-
Between conspicuous and conscious consumption: The sustainability paradox in the intermediary promotional work of an online lifestyle site Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Meri-Maaria Frig, Maarit Jaakkola
This article examines the representation of sustainability on the online lifestyle site Goop as a case study of how promotional media deal with environmental and social concerns. Specifically, the ...
-
“Who made my clothes?” how transparency apps bring politics to cultural fields Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-04-07 Luuc Brans
As the climate crisis accelerates, consumers, lawmakers, and activists demand transparent supply chains in industries that form the material backbone of cultural fields such as fashion. Consequentl...
-
‘We can’t participate like this at football, can we’? Exploring in-person performative prosumer fandom at live PDC darts events Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-04-07 Leon Davis, Tom Gibbons
The nature of prosumption is one of the most important areas of debate within the study of contemporary consumer culture. David L. Andrews and George Ritzer highlighted how the majority of literatu...
-
The assemblage of British politics’ breaking point Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-02-26 Alan Bradshaw, Paul Haynes
This paper investigates the UKIP Breaking Point advertisement, which appeared prominently during the Brexit referendum campaign and used a documentary photograph of Syrian refugees, implying that t...
-
Marking humans for consumption, whilst erasing others: Affective becomings and the workings of (dis)comfort Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-02-24 Maíra Magalhães Lopes
In the becoming of neoliberal cities, consumption can play an important role in the process of marking who is human, that is, fit for consumption, and who is not. This paper explores such processes...
-
Food consumption, social class and taste in contemporary Portugal Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-01-06 Vasco Ramos
In this article, I investigate the logic underlying household food consumption in Portugal and how it relates to class positioning, like other expressions of culture. Therefore, the paper examines ...
-
The German space of lifestyles: A multidetermined structure Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-01-05 Will Atkinson, Piotr Marzec
This paper charts the space of lifestyles in Germany in order to assess whether its structure resembles that famously uncovered in France by Bourdieu. Mobilising multiple correspondence analysis an...
-
How does materiality ‘bite back’? Investigating cassette tapes in local, translocal and virtual music scenes Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-01-04 Benjamin Duester, Andy Bennett
Despite its status as an analogue sound carrier, the cassette has shown remarkable resilience in the digital era. Drawing on qualitative data gathered in three significant markets for cassettes, Ja...
-
Marketing of donor eggs by offering possibilities for imaginary actualization of recipients’ ideal self Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2023-01-02 Ya’arit Bokek-Cohen
Donor eggs have become commercialized and egg agencies mediate between egg consumers and donors. Despite the rapid growth of this industry, there is a paucity of research focusing on the imaginary ...
-
Divestment as investment: “Kondo-Ing” selves in the context of over accumulation Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-11-25 Meghann Lucy
The accumulation, display, and use of objects have long been recognized as a means through which individuals construct social position and the self. Consumption can thus be thought of as investment...
-
Grandparenting relations in advertising’s ‘familial fictions’ Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-11-20 Stephanie O’Donohoe, Malene Gram, Caroline Marchant
Since social displays of family life in advertising contribute to the doing and imagining of family, advertising representations of intergenerational relationships merit research attention. Focussi...
-
Practices of thrift among high cultural capital consumers. When economic status gets in the way of ethics Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-11-18 Gaëlle Bargain-Darrigues
Practices and preferences of high cultural capital consumers are being reconfigured as a consequence of their incorporated ecological and social concerns. Yet, while their status and tastes are pri...
-
Tales from the crypt: A psychoanalytic approach to disability representation in advertising Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-11-18 Jonatan Södergren, Joel Hietanen, Niklas Vallström
Representation is key in the politics of mass-mediated consumer society. Although previous research has noted that representation in advertising generates greater societal visibility for people wit...
-
Searching for the “right feeling”: Sense of place and the social architecture of middle-class homebuying choices Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-11-17 Guy Shani
The literature on residential and homebuying choices is still dominated by economic models of decision-making. Despite growing critique of these models, attempts to provide socially grounded accoun...
-
Access to arts consumption: The stratification of aesthetic life-chances Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-11-07 Tal Feder
This paper develops the concept of access to arts consumption as a necessary link connecting cultural taste and actual consumption. I present a theoretical model that deconstructs access to arts co...
