attempts to understand how factors such as peers, mass media, family, gender, race, and culture play an influence in developing customer behavior.

Collaborative consumption is the set of those resource circulation systems in which consumers both "obtain" and "provide", temporarily or permanently, valuable resources or services through direct interaction with other consumers or through a mediator. It is sometimes paired with the concept of the "sharing economy". Collaborative consumption is not new; it has always existed.

Postmodern marketing is a term derived from postmodern philosophical movements where there are cultural tendencies of inherent suspicion towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodern marketing takes this same philosophical perspective and applies it to the way advertising initiatives are handled in the current post-World War II era. Postmodern marketing is approaching or has passed through a new era in advertising, branding, and strategic brand thinking. Postmodern marketing is inherently focused on customized experiences where broad market generalizations are no-longer applied or implemented on behalf of branded communications. Instead, the technique requires marketers to remove "new aged adlandia" trends and developments to focus on how the consumer prefers to be messaged to.

Postmodern communication is used to describe the communication and messaging format, styles, guides, technologies and media used in a postmodernist world. Due to its non-traditional means; postmodern communication is also referred to as the information society. Driven by the need to reach influential audiences and to cut through a cluttered promotional marketplace, brands are reaching out to new communication methods to deliver their advertising message. Furthermore, many marketing practitioners are cited as saying that in order to create successful marketing strategies in the twenty-first century, "more creative thinking allied to an integrated approach to all communication activities are needed".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Markus Giesler</span>

Markus Giesler is a consumer sociologist and Professor of Marketing at the Schulich School of Business at York University. His research examines how ideas and things such as products, services, experiences, technologies, brands, and intellectual property acquire value over time, technology consumption, moral consumption, and the role of multiple stakeholders in the market creation process. Before doing his PhD in marketing, Giesler spent ten years operating his own record label and recording business in Germany. In 2014, he was named "one of the most outstanding business school professors under 40 in the world." Giesler is also the creator of the "Big Design" blog, which develops a sociological perspective on marketing, market creation, and customer experience design.

Assemblage is a philosophical approach for studying the ontological diversity of agency, which means redistributing the capacity to act from an individual to a socio-material network of people, things, and narratives. Also known as assemblage theory or assemblage thinking, this philosophical approach frames social complexity through fluidity, exchangeability, and their connectivity. The central thesis is that people do not act predominantly according to personal agency; rather, human action requires material interdependencies and a network of discursive devices distributed across legal, geographical, cultural, or economic infrastructures.

Ela Veresiu is a Canadian-Romanian consumer sociologist and an associate professor of marketing at the Schulich School of Business, York University.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Arnould, E. J.; Thompson, C. J. (2005). "Consumer culture theory (CCT): Twenty Years of Research". Journal of Consumer Research. 31 (4): 868–882. doi: 10.1086/426626 .
  2. ↑ Firat, A. F.; Venkatesh, A. (1995). "Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption". Journal of Consumer Research. 22 (3): 239–267. doi:10.1086/209448. JSTOR   2489612.
  3. ↑ Arnould, E. J. (2006). "Consumer culture theory: retrospect and prospect" (PDF). European Advances in Consumer Research. 7 (1): 605–607. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  4. ↑ Kozinets, R. V. (2001). "Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek's Culture of Consumption". Journal of Consumer Research. 28 (3): 67–88. doi:10.1086/321948. JSTOR   254324.
  5. ↑ Shi, Yuntian (2023-12-28). "Consumer Behavior and Cultural Factors in Social Media: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study". Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences. 63 (1): 271–277. doi:10.54254/2754-1169/63/20231435. ISSN   2754-1169.
  6. 1 2 Schouten, J.; McAlexander, J. H. (1995). "Subcultures of Consumption: An Ethnography of the New Bikers" (PDF). Journal of Consumer Research. 22 (3): 43–., ./61. doi:10.1086/209434. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-08-03. Retrieved 2010-08-14.
  7. 1 2 Kozinets, Robert V (2002). "Can Consumers Escape the Market? Emancipatory Illuminations from Burning Man". Journal of Consumer Research. 29 (1): 20–38. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.195.4028 . doi:10.1086/339919 . Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  8. ↑ Kozinets, Robert V. (February 1, 2002). "The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities". Journal of Marketing Research. 39 (1): 61–72. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.321.1136 . doi:10.1509/jmkr.39.1.61.18935. ISSN   0022-2437.
  9. ↑ Schau, H. J.; Gilly, M. C. (2003). "We Are What We Post? Self-Presentation in Personal Web Space". Journal of Consumer Research. 30 (4): 384–404. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.474.6954 . doi:10.1086/378616. JSTOR   3132017.
  10. ↑ Muniz, Albert M.; O’Guinn, Thomas C. (2001). "Brand Community". Journal of Consumer Research. 27 (4): 412–432. doi:10.1086/319618. ISSN   0093-5301.
  11. ↑ Goulding, Christina; Shankar, Avi; Canniford, Robin (May 24, 2013). "Learning to be tribal: facilitating the formation of consumer tribes". European Journal of Marketing. 47 (5/6): 813–832. doi:10.1108/03090561311306886. ISSN   0309-0566.
  12. ↑ Diaz Ruiz, Carlos A.; Penaloza, Lisa; Holmqvist, Jonas (2020-01-01). "Assembling tribes: An assemblage thinking approach to the dynamics of ephemerality within consumer tribes". European Journal of Marketing. 54 (5): 999–1024. doi:10.1108/EJM-08-2018-0565. ISSN   0309-0566.
  13. ↑ Holt, D. B. (1998). "Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption". Journal of Consumer Research. 25 (1): 1–25. doi:10.1086/209523.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.