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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Consumer culture'
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de, Carvalho Marcelo Gonc̜alves. "Consumer culture imperialism." Diss., [La Jolla] : University of California, San Diego, 2010. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/fullcit?p1477954.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of California, San Diego, 2010.Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 13, 2010). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-219).
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Groves, Ronald George. "Fourth world consumer culture: Emerging consumer cultures in remote Aboriginal communities of North-Western Australia." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 1999. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1201.
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Over the two centuries since the arrival of European settlers in Australia, the material culture and lifestyle of the indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia has undergone dramatic change. Based on qualitative fieldwork in three remote Aboriginal communities in north-western Australia, this study examines the emergence of unique consumer cultures that appear to differ significantly from mainstream Australia and indeed from other societies. The study finds that the impact of non-indigenous goods and external cultural values upon these communities has been significant. However, although anthropologists feared some fifty years ago that Aboriginal cultural values and traditions had been destroyed, this study concludes that they are still powerful moderating forces in each of the communities studied. The most powerful are non-possessiveness, immediacy in consumption, and a strong sharing ethos. Unlike findings in the so-called Second and Third Worlds, these Fourth World consumer cultures have not developed an unquenchable desire for manufactured consumer goods. Instead, non-traditional consumption practices have been modified by tradition oriented practices. The consumer cultures that have emerged through a synthesis of global and local values and practices have involved Aboriginal adoption, adaption and resistance practices. This process has resulted in both positive and negative impacts on the Aboriginal people of these communities. Ways of dealing with the negative effects have been suggested, while the positive effects have been highlighted as examples of what can possibly be learned from Aboriginal culture. The study also finds differences between the emerging consumer cultures of each community, concluding that this can be attributed to historical and cultural differences. The main conclusion is that the development of a global consumer culture is by no means inevitable.
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Jackson, Alexander Ross. "Football's consumer culture and juvenile fan culture, c1880-c1960." Thesis, Leeds Beckett University, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.565938.
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This thesis aims to explore the consumer culture of football and its relationship to boyhood and youth in England between cl 880 and cl 960. Previous studies of fandom have tended to focus on minorities such as hooligans and this work has sought to explore more 'typical' fan experiences. Its principle aim has been to explore the consumption of the game in more domestic and other settings away from the football ground or pitch and the role and significance of this culture in the lives of boys and young men. Its main objectives have been to map out the scale and origins of football's consumer culture and the environments in which these items were consumed; to examine the degree to which this culture was separate or engaged with adult fandom; to examine its role in the construction and domestication of masculinity and to explore the place of the star player within this consumer culture. The key sources for this thesis have been material culture objects and the collections of the National Football Museum. These have been supplemented by research in other museums and archives, in particular the British Newspaper Library at Colindale. The three main topics of research have been juvenile football literature, collectable items, such as cigarette cards and, finally, games, particularly those designed to be played at home. Its major findings are that football sustained and stimulated a significant consumer culture in this period. The Edwardian period emerges as a key point in the development and popularisation of football related consumer goods aimed at juvenile audiences. This consumer culture continued to develop in the inter-war period but it grew significantly in the 1950s as it benefited from growing economic prosperity. Given that juvenile fans made up a small proportion of football crowds, stories, collectables and games played an important role in juvenile consumption of the game and their socialisation into it.
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Miller, Zachary. "Consumer Conscious: Linking Practices Within Consumer Culture and Personal Identity." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1524486964211054.
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Mathias-Baker, Ian. "The musical object in consumer culture." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.327584.
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Nøjgaard, Mikkel. "Cultures of consumer information." Electronic Thesis or Diss., Université de Lille (2022-....), 2023. http://www.theses.fr/2023ULILD004.
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Cette thèse porte sur les collectifs qui produisent les informations consultées par le consommateur afin de décider quel produit acheter. Nous nommons ces collectifs, cultures de l’information du consommateur. Nous nous intéressons à ces cultures pour deux raisons. Premièrement, bien que des chercheurs en consommation avancent que les informations factuelles et la fonctionnalité d’un produit ne joue qu’un rôle limité dans la décision d’achat, la popularité des avis de consommateurs en ligne nous montre que les consommateurs recherchent des informations sur la fonctionnalité des produits avant de faire un achat. Deuxièmement, nous nous intéressons aux cultures de l’information du consommateur car connaître les modèles culturels de production de l’information peut nous aider à expliquer pourquoi différents types d’informations, tels que les avis d’experts ou de consommateurs, offrent souvent des informations différentes. La découverte des facteurs culturels qui font que les différents types d’avis divergent peut aider les consommateurs à prendre de meilleures décisions, les entreprises à mieux répondre à l’information et les décideurs à mieux gérer l’environnement actuel de l’information des consommateursThis thesis is about the collectives that produce the functionality-related information consumers consult whenever they are considering what products to buy. I call these collectives cultures of consumer information. Cultures of consumer information warrant attention for two reasons. First, as the popularity of online consumer reviews suggests, consumers crave the ‘facts’ about the functionality of products before making a purchase, even if some consumer researchers have argued that functionality and facts only play a limited role in purchasing decisions. And second, cultures of consumer information call for attention because understanding the cultural patterns in how consumer information is produced can help us explain why different types of information, such as expert reviews and online user reviews, often offer contrasting characterizations of products. Uncovering the cultural factors that make different types of reviews diverge can help consumers to make better decisions, companies to better respond to consumer information, and policymakers to better manage the current consumer information environment
Denne afhandling omhandler de sociale systemer som producerer den funktionalitets-relaterede information som forbrugere benytter sig af, når de overvejer, hvilke produkter de vil købe. Jeg kalderdisse systemer forbrugerinformationskulturer. Forbrugerinformationskulturer fortjener opmærksomhed af to årsager. For det første, som populariteten af online brugeranmeldelser antyder, higer forbrugere efter fakta der beskriver funktionaliteten af produkter, inden de køber dem, omend nogle forbrugerforskere har argumenteret for, at funktionalitet og fakta spiller en begrænset rolle i købsbeslutninger. For det andet påkalder forbrugerinformationskulturer sig opmærksomhed, fordi viden om de kulturelle mønstre der kendetegner produktionen af forbrugerinformation kan hjælpe os med at forklare,hvorfor forskellige typer information – såsom ekspert-produktanmeldelser og online brugeranmeldelser – ofte kontraster i deres måde at karakterisere produkter på. Afdækningen af de kulturellefaktorer der forårsager disse kontraster kan hjælpe forbrugere med at træffe bedre beslutninger, virksomheder med at reagere bedre på forbrugerinformation, og politiske beslutningstagere med bedre atstyre det nuværende forbrugerinformationsmiljø
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HUO, Yue. "Susceptibility to global consumer culture : scale development and purchase behaviour of Shanghai consumers." Digital Commons @ Lingnan University, 2008. https://commons.ln.edu.hk/mkt_etd/7.
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Global Consumer Culture (GCC) is a term emerged in early 1990s. It refers to generally accepted beliefs and consumer tendencies toward globally shared consumption-related symbols such as brands, product categories, and consumption activities and events. Although researchers sought insights in this area in the last decade, they mainly focused on the specific topic of Brand Positioning method under the context of GCC. Little efforts were made to examine what global consumers actually do and think when making their buying decision, and what the common characteristics global consumers share in the world. The existence and increasing influence of global consumers whose social and cultural differences are overshadowed by their similarities in terms of psychological consumer tendencies was demonstrated by previous research. In addition, there was an initial study to develop an individual customer psychology-based scale of Susceptibility to Global Consumer Culture (SGCC) in order to capture globally shared consumption sentiments. The study demonstrated that SGCC would consist of three major dimensions of SGCC, namely conformity to social norms, desire for social prestige, and quality perception.
This thesis suggests that SGCC contain three additional dimensions in the perspective of consumer traits and brand consumption, including consumer innovativeness, consumer ethnocentrism, and Internet technology readiness. It is consisted of two studies. In Study 1, a more comprehensive multiple dimensional scale to measure SGCC is developed and validated. In Study 2, the developed scale is used to predict the consumers’ purchase intentions toward global brand products. Theoretical contributions, managerial contributions, research limitations and future research recommendations are discussed as well.
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Dick, Terence. "Functional music and consumer culture (instrumental version)." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0008/MQ30210.pdf.