-
What Counts—Why Growth Economics is Failing Us Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-11-01 Dirk Philipsen
A rapidly growing body of research suggests that modern economies find themselves at existential crossroads: both prosperity and survival are a function of consumption-fueled economic growth. Prosp...
-
Listening to music videos on YouTube. Digital consumption practices and the environmental impact of streaming Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-10-12 Jean-Samuel Beuscart, Samuel Coavoux, Jean-Baptiste Garrocq
YouTube is currently the most widely used platform for music streaming. Users listen to music videos rather than watch them. This is environmentally suboptimal since video data require more energy ...
-
Postfeminism, consumption and activewear: Examining women consumers’ relationship with the postfeminine ideal Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-10-11 Julie Brice, Holly Thorpe, Belinda Wheaton, Robyn Longhurst
Activewear (clothing designed specifically for fitness and functional movement) has become a hugely popular fashion style for women around the world. Scholars have critiqued the activewear industry...
-
Alice in… buying: The consumption of experiences in the worldly experience and aspects of socialization Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Álison dL Macêdo, Flávia ZdN Costa, Bianca Gabriely F Silva, Marconi Fd Costa
Supported by non-representational theories (NRTs), we focus on the atmosphere of consumption and use a creative method to carry out this research. We consider the details of everyday life not repre...
-
Mobile trust regimes: Modes of attachment in an age of banal omnivorousness Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-09-15 Jennifer Smith Maguire, Richard E. Ocejo, Michaela DeSoucey
The 21st century rise of culturally omnivorous tastes and classifications proffers a new dilemma for how markets create attachments and achieve trust for global consumers. Consumer entities must be...
-
Trouble in virtual heaven: Origin and consequences of social conflict in online consumption communities Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-09-15 Adrian Kristiansen, Frank Lindberg, Anders Tempelhaug
This paper analyzes social conflicts among amateur computer gamers who are playing online multiplayer games. Whereas prior research tends to focus on the passion and fun of consumption community, o...
-
Trajectories towards a voluntary simplicity lifestyle and inner growth Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-08-17 Veronica Devenin, Constanza Bianchi
Although there is an increase in research on different aspects of voluntary simplicity (VS), there is less understanding of the trajectories that individuals follow when adopting a voluntary simpli...
-
I am a virtual girl from Tokyo: Virtual influencers, digital-orientalism and the (Im)materiality of race and gender Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-08-04 Esperanza Miyake
By focussing on Imma – a virtual influencer from Japan – this article provides a critical examination of Japanese raciality and gender within the context of virtuality, (im)materiality and digital ...
-
Flaneuring the buyosphere: A comparative historical analysis of shopping environments and phantasmagorias Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-07-03 Federico Castigliano
This paper proposes a comparative historical analysis of shopping environments, focusing on the aesthetic experience they offer to the consumer and underscoring their nature as phantasmagorias. At ...