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Denham, Jack. "Dark authenticities : criminal memorabilia and consumer culture." Thesis, University of York, 2017. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/18521/.
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This thesis investigates crime memorabilia, or ‘true crime objects’, and proposes the concept of ‘authenticity’ as a way of understanding the perceived value and imagined criminality inside of objects, artefacts, exhibitions and consumables associated with famous violent crimes. Murderabilia has enjoyed a sustained rise in interest in both news media and popular culture, but academic research has been limited. It addresses a central contradiction in the paucity of literature that has touched upon murderabilia – to what extent is murderabilia an extension of existing violent transgressive narratives in popular culture; or a will to transgress these mainstream discourses themselves; or a combination thereof? To that end, this thesis seeks to understand where the consumption of criminal transgression sits as part of the broader system of objects, and the broader popular cultural genre of true crime as well. Through a digital and traditional ethnography conducted over ten months (September 2014 – July 2015), covering museum exhibitions of murderabilia, personal murderabilia collections, and manufactured murder merchandise, murderabilia is revealed as a complicated negotiation of some of the contradicting demands of art, culture, antique – and consumerism. It is argued that the consumption of murder objects is reflective of a broader societal will to transgress banality and sameness in 21st century Western consumer capitalist marketplaces, and not as an embracement or glorification of criminal transgression itself. Consumers are positioned in pursuit of experiences of perceived authenticity, despite embracing dominant popular cultural narratives of crime in the process.
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Korwin-Pawlowski, Wendy. "Material Literacy: Alphabets, Bodies, and Consumer Culture." W&M ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1499450053.
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This dissertation posits that a new form of material literacy emerged in the United States between 1890 and 1925, in tandem with the modern advertising profession. A nation recalibrating the way it valued economic and cultural mass consumption demanded, among other things, new signage – new ways to announce, and through those announcements, to produce its commitment to consumer society. What I call material literacy emerged as a set of interpretive skills wielded by both the creators and audiences of advertising material, whose paths crossed via representations of goods. These historically situated ways of reading and writing not only invited Americans to interpret a world full of representations of products, but also to understand – to read – themselves within that context. Commercial texts became sites for posing questions about reading behavior more generally, and they connected members of various professions who stood to benefit from that knowledge. In this dissertation, I explore how reading and consumption converged for advertising experts, printers, typographers, and experimental psychologists. Despite their different occupational vantage points, their work intersected around efforts to understand how modern Americans decoded printed texts, and how this behavior might be known and guided. To establish their professional reputations, the authors I study positioned themselves as being uniquely capable of observing and interpreting the behavior of readers. The body served as a key site, and metaphor, for their inquiries – a means of making both literacy and legibility material.
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Enev, Vladislav, and Shkumbin Ibrahimi. "Global Consumer Culture : A qualitative study on how consumers construct global selves through consumption." Thesis, Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, Företagsekonomi, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-24262.
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Background: Globalisation is changing the world and our daily lives are governed by products and images originating from other countries and other cultures. Globalisation influences consumer culture and different authors have argued for the emergence of global consumer culture. However, previous literature de-emphasizes what consumer beliefs about the global consumer culture are and how people who believe that they are global try to construct themselves as global in terms of consumption. What are their motives of being global and what kind of needs and wants do they cover by being global consumers? Purpose: To explore and illustrate how consumers try to construct their global selves through consumption. Method: An abductive, qualitative research approach with a combination of exploratory and descriptive research design was chosen. Primary data collection through semi-structured in-depth interviews was conducted among 15 respondents who tried to construct their global selves through consumption. These consumers were selected through a non-probability sampling and interviews took place in Jönköping, Sweden. Conclusion: Consumers try to construct their global selves in a variety of ways, the most common ones are through travelling and engaging in cultural experiences, consuming products from specific countries for certain reasons, and by observing the market as one whole global market, thus not limiting themselves into the boundaries of specific countries, regions or continents. This consumption is then grounded on myths and beliefs that they have accumulated about global consumer culture while gaining experience in different parts of the world. These myths and beliefs are however based on their perceptions towards global consumer culture, not objective reality per se.
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Plüg, Simóne Nikki. "#KeepItReal: discursive constructions of authenticity in South African consumer culture." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64973.
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Writers as diverse as Oscar Wilde (1915), Matthew Arnold (1960), Erich Fromm (1997) and a proliferation of contemporary self-help gurus, variously assert that it is preferable for people to focus on “being”, or to value “who you are”, instead of emphasising “having” or the material possessions you have acquired. These discourses assert that individuals content with “being” are happier and more fulfilled than those involved in the constant (and alienating) motion of acquiring material goods as representations of themselves (de Botton, 2004; Fromm, 1997; James, 2007). This thesis provides an in-depth critical exploration of one of these ideal “ways of being”: authenticity. It does not seek to discover what authenticity is in an empirical sense, nor to define what it should be in a normative sense, but to map the cultural work done by changing and often contradictory discourses of personal authenticity. More specifically, this study uses a qualitative research design, social constructionist theoretical framework, and discourse analytic method to critically discuss the discursive constructions of subject authenticity in South African brand culture. The sample consisted of (1.) ten marketing campaigns of several large, mainstream brands, which were popular in South Africa from 2015 to 2017, and (2.) fifteen smaller South African “craft” brands popular in the “artisanal” context. The analysis is presented in two distinct, but interrelated, sections (namely, Selling Stories and Crafting Authenticity), where the relevant discourses of authenticity for each data set are explored in depth. Through this analysis the thesis provides a critical discussion of the ways in which these discourses of authenticity work to produce and maintain, (or challenge and subvert), subject positions, ideologies, and power relations that structure contemporary South African society.
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Kennedy, Greg. "The destiny of freedom in technological-consumer culture." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ60059.pdf.
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Peri, Luis Andrés. "Consumption patterns in Uruguay between culture and the economy /." Digital version:, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/fullcit?p9992887.
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Kamaruddin, Abdul Razak. "Culture and consumer behaviour : the influence of culture on family planning behaviour in Malaysia." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 1993. http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21270.
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The use of a cultural perspective to interpret consumer behaviour has generated some applications in a variety of consumption activities. A cultural perspective implies widely held and shared beliefs that have been internalized by individuals, as well as a guide to behaviour within a society. Yet, in spite of its recognition, little is known about the influence of cultural perspective on consumer behaviour in developing countries generally, and Malaysia in particular. This study thus investigated the influence of culture on one selected domain of behaviour namely; knowledge, attitude and usage of Malay consumers pertaining to family planning. This study had three objectives: i) To develop a comprehensive measure which can be used to assess the level of cultural value orientation of Malay consumers To measure the relationship between the level of cultural value orientation of Malay consumers and their family planning behaviour, measured in terms of their knowledge, attitude, and usag e To recommend appropriate marketing strategies for family planning programmes in Malaysia in the perspective of these cultural influences Fieldwork for this research was carried out in Malaysia between August and November 1992. Three hundred and fifty-nine respondents were interviewed, comprising of user and nonuser of family planning. The data was solicited through personal interviews with structured questionnaire. Using factor analysis, several distinctive Malay cultural value orientations have been discovered. With respect to religiosity measure these are: fatalistic attitude, more emphasis on spiritual success, inequality in gender role, and strong commitment to religious precepts. Ethnicity measures include: collectivistic attitude, little emphasis on materialistic gains, strong respect to elders, and strong nationalistic views. Finally, family orientation values of the Malays can be summarised as: sacredness of obligation towards parents, fostering obedience through harmonious communication, and highly regards on family institution. The data were then analyzed in searching for relationship between cultural orientation and family planning behaviour. There were significant relationships between religiosity and knowledge, attitude and usage of family planning. Ethnicity was only significantly related to usage, while family orientation explains the variation in attitude and usage of family planning among the respondents. Finally, there is evidence to conclude that family communication level explains some variation in knowledge of family planning. The results describe the many ways in which culture can influence family planning behaviour in Malaysia. One can therefore suggest that further research may discover similar influences on other consumption behaviours in Malaysia and other developing countries with a similar cultural situation.
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Votava, Kate. "EVOLVE house flexible dwelling for the postmodern consumer culture /." Cincinnati, Ohio : University of Cincinnati, 2006. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=ucin1148305353.
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Thesis (Master of Architecture)--University of Cincinnati, 2006.Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed July 10, 2006). Includes abstract. Keywords: flexible architecture; flexible housing; prefab; prefabricated housing; systems building; adaptable housing; adaptable architecture; flexible; housing. Includes bibliographical references.
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Potavanich, Tisiruk. "The concept of luxury from a consumer culture perspective." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2016. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-concept-of-luxury-from-a-consumer-culture-perspective(c7794574-3ca0-400e-9c87-b6d635f19612).html.
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Academic perspectives on the meanings of luxury often link luxury to status or conspicuous consumption, assuming that luxury derives its meaning primarily from a traditional viewpoint, in which it is narrowly associated with generic economic and social displays of superiority, as attained through the rhetoric of wealth (Vickers and Renand, 2003; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004). However, this traditional view of luxury fails to appreciate the cultural and emotional complexity of luxury consumption: this rather limited interpretation therefore risks rendering consumers as passive and primarily homogeneous entities. This thesis argues that the term ‘luxury’ has little meaning unless it is integrated within the current ‘practices’ of consumer culture. Thus, the study conceptualises luxury from a consumer perspective, wherein meanings are understood as resulting from luxury consumption practices adopted by diverse sets of consumers across cultures. Sixteen UK and Sixteen Thai undergraduate and postgraduate students were selected to participate in two stages of data collection, involving collage construction, in-depth interviews and further fieldwork. The findings extends the existing research on luxury by developing four practices of luxury consumption: caretaker, escapist, self-transformation, and status-based. Accordingly, the study proposes an alternation view of luxury as ‘everyday luxury’, a view in which consumers can transfer and incorporate self-defined luxuries into everyday contexts. The notion of everyday luxury fundamentally allows us to move beyond a purely materialistic understanding of luxury in order to reach a metaphysical account of luxury as a subjective, moral, ephemeral and immaterial concept present in our everyday living. Moreover, this idea considerably fulfils our understanding of contemporary luxury so that traditional luxury (Veblen, 1902) and everyday luxury can co-exist within the concept of luxury. Overall, the subjective truth of the meaning of luxury in a cross-cultural context is regarded as combining the construct and outcome of a reciprocal interaction between both traditional and everyday luxury, the understanding of the self and morality within different cultures and societies, and different reflections on individuals’ lived experiences.
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Hayward, Matthew Chistopher. "Advertising and Dublin's consumer culture in James Joyce's Ulysses." Thesis, Durham University, 2012. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5914/.
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This thesis reconsiders James Joyce’s representation of advertising and Dublin’s consumer culture in Ulysses. Against earlier, generalising accounts, it applies a carefully historicising methodology to demonstrate the cultural specificity of Joyce’s engagement. It does so in three ways. To begin with, it establishes that Irish consumerism did not simply follow British advances, but developed in a distinct and inflected fashion. Chapters 2 and 3 show that while Joyce incorporates all of the material characteristics of Dublin’s relatively advanced consumer culture, he downplays its advertising industry, making it appear less developed in 1904 than was historically the case. Secondly, it analyses the distortions introduced by Joyce’s own historical remove from the consumer culture he depicts. Chapter 4 identifies for the first time the sources of Joyce’s “Advertising” notes from his so-called “Notes on Business and Commerce,” and establishes that his representation of Bloom’s advertising consciousness reflects advances in advertising theory that only got seriously underway in the decade between 1904, when the novel is set, and 1914, when Joyce began to write it. Finally, having analysed the material and compositional background to Joyce’s portrayal of early-twentieth-century consumerism, this thesis analyses Joyce’s engagement with two of its dominant ideologies. Chapter 5 concentrates on the ‘Lestrygonians’ and ‘Ithaca’ episodes to argue that Joyce lays bare the overdetermined nature of colonial consumption, depicting the naturalisation of British commodities on the Irish market, and contesting the spurious claim to disinterestedness presented by imperial consumerist discourses. Chapter 6 develops intertextual readings of the ‘Nausicaa’ chapter to show that Joyce’s narrative is even more fully comprised of the language of female-oriented advertising than has been recognised. It argues that the chapter responds to a particular ideological complex, in which consumerist imperatives struggled with more conservative patriarchal interests. Overall, this thesis brings together historical, genetic and intertextual critical approaches to uncover the stylistic and chronological manipulations involved in Joyce’s fictionalisation of early-twentieth-century Irish consumerism. It argues that Ulysses stands as both a reflection of this crucial period of socio-economic change, and a politicised response to its dominant ideological coercions.
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Chernyshova, Natalya. "Shopping with Brezhnev : Soviet Urban consumer culture, 1964-1985." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.518541.
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The Brezhnev years in the Soviet Union have often been dismissed as an `era of stagnation'. Below the quiet surface of stability, however, a new revolution was threatening Soviet socialism itself: a consumer revolution. This remarkable transformation is the subject of my thesis. The era of consumption was initially signalled by government policies. Consumption and living standards became key policy elements under Khrushchev, most evident in his mass housing campaign. After Khrushchev's dismissal, the emphasis on consumption continued. Indeed, the Soviet elite set a personal example. Leonid Brezhnev's collection of expensive Western cars - the ultimate consumer luxury - included gifts from President Nixon. (Brezhnev specifically requested a sporty Chevrolet Monte Carlo when it was named `the car of the year' by the Motor Trend magazine in 1974.) But the consumer revolution was driven by ordinary people, whose opportunities to consume improved significantly in terms of income and the relative availability of goods. Attitudes to consumption relaxed, encouraged by policies from `above', and demand grew. When consumers' growing expectations clashed with continuing shortages, commodities acquired even greater importance for a supposedly anti-commercial state. My thesis examines this contradiction in both ideology and society with particular emphasis upon consumption practices and attitudes. Arguing that Soviet citizens were turning from good communists into good consumers, it rejects the primacy of high politics. Instead consumption became the most meaningful `politics' on the eve of perestroika, a crucial factor in socialism's disintegration. While the regime's relative tolerance of consumerism initially seemed to buttress the system, it also unleashed consumers' expectations. When economic growth slowed dramatically from the mid-1970s, this increasingly undermined the `deal' and turned consumer discontent into an imminent threat to the government's legitimacy. Gorbachev's opening of the political floodgates facilitated its transformation into a disruptive force that helped topple the regime.
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VOTAVA, KATE. "EVOLVE HOUSE: FLEXIBLE DWELLING FOR THE POSTMODERN CONSUMER CULTURE." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1148305353.
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Kadel, Lena. "Mindfulness for sustainable consumption behaviour - inisghts into consumer culture." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-445547.
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A large body of research implies that modern human behaviour threatens various life – sustaining resources. The excessive consumption patterns of resources by humans has been identified as one of the main causes of the environmental crisis. Automatic and unconscious decision-making behaviours have become deeply internalized among individuals, resulting in unsustainable and unnecessary consumption patterns. Emerging literature has begun to explore the concept of mindfulness in relation to sustainable consumption, and reports on a positive relation to lower ecological footprints, connectedness to nature and sustainable consumption patterns. This particular study builds upon existing empirical findings and addresses the relationship between mindfulness, impulsivity and consumption. An extensive literature review and primary data collection method based on a convenience sample, were used as methodological approaches for this study. Based on the data gathered through an online questionnaire, the study finds that mindfulness has a negative relation to impulsive buying behaviour, suggesting a decrease in impulsive consumption among individuals with a higher level of mindfulness. Contrary to existing research, this study found no significant relation between mindfulness and pro-environmental behaviour. However, there are several limitations to this study due to method bias, measurement issues as well as due to the format of the questionnaire approach, that need to be considered when discussing the findings. Overall, this research indicated that by tapping into mindfulness, individuals may become less vulnerable to automatic processing, helping to break routines and make consumers become more aware of negative effects of consumption choices. This paper recommends continued research and suggests possible future pathways.
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Hampson, Keith C. (Keith Christopher) Carleton University Dissertation Canadian Studies. "Consumer culture and social relations: white middle class nostalgia." Ottawa, 1994.
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Rossi, Rossana Cassanta. "Patrolando juventudes: o caderno Patrola ensinando jovens a consumir." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/11093.