-
The evolving moral economy of indebtedness in Chile: resignifying credit and debt in the oldest neoliberal society Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-06-08 Alejandro Marambio-Tapia
Credit is ubiquitous in the life of Chilean households, the oldest neoliberal society. It is a key feature in the budgeting, shopping, and consuming practices of families. Consequently, to be indebted is a normal expectation in Chile. Families engage with the ‘necessary evil’ of credit in different ways, representing a massive, regular use of credit as short, medium and long-term leverage tools, with
-
Men becoming fighters: Exploring processes of consumer socialization Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-05-24 Risto Moisio, Mariam Beruchashvili
The current paper examines how men are socialized to the ideal of fighter masculinity in the context of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), a combat sport mixing ground fighting and striking. Such work is timely because the fighter masculinity ideal underlies consumer cultural fascination with MMA, evident in advertising and branding of numerous fight promotions, lifestyle clothing and accessory brands, news
-
Consuming the city: People-watching and dialectics of everyday urban life Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-05-24 Mark Jayne
Since being established at the vanguard of thinking about urban life during the late-eighteenth century, generations of theorists have opened-up sightlines, tackled blind-spots, and responded to challenges of theorizing and researching ‘seeing and being seen’. This paper contributes to that work by bringing into focus everyday experiences of people-watching. Drawing on auto-ethnographic/-biographic
-
Prosumer activism: The case of Britney Spears’ Brazilian fandom Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-05-20 Otávio Daros
The key argument of this article is that fan communities create, in their own way, a kind of prosumer media activism. Through a netnographic approach, I analyze aspects of fan labor and value creation, self-organization and entrepreneurship, agency and exploitation in an online discussion forum about the American singer Britney Spears in Brazil. Based on this case study on social networking, I develop
-
Lifestyles of enough exploring sufficiency-oriented consumption behavior from a social practice theory perspective Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-05-15 Maren I Kropfeld
Meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement requires absolute reductions of consumption levels, which implies changing consumption behavior toward more sufficiency-oriented practices. So far, these practices have mostly been researched in the areas of mobility and household-related activities. Therefore, this paper reviews sufficiency-oriented practices in other areas of consumption. A configurative literature
-
Cultural stratification in the UK: Persistent gender and class differences in cultural voraciousness Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-05-15 Tally Katz-Gerro, Oriel Sullivan
This paper adds to the literature on cultural stratification by revisiting cultural voraciousness, nearly two decades after it was first introduced as a measure of cultural participation designed to capture inequalities in the pace and variety of cultural activities. Specifically, using the UK 2014–15 Time Use Survey, we compare measures of cultural voraciousness in the UK in 1998 and 2015, focussing
-
Consumer parenting, cultural processes, and the reproduction of class inequality Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-04-27 Sergio A. Cabrera
This article examines the cultural processes a group of middle-class parents engage in to manage tensions between their classed sense of proper consumer-parenting and their children’s consumer interests and desires. Based on analysis of qualitative data from interviews with parents with young children living in a middle-class neighborhood in Austin, Texas, I highlight the cultural practices through
-
The right to shine: Poverty, consumption and (de) politicization in neoliberal Brazil Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, Lucia Mury Scalco
This article discusses the political impacts on the poor’s subjectivity provoked by neoliberal policies such as inclusion through consumption in 21st century Brazil. From 2009 to 2014, we carried out ethnographic research with new consumers in a low-income neighbourhood – Morro da Cruz – in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. We argue that consumption does not necessarily depoliticize human
-
The consumer, the market and the universal aristocracy: The ideology of academisation in England Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-04-20 Tom Hoctor
In 2018, academies accounted for 72% of all English secondary schools, compared to 6% in 2009. English academy schooling conforms to marketizing trends in international education reform, but Conservative politicians have also attempted to promote particular moral values. This article analyses the tensions between neoliberalism and neoconservatism and applies this analysis to a concrete debate taking
-
Book Reviews: Eva Illouz The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative Relations Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-04-19 Alicia Denby
-
Consumer sovereignty and the Greek economic crisis: (Dis)continuity of consumer sovereignty repertoires Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-04-06 Dimitris Lallas
In this paper, I attempt to reformulate the (consumer) action and discourse, as these arise from the discourse of visitors at the biggest shopping mall in Athens. The qualitative data are derived from 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with visitors at The Mall Athens. The cultural-consumer repertoires of the participants, that is, their understanding, evaluation, and justification schemes of
-
Supermarket tribes and the temple of Aldi: A comparison between the UK and Australia Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-03-28 Daniela Spanjaard, Lynne Freeman