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Esta Dissertação tem como objetivo desconstruir discursos acerca dos modos de ser jovem na contemporaneidade articulados ao consumo como prática social. Compreendo que é através das estratégias engendradas no âmbito da cultura do consumo que objetos, imagens, desejos, identidades, valores, modos de ser podem ser transformados em mercadorias: podem ser ‘adquiridos’, consumidos e por fim descartados. Tornam-se ‘objetos’ a serem usados e exibidos. Entre tantos artefatos que circulam e são produzidos nessa cultura de consumo, está o Caderno Patrola, encartado no jornal Zero Hora – jornal de maior circulação no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Assim, realizo uma leitura (entre tantas possíveis) a respeito de mídia, cultura de consumo e juventudes. De certa forma, é uma leitura que os Estudos Culturais, campo teórico no qual me movimento, possibilitam-me produzir. Para que esta Dissertação pudesse ser construída tal como está, o corpus de pesquisa se constituiu de diferentes materiais, a saber: seleção de edições do Caderno Patrola, pesquisas em diversos sites, incursões em comunidades virtuais do orkut e em blogs,, conversas com jovens leitores do Caderno através do Messenger e e-mails com a editora do Caderno. Nas análises, trago algumas reflexões a respeito dos modos de endereçamento do Caderno Patrola, discutindo algumas das estratégias do Caderno para interpelar os sujeitos jovens para suas páginas, bem como para convidá-los a consumir produtos que ‘anuncia’. Ainda, analiso o modo como os discursos do Caderno Patrola não apenas sugerem objetos de consumo que podem constituir certos modos de ser jovem, como também podem ensinar o que consumir para ‘possuir’ tais modos, para, assim, adotarse as ditas posições desejáveis de ser jovem. A partir das problematizações realizadas no decorrer do estudo acerca do Caderno Patrola, é possível compreender como se investe no promissor mercado jovem, não só fabricando produtos para eles como também transformando os produtos fabricados pelos jovens em algo rentável. Além disso, é possível constatar como as próprias culturas juvenis se tornam um produto, uma vez que muitos desejam ser, estar, permanecer jovem e, por isso, passam a consumir produtos ditos pertencentes a elas. Assim, através do potencial pedagógico do Caderno, procuro entender algumas das configurações da cultura de consumo, como somos produzidos nessa condição cultural e de que modo o Caderno, como um artefato dessa cultura, apresenta-se articulado a ela.This Dissertation aims to deconstruct discourses concerning the ways of being young in the contemporary articulated to consumption as social practice. I understand that it is through the produced strategies in the scope of the consumer culture where objects, images, desires, identities, values, ways of being can be transformed into products: they can be ‘acquired', consumed and finally discarded. They become objects to used and to shown. As an artifact between much others that circulate and are produced in this consumer culture is the section Patrola – a newspaper supplement that circulates on Fridays in Zero Hora, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Thus, I realize a reading (one of those that is possible to) about media, consumer culture and youths. In some way, it is a reading that the Cultural Studies, theoretic field in which I movement myself, make possible to produce. In order to this dissertation be constructed as it is, the corpus is constituted of different materials: select edition of the Patrola section, research in many sites, incursions in virtual communities of orkut and in blogs, talks with young readers of the Patrola through Messenger and e-mails with the editor of the section. In the analyses, I reflect about modes of address of Patrola section, discussing some strategies of the section that interpellate young for its pages, as well as inviting them to consume the ‘announced' products. I also analyze how the discourses of Patrola not only suggest consumption of products that can constitute ways of being young, but how they can teach what consume to own theses ways, in order to adopt desirable positions of being young. From the problematization of this study concerning to Patrola, its possible to understand how one invests in the promising young market, not only producing manufactures for them as well as transforming the manufactured products by the young into income-producing. Still, I could examine how the youth cultures become a product, once that many people desire to be young through the consumption of products that one says to belong to them. Therefore, thought the section’s pedagogy potential, I looked for understand some of the configurations of the consumer culture, how we are produced in this cultural condition and the way that Patrola, as an artifact of this culture, is articulated to it.
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Lambert, Aliette Victoria. "Cultural intelligibility of anxiety : young women, consumer culture, and the 'project' of the self." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/25667.
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This thesis critically explores the role of consumer culture in young women’s understanding of self. Drawing on media and cultural studies literature as well as post-structuralist and critical perspectives, this study asks: how does consumer culture guide or influence a young woman’s way-of-being in everyday life? Despite arguments that consumer culture, underpinned by neoliberal principles of personal responsibility and individualism, has become the institution of reference for young women, consumer research on the experiences of women, and from feminist perspectives, is generally sparse. Moreover, claims that consumer culture may covertly subjugate young women by encouraging practices of self regulation are in contention with consumer research that emphasises consumption as a means of self-expression and agency. Therefore, a qualitative, feminist study was conducted in which, over 18 months, fifteen women, aged 20 to 34, engaged in multiple in-depth interviews. The data generation process typically consisted of four interviews over a nine-month period: the first interview covering life history and background was followed by an in-home ‘show-and-tell’ interview about the participant’s ‘stuff’. The third interview addressed participants’ engagement with digital technologies also through a ‘show-and-tell’ approach and the final interview was semi-structured, addressing themes emerging from previous interviews. This generated 50 interviews lasting two hours on average, as well as data from observation, photographs and engagement with social network sites. From a critical thematic analysis, four significant findings emerged. Firstly, in relation to being a woman, participants felt pressure to ‘have it all’ in terms of both traditional (e.g., getting married, raising children, being attractive) and progressive (e.g., achieving career success) ideals. Whilst some disagreed that women continue to be subjugated, most participants experienced a sense of mounting pressure and expectations compared to men and subscribed to neoliberal principles of personal responsibility in combatting gender inequality. Secondly, participants reflexively experienced being a consumer as an unavoidable, often burdensome and anxiety-provoking position that encouraged the making of the self through appearance, as well as adherence to hegemonic feminine ideals. A consumer orientation was further reinforced by increasingly pervasive digital spaces, particularly social media, infused with advertising and consumption. From this, a third finding emerged related to the understanding of self: participants often experienced or expressed a sense of self as a task, an individualistic project for which they felt responsible. Constantly comparing themselves to others to benchmark the project of the self, participants worked to continually craft a story of success and agency despite unpredictability of the life course and contradictory events sometimes conspiring. Moreover, participants who did not feel they had achieved career goals placed greater emphasis on crafting an ideal appearance. The fourth finding addresses the importance of others in understanding the self. Rather than experiencing an ‘identity’ as formed individually, participants looked to others (e.g., family, peers, media, ideologies) to understand the self. Focusing on the opinions of others was associated with anxiety, which varied in degree but was part of all participant accounts. This study suggests that consumer culture is indeed an institution of reference for young women as they experience a sense of self through consumption practices, increasingly digitally mediated. In this sense, the findings align with theorisations in consumer research. However, for the participants of this study, the experience of living the subject position ‘consumer’ is anxiety provoking, particularly in light of postfeminist, neoliberal discourses that encourage experiencing the self as a ‘project’ for which the individual is responsible. As reflected in the data, a self-as-project orientation triggered anxiety given disjointedness between the desire to manage or control the self fostered by dominant discourses, and the impossibility of doing so as reflected by lived experience. This positioning engendered alienation from the self and therefore anxiety that was further sparked by increasing individualism and competition with others; feelings of shame and envy; and a forward-looking temporal positioning. Therefore, findings suggest that consumer research’s conceptualisations of ‘identity’ as a ‘project’ in which individuals can express themselves through marketplace resources is problematic, if not further perpetuating the subjugation of women by rendering them as ‘free’ to consume their way into being. This calls into question individual agency and the role of cultural influences in the making of subjects. Therefore, findings suggest that, from an emancipatory perspective, consumer research examining processes of subject constitution might be more productive to understandings ‘identity’ and the ‘self’ in a particular space and time, with attention to implicit power relations.
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Kisil, Gerry. "Technologies of abundance, consumer culture, government and the media arts." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0004/MQ39936.pdf.
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Hilton, Matthew. "Constructing tobacco : perspectives on consumer culture in Britain, 1850-1950." Thesis, Lancaster University, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.337584.
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Littler, Jo. "Capital displays : exhibitions and consumer culture in twentieth-century England." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.368277.
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Poole, Michelle Leigh Gallagher Kathleen Cranley. "Relationship between children's involvement in consumer culture and depressive symptomatology." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,2129.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008.Title from electronic title page (viewed Feb. 17, 2009). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the School of Education Educational Psychology, Measurement, and Evaluation." Discipline: Education; Department/School: Education.
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Helm, Kimberly Anne. "Is everything disposable? Bret Easton Ellis, abortion, and consumer culture." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2004. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0004643.
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Imrie, Brian C., and n/a. "Culture�s influence upon service quality evaluation : a Taiwan perspective." University of Otago. Department of Marketing, 2009. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20090506.154534.
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In order to successfully implement service internationalisation, a detailed knowledge of the target foreign culture is required (e.g., beliefs, values, lifestyles, symbols, psycholinguistics, and attitudes). This information may be used to manage the alignment of service offerings with local tastes, and create perceptual stimuli to foster trust and encourage consumption (Fugate 1996). Credible tools are therefore required to provide the market intelligence required to understand the cultural context and inform adaptation to local preferences. Service quality modelling and measurement perform such a role in reporting customer perceptions of the effectiveness of service marketing effort. However consideration of culture�s influence upon service quality evaluation has hitherto received only periphery attention within the literature. While numerous researchers have examined the role that values play as an antecedent of the service quality construct (e.g., Donthu and Yoo 1998; Furrer et al. 2000; Mattila 1999; Winsted 1997) there are no published studies adopting a more comprehensive view of culture�s role.
The widespread adoption of values as a proxy for understanding culture�s influence upon the service quality construct appears flawed as there is no theoretical justification to isolate values from the rest of the cultural field (Bourdieu 1990; Radcliffe-Brown 1949). Values alone, such as Hofstede (1984a) and Schwartz and Bilsky�s (1987) schemas, cannot fully explain how individual consumers reconcile their individual preferences with broader cultural influences (e.g., institutions, beliefs, regulations, and artefacts). In this study Bourdieu�s (1986) structuralist perspective of culture is utilised as a framework to explore how culture influences service quality. In this perspective the social world is viewed as being comprised of rules and systems that guide/inform an individual�s behaviour. Values are only one element of this social system.
In this study a case approach is adopted to map the role of culture in constructing service quality preferences. While the breadth of the research agenda means there is a large population of possible cases, Taiwan is selected as the case boundary principally due its logistical accessibility. Case selection in this study can therefore be classified as a convenience sample. However, to facilitate intensive study (Stake 2005) complexity is added to the case design through purposeful sampling (Patton 1990). In addition to seeking the perspectives of local Taiwanese outside perspectives are sought from expatriate New Zealanders and Taiwanese who have lived in New Zealand. Through purposive triangulation (Patton 1990) of both the sample underpinning the case and an interpretive multi-discipline analysis the researcher constructs a model of culture�s influence upon service quality evaluation within this case boundary. No evidence is found within either the primary data or critical literature review that Taiwanese culture has any impact upon the evaluation of service quality at the primary dimensional level (i.e., �Process/Outcome Quality�, and the �Personal Interaction Quality�). Indeed apriori modelling of the construct has similarly modelled how consumers separately evaluate interpersonal aspects from other key evaluative criteria (e.g., Dabholkar et al. 1996; Gronroos 1984). This level of the dimensional hierarchy is therefore tentatively determined to be etic (Pike 1967), subject to further cross-cultural studies. A moderate level of cultural influence was however noted amongst the second-order dimensions. Finally, the third and subsequent level indicators were widely found to display extensive cultural influence and require significant adaptation efforts for local cultural preferences.
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Nixon, Elizabeth. "Indifference in a culture of consumption." Thesis, University of Bath, 2013. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.589656.
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In attending to consumption as a defining feature of life in Western societies, existing consumer research has tended to envisage, construct and reproduce ‘the consumer’ as either enthusiastically embracing the delights of the market, or as actively resisting or rebelling against its evils. The extant research has therefore tended to assume a high degree of reflexive conscious engagement in consumption as the norm. In this research, I argue that this might have inadvertently obscured the possibility of non-participation in various aspects of consumption through disinterest. This appears within the field as a theoretical space where people relate to consumption opportunities with rather less reflection or emotion and allows for the choice not to buy to be part of an accepted and unreflected-upon aspect of existence; a diverse shadow-realm of consumer inactivity in which feelings of indifference may be significant. Though a general lack of interest in various aspects of consumption may constitute an ontologically common experience, indifference has remained a largely unnoticed and under-theorised element of social reality in a consumer culture. In this study, I explore the possibilities of indifference in a consumer culture, not as a psychological construct or symptom of pathology but as a lived experience, understood in different ways and constituted through different discursive contexts. In this research, I draw on 29 phenomenological interviews to offer an empiricallygrounded interpretation of what it means to be indifferent to consumption. From the stories the informants shared with me, I articulate how the experience of indifference can appear as a genuine blindness towards a spectacular world of consumption, underpinned by other sociocultural narratives that construct the marketplace as a remote, unfamiliar or unappealing domain. In other stories, experiences of indifference appeared to be maintained by a constant and taken-for-granted adherence to a classification system that denotes consumerism as a powerful source of physical and spiritual pollution. Whilst in other narratives, a general lack of interest in various aspects of consumption revealed a paradoxical desire for a personal identity forged from a dismissal of consumption; a culturally-shaped performance of pseudoindifference that involved refusing ‘consumer activity’ in order to construct a defiantly nonconsumer self. In addressing the cultural narratives and contexts that seem to account for nonconsumption through indifference, this study contributes to wider debates on processes of disengagement and less material living, and invites consumer researchers to develop a greater sensitivity to indifference within sociological accounts of consumption.
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Maloney, Michelle Ann. "The Role of Regulation in Reducing Consumption by Individuals and Households in Industrialised Nations." Thesis, Griffith University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/368147.
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In this thesis I argue that state-centred regulation can and should play a role in guiding industrial societies to reduce consumption of natural resources and live within the ecological limits of the Earth. To support my argument, I provide empirically based evidence demonstrating how this can be done for individuals and households. I use a case study approach to analyse three regulatory regimes and I provide a cross-case study analysis to inform efforts to regulate for reduced consumption. The case studies are the regulatory regime introduced in South East Queensland to reduce consumption of water in the residential sector during the Millennium Drought, Queensland’s regulatory regime for managing recreational fishing and the South Australian ban on lightweight, single use plastic bags. These regulatory regimes have overcome key barriers to setting limits in a pro-growth culture, and offer practical and very important lessons to a society that, if it chooses to address the current global environmental crisis and live within our ecological limits, will in the future have to adopt a wide range of policies, economic systems and regulatory regimes that accept, set and manage greater limits on human activities. In this thesis I argue further that despite the success of these ‘stand-alone’ regulatory regimes, current environmental regulation and normative theories of regulation are anthropocentric and exist within a pro-growth world view. If we are to address the current ecological crisis we need to shift human societies from this paradigm, to one that respects and nurtures the health of the natural world. This thesis combines the empirical evidence and ‘lessons learnt’ from the case studies with an Earth jurisprudence analysis of consumption, to suggest a new normative framework for regulating consumption, respecting the Earth community and living within our ecological limits.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Law School
Arts, Education and Law
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Clark, Lauren. "Modest proposals: Irish children, consumer culture, advertising and literature, 1860-1921." Thesis, University of Sunderland, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.592883.
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This thesis examines the role that Irish children fulfilled in an emergent Irish advertising and consumer culture which sought to inculcate them as consumers from 1860 to 1921 . Currently, little research exists in the field of Irish advertising and no scholarly material exists to account for its links to consumer culture and literature in the period following the Famine towards the declaration of Irish independence. A number of approaches have been adopted in this research including research from the area of social history. textual analysis of critically neglected Victorian Irish literature involving children and reading advertisements, archival material and other ephemera in terms of the discourses that they purport to offer. The relation that children had to the consumer culture of Victorian Ire land will be discussed by an examination of mid- to late nineteenth-century Irish fiction, French fiction , anthropological writings, children's school books, magazines and periodicals which featured advertisements. A variety of literature will be scrutinised from the 1860 to 1890 period in particular to provide contesting representations of the child amidst theoretical repositioning and social movements towards child welfare in Ireland. Ultimately my research will demonstrate three factors. Firstly, that Ire land's advertising and consumer culture developed autonomously, in tune with nationalism and Irish national economic development during this period. This constitutes a form of "Celtic Consumerism" also evident in Scotland following the ,-Gaelic Revival and thus, enabled the child to be positioned as the newest participant in a national consumer process. Secondly, thanks to high child literacy rates which outstripped those of mainland Britain, Ireland's children were appealed to as literate consumers in advertising copy and were informed of the perils or benefits of consumer culture in late Victorian Irish literature. Thirdly, I will contend that the role of the child in the marketplace was also a conceit of French fin de siecle fiction and advertising copy that had a considerable impact on childhood in Ireland during this period.