This research began as an investigation into consumer responses to the increasing number of supermarket own brands appearing in the grocery aisles of Australia when compared with the United Kingdom (UK) where retailer brands tend to dominate. Where the study ended was with the revelation of consumer ‘supermarket tribes’ and that this connectedness is linked to the consumption space as a way to endorse
-
Overlaps and accumulations: The anatomy of cultural non-participation in Finland, 2007 to 2018 Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-03-04 Riie Heikkilä, Taru Lindblom
There is a fervent belief that culture is, among other desirable ideals, “good for you.” This has been the baseline of the cultural policies in many countries. Through cultural policies, some forms of cultural participation over others are subvented through public funding, which makes it yet more important to ask which groups intentionally withdraw—or are left out—from which forms of it. We address
-
‘He wouldn’t be seen using it…’ Men’s use of male grooming products as a form of invisible consumption Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-02-27 Angela Byrne, Katie Milestone
Skincare products are well-established amongst female consumers. The market for male skincare products is far more recent and little research has been undertaken on this emerging sector. The practice of men using what was traditionally a product almost solely aimed at women poses some interesting questions about changing gendered identities and practices. Themes emerged from a series of interviews
-
Governing individuals’ imaginaries and conduct in personal finance: The mobilization of emotions in financial education Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-02-17 Daniel Maman, Zeev Rosenhek
Today’s regime of financialized capitalism requires individuals to engage with financial products and services to ensure their financial security and welfare. Within this regime, institutional actors formulate and communicate imaginaries of the future that prompt individuals to embrace particular financial logics, understandings, and practices in managing their personal finance. Financial literacy
-
Shopping while Black: Consumer racial profiling in America Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-02-09 David Crockett
-
Platform urbanism in a pandemic: Dark stores, ghost kitchens, and the logistical-urban frontier Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-02-01 Aaron Shapiro
As demand for e-commerce surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, investors began pouring billions into start-ups promising to accelerate digitization and automation in small-margin, winner-take-all sectors, such as retail, grocery, and dining. I examine two business models that feature prominently in this swell of financial optimism: dark stores and ghost kitchens. Both sacrifice consumer-facing real
-
Book review: The end of love: A sociology of negative relations polity Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Alicia Denby
-
Beyond existential and neoliberal explanations of consumers’ embodied risk-taking: CrossFit as an articulation of reflexive modernization Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-12-28 Craig J Thompson, Anil Isisag
This study analyzes CrossFit as a marketplace culture that articulates several key dimensions of reflexive modernization. Through this analysis, we illuminate a different set of theoretical relationships than have been addressed by previous accounts of physically challenging, risk-taking consumption practices. To provide analytic clarity, we first delineate the key differences between reflexive modernization
-
Marketable religion: How game company Ubisoft commodified religion for a global audience Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-12-28 Lars de Wildt, Stef Aupers
Videogame companies are selling religion to an overwhelmingly secular demographic. Ubisoft, the biggest company in the world’s biggest cultural industry, created a best-selling franchise about a conflict over Biblical artefacts between Muslim Assassins and Christian Templars. Who decides to put religion into those games? How? And why? To find out, we interviewed 22 developers on the Assassin’s Creed
-
If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much: Vereeniging Nederlandsch Fabrikaat, the citizen-consumer and Dutch nationalist consumption in the interwar Netherlands Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-12-17 Joep Onstenk
Recent scholarship has paid considerable attention to the emergence of the citizen-consumer in the interwar era. Drawing on the literature from the fields of ethical consumption and consumer history, this paper opts for a broader perspective on the emergence of the citizen-consumer in historical analysis. It combines the polysemic nature of the hybrid citizen-consumer from food studies and ethical
-
‘If I could afford an avocado every day’: Income differences and ethical food consumption in a world of abundance Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-10-15 Anna Sofia Salonen
This study explores how ethical food consumption is framed in the accounts of ordinary people living in affluent societies, with a particular focus on income differences. Research on ethical consumption often associates ‘ethical’ with the consumption of certain predefined products. This study leaves the question of the content of ethical consumption open for empirical investigation. Further, instead
-
Locking-down instituted practices: Understanding sustainability in the context of ‘domestic’ consumption in the remaking Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-10-04 Torik Holmes, Carolynne Lord, Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world placed communities under ‘lockdown’. Various practices of consumption were uprooted from their instituted settings and re-rooted in homes. This unprecedented reorganisation of normality resulted in increased instances of domestic consumption as practices occurring in offices, gyms and eateries were forced into homes, demanding the acquisition