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Welch, Christopher J. "Countering Consumer Culture: Educating for Prophetic Imagination Through Communities of Practice." Thesis, Boston College, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:107627.
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Thesis advisor: Jane E. ReganFew would dispute the notion that consumerism is a prevailing feature of American culture. The extent to which consumer culture dominates the way most people see the world makes imagining alternatives to consumerism almost impossible. This stultification of imagination is highly problematic. As it stands, consumer culture, measured by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, demonstrably tends to inhibit human flourishing on personal, social, and global levels. There is a need to transform consumer culture in order to support human flourishing more robustly, and this barrenness of imagination impedes that transformation. This dissertation assumes that it is a task of teachers in faith to educate toward cultural alternatives that better support human flourishing. This task requires engaging in and developing what Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann calls "prophetic imagination." The prophetic imagination involves both deconstructing the taken-for-granted dominant culture and entering into a community whose practices, values, and ideals effect an alternative culture. While here focused on consumer culture, this model of educating for prophetic imagination has broader applicability; it can also be used, for example, to challenge cultures of racism, sexism, and militarism. This education in imagination develops in what scholars of management Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger call "communities of practice." Jesus and his disciples model for Christians a community of practice that imagines and acts prophetically. Communities of practice that educate for prophetic imagination ought to measure their own imagination against Jesus's prophetic imagination, shaped by his understanding of the Reign of God. This portrait of communities of prophetic practice is fleshed out in an exploration of empirical studies of communities that engage learners and draw them into an imagination that re-shapes not only how they see what the world is but also how they envision what the world can be. Communities of practice that educate for prophetic imagination can foster the transformation of consumer culture into a culture that better supports human flourishing. In order to do so, however, they must start with an anthropology that adequately understands what flourishing entails. These communities ought to be attentive to three aspects of the human person that tend to be given short shrift in consumer culture: the person's role as a creative producer, the person's inherent relationality, and the person's need embrace finitude, the limitations of human capability. The Church should be utilizing communities of practice to overcome the sterility of imagination and contribute to a culture of what might be called humanizing plenitude. This culture supports the fullness of human thriving by re-imagining what that thriving entails and engaging in practices to facilitate it. The Church as teacher can be involved in this education for the purpose of cultural transformation to enhance human flourishing in various arenas. Finally, this dissertation particularly proposes that this education can happen in higher education, in parishes, and in collaboration with the wider community
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry
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Lee, Caitlyn. "Feminism, Consumer Culture, and Cannabis : A Textual Analysis of Broccoli Magazine." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-38584.
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Modern media patterns show feminist narratives being used to market different consumer products in the name of female empowerment and emancipation. Typically, the industries targeted have historically been dominated by male perspectives and aim to perpetuate a capitalist consumer culture. The newly legalized cannabis industry in North America, has seen an increase in female participation both in production and consumption. This thesis takes Broccoli, an all-female produced magazine about cannabis, as a case to textually analyze how feminist narratives are used to appeal to their majority female and non-binary audience to a cannabis consumer lifestyle. In the analysis I have found that the magazine is critical to postfeminist notions of consumer culture, while simultaneously working within them in order to act as pioneers, holding a female-oriented space within the industry.
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Dalmoro, Marlon. "Campereando mercados : práticas de resistência e cidadania mediadas pelo mercado na cultura gaúcha." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/70382.
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Com um olhar voltado para a cultura gaúcha e sob uma perspectiva teórica de mercado, fluxos globais e formas de resistência, esta tese teve o objetivo de compreender e analisar as práticas de resistência que os agentes locais desenvolvem no âmbito do mercado, para a preservação da tradição e da cultura local. Para isto, sua organização seguiu diferentes percursos, iniciando por um percurso teórico, que envolveu uma construção teórica acerca da cultura do mercado e das formas de resistência. No percurso empírico, adotou-se uma perspectiva interpretativista, por meio de um estudo de cunho etnográfico na cultura gaúcha. A coleta de dados ocorreu no período de 2009 a 2012, por meio de entrevistas, observação participante, coleta de artefatos e survey. A análise dos resultados foi apresentada em oito partes, organizadas a partir das categorias de análises geradas na interpretação dos dados. Além de descrever densamente a cultura gaúcha, os resultados foram interpretados tanto pelo lado da resistência – reconhecendo a existência de uma resistência de mercado –, quanto por uma perspectiva de cidadania – reconhecida como um conjunto de práticas que geram um sentimento de pertencimento à cultura gaúcha. Os resultados alcançados buscam contribuir principalmente na teorização acerca do modo como o mercado media a articulação de diferentes agentes locais (produtores, consumidores e organizadores) em práticas de resistência e cidadania.With an attention on gaucho culture and under a theoretical perspective of market, global flows and resistance forms, this thesis has the objective to understand and to analyses local agents’ resistance practices developed in the market to preservation of the tradition and local culture. For this, its organization follows different courses, beginning with a theoretical course that involves a theoretical construction around market culture and resistance forms. In the empirical course, it was adopt an interpretative perspective, using an ethnographic inspiration to analyze the gaucho culture. Data collection was conducted between 2009 and 2012 through interviews, participant observation, artifacts’ collection and survey. Result analyses were presented in eight parts organized from analytic categories generation during data interpretations. Results include a dense gaucho culture description and data interpretation include a resistance perspective – recognizing the existence of a market resistance –, as well as a citizenship perspective – identified as a practice set that generate a belonging felling around the gaucho culture. Results search to contribute specially in the theorization about the forms of how the market mediate the articulation of different local agents (producers, consumers, organizers) in resistance and citizenship practices.
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Fonseca, Marcelo Jacques. "Globalização e comida : uma análise microssociológica da relação global/local na alimentação." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/49167.
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Este trabalho tem o propósito de compreender uma atividade de consumo pelas lentes da globalização. Em específico, volta-se às práticas de alimentação doméstica e à maneira como esta reage a processos globalizadores. O foco pretendido decorre da crença de que é pertinente se falar a respeito de comida a partir do domínio discursivo do “global”, assumindo-se que muitas das mudanças que ocorrem nas práticas de alimentação estão de alguma forma relacionadas aos movimentos da globalização. Conforme destacam Ger e Belk (1996, p. 295), “a dialética entre globalização e localização não pode ser compreendida a menos que se conheça a forma como o local experimenta essa dialética”, ou seja, a maneira como as forças globais e locais são sentidas no dia-a-dia das pessoas. Para tanto, optou-se por uma perspectiva microssociológica a partir do estudo de oito famílias pelo período de nove meses. O método empregado seguiu a tradição interpretativa da pesquisa do consumidor (i.e. THOMPSON et al., 1989; ARNOULD, 1998) e é inspirado tanto na etnografia quanto na fenomenologia. Diversos procedimentos de coleta e produção de dados foram aplicados, envolvendo observações, entrevistas em profundidade, entrevistas autodirigidas com imagens, diários de alimentação e análise de fotografias. Apesar de haver teses mais alarmistas acerca da homogeneização dos hábitos alimentares, os resultados aqui apresentados indicam que a globalização proporciona recursos simbólicos para que diferentes significados sejam produzidos e negociados no dia a dia do jantar doméstico. Processos globalizadores penetram nesses jantares e são incorporados principalmente via processos de apropriação e creolização, sem necessariamente ameaçar práticas mais arraigadas relacionadas às famílias de origem e à cultura local.This work aims to understand consumption activities through the lens of globalization. In particular, turns to the eating practices at home and how it reacts to globalizing processes. The focus of this work stems from the belief that it is appropriate to talk about food from the discursive domain of the "global", assuming that many of the changes that occur in eating practices are somehow related to globalization movements. According to Ger and Belk (1996, p. 295), "the dialectic of globalization-localization cannot be understood unless we begin with how the local experience that dialectic", that is, the way global and local forces are felt in daily lives. To this end, I opted for a microsociological perspective through the study of eight families for a nine months period. The method used followed the interpretive consumer research tradition (eg. Thompson et al. 1989; Arnould, 1998) and is inspired both in ethnography and phenomenology. Several procedures for collecting and producing data were applied, involving observations, in-depth interviews, autodriving interviews with pictures, eating diaries and photographs analysis. Although more alarmist arguments about the homogenization of eating habits, results indicate that globalization provides resources for the production and negotiations of different symbolic meanings in everyday domestic dinners. Globalizing processes penetrate these dinners and are incorporated mainly through processes of appropriation and creolization, without necessarily threatening the most solid practices related to parent’s families and local culture.
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Bunker, Steven Blair. "Creating Mexican consumer culture in the age of Porfirio Díaz, 1876-1911." Fort Worth, Tex. : Texas Christian University, 2006. http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-04202006-160810/unrestricted/bunker.pdf.
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Imai, Shiho. "Creating the Nisei market : Japanese American consumer culture in Honolulu, 1920-1941 /." View online version; access limited to Brown University users, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/3174622.
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Al, Dossry Theeb Mohammed. "Consumer culture in Saudi Arabia : a qualitative study among heads of household." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10036/4205.
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As Saudi Arabia turns towards modernisation, it faces many tensions and conflicts during that process. Consumerism is an extremely controversial subject in Saudi society. The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes that the opportunities and constraints of consumerism have brought about in the specific socio-economic and cultural settings between local traditions, religion, familial networks and institutions, on the one hand, and the global flow of money, goods, services and information, on the other. A qualitative method was applied. Focusing on Saudi consumer behaviour, the study was explorative; open-ended qualitative interviews and observations were considered to be appropriate methods. The questions covered not only practices of consumption, such as shopping, tourism, leisure time and managing the budget, etc., but also attitudes to consumption in general as well as more general views on social change. In this study the interviews were used and relied upon as the basic method for collecting data. In addition, observation was used to support and supplement the interview data. The research subjects of this study are 29 (male) heads of households/families residing in the three cities of Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. The focus on fathers/husbands is, of course, immediately recognisable as a limitation of this research. The results of the study were that the cultural pattern of the Saudi family depends heavily on the Islamic religion, a religious reference that distinguishes it from other cultures, such as volunteer work or a desire to give to charity. The existences of other factors that contribute to the formation of consumer behaviour of the Saudi family were discovered, including the social background as well as social pressure to apply such behaviour. The results revealed women have also come to play a major role in influencing the purchasing and selection of both the quantity and quality of goods. The principal conclusion was that despite the obvious manifestations of consumer culture for Saudi families (luxury cars, modern technology, and Western fashion), Saudi society is still loyal to the Islamic religion as a fundamental doctrine. The acceptance of, and trends in, Western-consumer Saudi families do not necessarily mean that there is a Western-driven consumer base depending on the individual. Although Saudi families also enjoy acquiring Western goods and impressive fashions, these may conflict with Islamic and traditional values in general.
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Evans, Julie Marianne. "'Consuming children' : a sociological analysis of children's relationship with contemporary consumer culture." Thesis, University of Plymouth, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/368.
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The aim of this thesis is to identify and understand children's relationships with the world of consumption. Through the children's own narratives a picture emerges of the mediating properties of consumer goods in their wider social and personal friendships. Living in what could be described as a materially divided society this project explores how children make sense of those inequalities and what their experiences are in understanding their own socio-economic position compared to others and how it impacts on their relationships to consumer culture. A particular concern is that such relationships may be more complicated than they seem on the surface and that class has an especially significant impact on children's experience of consumption. The contention here is that the impact of material inequality on an individual's capacity to consume is in the context of the sociology of both consumption and childhood remains largely under-explored. Creative child-centred data collection methods were therefore used in order to prioritise children's 'voices' as a means of understanding the impact of consumption on their lives. This data was further complemented by interviews with parents and in this context parents' management of familial household budgets emerged as having a particularly important influence in determining the role of consumption as a resource in the dynamic that exists between children, their parents and friendship groups. The evidence collected here suggests that the role of consumer goods is central to children's participation in what passes for a 'non-nal' life in contemporary consumer society. Both the children and their parents are acutely aware of this and as such go to inordinate lengths to ensure their children are able to have the appropriate signifiers of inclusion in their peer group networks. Material possessions appear to provide a currency with which children trade, whilst offering them inclusion within their wider personal and social networks. This research has given 'consuming children' a forum within which they can articulate what role consumer goods occupy in their lives on a day-to-day basis and what it means to children if they are unable to participate fully in the society in which they live.
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Lee, Yu Ying. "The Hun Sha Zhao : wedding photography and consumer culture in contemporary Taiwan." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.289051.
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Tauchen, Katrina D. Hinnant Amanda. "Growing up consumer representations of adult culture in contemporary American children's magazines /." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/6664.
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Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 10, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Thesis advisor: Dr. Amanda Hinnant. Includes bibliographical references.
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Wongdatengam, Siraporn, and Panjaporn Kruapanichwong. "Impact of Culture on Mobile Phone Purchasing A Comparison between Thai and Swedish Consumers." Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för hållbar samhälls- och teknikutveckling, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-12630.
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“Mobile phones as a communication technology fits into culture rather than imposes on a culture” (Xin, 2006).Therefore, the main purpose of this research was to investigate and to understand the impact national culture has on mobile phone buyer behaviour of Thai and Swedish consumers. The research was also conducted to identify whether there was a significant cultural difference of buying behaviour for these two cultures when purchasing mobile phones. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (individualism/collectivism and power distance) was addressed in order to examine if culture influences Thai and Swedish consumers when purchasing a mobile phone. In order to examine the difference between Thai and Swedish consumers, a data analysis was conducted through the SPSS statistical program using an Independent Sample T-test and Pearson Correlations. The questionnaires were distributes to both Thai (70 sets) and Swedish (70sets) students in the University of Malardalen. The findings indicated that there is a significant difference between Thai and Swedish consumers in term of mobile phone purchasing behaviour as far as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. A major contribution to this study is that it will provide an insight into the differences in culture between Swedish and Thai consumers, the Eastern and Western cultural divide and how culture influences mobile phone purchasing behaviour. The findings will also assist managers in mobile phone organizations to manage the dynamics of culture through time as well as to enhance their communications and promotional strategies within an overall marketing strategy. Incorporating culture into their overall marketing and communications strategies will enable organizations to meet customer needs and expectations, sustain and increase growth along with market share and to maximize profitability.
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Tamari, Tomoko. "Women and consumption : the rise of the department store and the #new woman' in Japan 1900-1930." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.250447.
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The aim of this research is to seek to situate women in the development of consumer culture in Japan in the period 1900-1930. This period saw the beginnings of mass consumption and the rise of what was to become one of its central institutions, the department store. One of the most important department stores to emerge was Mitsukoshi, which provided a site in which the new tastes and lifestyles of consumer culture and western modernity could be looked at, sampled and practiced. In effect the store could be seen as providing a new form of 'intimate public sphere' for women. Mitsukoshi also provided images and information on the new consumer culture classifications and learning processes through its house magazines. Other magazines, especially women's magazines, whose readership rapidly expanded in this period, reinforced this message. The extent to which women were seen as the central operators of the emerging consumer culture is a central focus of the thesis. The department stores were not only spaces for women to consume, but also to work. The emergence of saleswomen as a new category of working woman is also discussed. The ways in which an image of a new women emerged as they became employed in greater numbers in the new service occupations and became more visible in the city centre streets and consumption and entertainment sites, is also considered. One variant here was the 'modem girl,' whose image was both discussed and constructed in the media by intellectuals, writers and cultural intermediaries. One of the aims of this work is to sketch out the parameters of this process in Japan and ask how far the stores and other new urban spaces, along with the mediated sources such as magazines, newspapers and the cinema, helped to further some shift (however limited and temporary) in the balance of power between the sexes towards women, along with a concomitant redefinition of what it meant to be a women. The new woman, then, occupied a contested space which a number of parties sought to define: the consumer culture industries such as the department stores, press and cinema; the government with its various thrift and everyday life reform campaigns designed to keep women in the home, albeit as skilled housewives; the various movements for greater women's rights and reform, both in the middle class and the working class militant women workers; the intellectuals and cultural intermediaries, some of whom saw the 'modem girl,' as a new exciting phenomenon of urban modernity; and, of course, the women themselves, who not only reacted to these forces, but gained in their capacity and desire to have a greater say in the process and control over their own lives
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Merino, Martin Nelson Hernani. "Suscetibilidade para a cultura de consumo global sob a ótica de marcas globais: um estudo de características comuns entre culturas baseado na teoria clássica e na teoria de resposta ao item." Universidade de São Paulo, 2014. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/12/12139/tde-03042014-201746/.