-
Vegas brews: Craft beer and the birth of a local scene Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-10-03 Erik Tyler Withers
-
Book Review: The Age of Fitness: How the Body Came to Symbolize Success and Achievement Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-09-25 Hallie Chu
-
Book Review: Upsetting food: Three eras of food protests in the United States Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-09-25 Yao-Tai Li
-
Limited, considered and sustainable consumption: The (non)consumption practices of UK minimalists Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-08-23 Amber Martin-Woodhead
Minimalism is an increasingly popular lifestyle movement in western economies (predominantly in the USA, Japan and Europe) that involves voluntarily reducing consumption and limiting one’s possessions to a bare minimum. This is with the intention of making space for the ‘important’ (potentially immaterial) things that are seen to add meaning and value to one’s life. Drawing on interviews with minimalists
-
“Inspiring” and configuring consumer experience in times of crisis: An analysis of the discursive practices of an Athenian shopping mall’s promotional system Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-08-19 Dimitris Lallas, Yorgos Drosos
This article focuses on the processes that the largest shopping mall in Athens has developed in order to produce meaning about itself as an institution of consumption, as well as the consumer experience and practices, and its visitors–consumers. From a poststructuralist perspective, we analyze the signifying articulations that the promotional discourse attempts, along with the linguistic and visual
-
A short ethnography of twenty-first century consumers: On retail rage and one-dimensionality Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-08-18 Kevin P. Bingham
This article begins with two central ideas – that feelings of rage appear to be on the increase in present modernity and that one of the main sources of rage is directly linked to consumer culture and the retail experience it fosters. Although retail trade allows twenty-first century individuals to spend their money on material goods and experiences which provide structure and a sense of meaning and
-
No place like home? Producing and consuming eldercare design Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-08-04 Claire Nicholas, Mary Alice Casto, Alyssa Smith, Katie Francisco
As the American eldercare industry prepares to attract and receive consumers from the “baby boomer” generation, facility designers and administrators are increasingly concerned with catering to the lifestyles and taste preferences of aging adults perceived to be more “active,” affluent, and accustomed to “choice” than previous generations. This article considers these trends in terms of their material
-
The conflict market polarizing consumer culture(s) in counter-democracy Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-08-01 Sofia Ulver
At the beginning of the millennium, consumer culture researchers predicted that people would increasingly demand that marketplace actors subscribe to contemporary ethics of liberal democracy. Although their prediction indeed came true, they did not foresee that an algorithm-powered media ecosystem in combination with growing authoritarian movements would soon come to fuel an increasingly polarized
-
Malls, modernity and consumption: Shopping malls as new projectors of modernity in Accra, Ghana Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-07-31 Alexander K Eduful, Michael Eduful
Shopping malls in the global South have been expanding rapidly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, since 2000. Among others, they are seen as part of the processes of globalization, modernization and modernity. Using a mixed-methods approach based on case study of malls in Accra, Ghana, this study argues that malls in the global South, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, project images of modernity on
-
Got to be real: An investigation into the co-fabrication of authenticity by fashion companies and digital influencers Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-07-28 Mariachiara Colucci, Marco Pedroni
This article investigates how fashion companies build their relationships with digital influencers (DIs), a new group of cultural intermediaries who are increasingly central to brand communication strategies. Scholars have mostly studied DIs’ role in influencing the market, but largely neglected the process through which they build their work. Through a qualitative inductive research directed at 21
-
Periphery fandom: Contrasting fans’ productive experiences across the globe Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-06-30 Vlada Botorić
The article introduces the concept of periphery fandom, a concept that is new in the debate on consumer culture, to interrogate global fan community productive experiences from various geographical locations. Periphery fandom is defined as a sub-ordinated fan community experience, where members are deprived of access to their objects of fandom. Periphery fandom also refers to a fan productive experience
-
Mega-events, expansion and prospects: Perceptions of Euro 2020 and its 12-country hosting format Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-06-28 Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen
Mega-events occupy important roles within global consumer societies, and so, this article aims to advance the sociological understanding of mega-events by using UEFA Euro 2020 as a case. Traditionally, sport mega-events have been staged in one or two countries. However, for the first time ever, 12 European countries shared the hosting rights for Euro 2020, which was postponed for a year following COVID-19
-
Book Review: Glitterworlds: The Future Politics of a Ubiquitous Thing Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 2.39) Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Mehita Iqani