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Mais da metade da população no mundo vive em povoados e cidades. Estes lugares correspondem àqueles que têm sido imediata e diretamente influenciados pela globalização. Nesse cenário, muitas empresas multinacionais estão alterando seus portfólios de marcas em favor de marcas globais; essa situação faz com que surja o conceito de cultura de consumo global - conjunto de símbolos relacionados ao consumo e comportamentos que são comumente entendidos, mas não, necessariamente, compartilhados pelos consumidores e negócios ao redor do mundo. Isso dependeria da suscetibilidade para a cultura de consumo global (SCCG), uma característica ou traço latente dos consumidores que varia através dos indivíduos e é refletido no desejo dos consumidores ou tendências para a aquisição e uso de marcas globais. Esse traço, pela literatura revisada, compreenderia a conformidade com a tendência de consumo global, percepção de qualidade, prestígio social, responsabilidade social, credibilidade de marca, risco percebido e custo de informação armazenada. É nesse contexto, portanto, que se insere a presente tese, ao caracterizar e verificar o impacto dos traços latentes da suscetibilidade para a cultura de consumo global (SCCG) de consumidores em distintas culturas (países) na aquisição de marcas globais. A pesquisa empírica consistiu de um survey com uso de questionário pela Internet, direcionado a estudantes universitários e profissionais procedentes de carreiras de ciências empresariais em distintos países. Os dados, um total de 467 questionários válidos, foram analisados sob duas abordagens metodológicas: (1) Teoria Clássica dos Testes (TCT) e (2) Teoria de Resposta ao Item (TRI). Ambas as abordagens justificadas pelos constantes questionamentos, identificados na literatura, ao uso de técnicas estatísticas aplicadas a escalas assumidas como intervalares, mas que na realidade são ordinais (tipo Likert). Os resultados foram divididos em três partes. A primeira, ao nível do modelo de mensuração, constou a relação positiva dos construtos subjacentes ao construto de SCCG. A segunda, ao nível do modelo estrutural, verificou que o construto de SCCG antecede a intenção de compra de uma marca global. Por fim, em terceiro lugar, sob a abordagem da TRI, escolhida por apresentar maiores vantagens sobre a TCT, constatou-se que não existem efeitos invariantes nas relações do framework proposto quando comparados quatro países, mas sim existem, em alguns casos, quando comparados pares de países. De forma geral, a presente tese traz uma contribuição teórica-empírica ao propor um framework mensurável da suscetibilidade para a cultura de consumo global, que reflete o desejo dos consumidores para adquirir e usar marcas globais. A tese é finalizada com a descrição das conclusões, implicações, limitações e direcionamentos futuros sobre o framework proposto e salienta a utilização da abordagem TRI como complemento à abordagem da TCT, amplamente usada em pesquisa sobre o comportamento do consumidor.More than half of the world population lives in towns and cities which have been directly and immediately influenced by globalization. In this scenario, many multinational companies are changing their brand portfolios in favor of global brands. This situation arises the concept of global consumer culture - a set of symbols related to consumption and behaviors that are commonly understood, but not necessarily shared, by consumers and businesses around the world. This concept depends on the susceptibility to global consumer culture (SCCG), a characteristic or latent trait of consumers that varies across individuals and is reflected in the consumers willingness or trends to purchase and consume global brands. According to the literature reviewed, this trait is related to the trend of global consumption, quality perception, social prestige, social responsibility, brand credibility, perceived risk and cost of information stored. It is in this context that this thesis will distinguish and verify the impact of latent traits of the susceptibility to global consumer culture (SCCG) of consumers from different cultures (countries) in the acquisition of global brands. For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered via the Internet, through a snowball sampling, aimed at students and business professionals from different countries. The data, a total of 467 valid questionnaires were analyzed under two approaches: (1) Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT). Both are justified by the constant literature questioning about the use of statistical techniques applied to scales assumed to be interval, but which in reality are ordinal (Likert). The results were divided into three parts. The first one, at the level of the measurement model, it was found a positive relationship between the subjacent constructs to the SCCG construct. The second one, at the structural model level, found that the SCCG construct precedes the global brand purchase intention. Finally, the TRI approach was chosen because it presents major advantages over the TCT, as there is no invariant effects on the framework relations proposed compared to the four countries, but there are some cases when compared to pairs of countries. Overall, this thesis provides a theoretical and empirical contribution due to a measurable framework of the susceptibility to global consumption culture, which reflects consumers\' desire to acquire and use global brands. The thesis concludes stating the findings, implications, limitations and future directions of the proposed framework and emphasizes the use of the IRT approach as a complement to the TCT approach, widely used in consumer behavior.
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Lamory, Noémie, and Camille Laporte. "The impact of culture on the food consumption process : The case of Sweden from a French perspective." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-122873.
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The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of which culture influences the food consumption process. More specifically, our research will focus on the consumption process of Swedish consumers, as well as their motivations when buying food products. The overall objective of our research is to analyse the extent of applicability the Swedish model of consumption might possibly have in a country like France with a strong food culture. To conduct our research, a qualitative method was used along with an interpretivist approach. This was in accordance with the overall aim to highlight social and cultural facts by analysing consumer behaviour. Based on the theoretical framework studied in the report, ten in-depth interviews were conducted on Swedish and French students. The findings include good insights and advice that retailers and suppliers in the food industry could use to improve the grocery shopping experience and make it a better fit to the consumers’ expectations. Some limitations could be observed in our research, mainly due to the language barrier, concerning both the research material and the interviews. The results were also influenced by the location of the study and the past experience of the respondents. Further research can be recommended to investigate the effect of food and culture on larger cities and in different locations. Doing so, the findings could give a more representative overview of the food consumption process. The study could also be expanded on different market niches with different age groups allowing comparisons from different generations. Another idea would be to target consumers with varying levels of incomes, in order to see to what extent income influences the food consumption process.
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Scanlon, Jennifer R. "Inarticulate longings consumer culture and the modern woman, 1910-1930 /." 1989. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/82398896.html.
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Brooks, Dwight Ernest. "Consumer markets and consumer magazines Black America and the culture of consumption, 1920-1960 /." 1991. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/27235519.html.
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Goldberg, Sarah Bess. "Entertaining Culture: Mass Culture and Consumer Society in Argentina, 1898-1946." Thesis, 2016. https://doi.org/10.7916/D8XP74XQ.
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“Entertaining Culture: Mass Culture and Consumer Society in Argentina, 1898-1946” is a study of Argentine mass culture in a new consumer society: a new cultural dynamic that emerged around the turn of the century in Buenos Aires. This dynamic entailed a redefinition not only of the relationships between culture, creators, and publics, but also of those categories themselves. Early twentieth-century Argentine mass culture was a heterogeneous realm of cultural production and consumption in which varied and often conflicting ideologies, aesthetic convictions, and class or party allegiances jostled for purchase, creating a constant push and pull of competing desires and values. Within this context, criticism and ambivalence about the effects of cultural modernization was ubiquitous, a byproduct not only of the heterogeneity within mass culture itself, but also of the tension-filled incorporation of culture into the market. By analyzing Argentine mass culture in this light, my dissertation challenges monolithic understandings of mass culture that ignore how it exposed and grappled with the tensions in its own premises.
The cultural dynamic of the period collapsed the categories of culture, consumer good, and entertainment and blurred the limits between production and consumption, often provoking dismay from creators, cultural critics, nationalists, and educators, frequently voiced from within mass culture itself. Mass culture adopted variety as a central premise, claiming to offer something for everyone and for every taste, in a business strategy designed to attract as many paying consumers as possible, and to turn them into brand loyalists. Cultural ventures also used a number of other tools, such as novelty, brevity, immediacy, familiarity, levity, and affordability, to expand their market share through entertainment, providing cultural production that fit the bill and encouraging Argentines to demand these qualities of the cultural production they consumed. Mass culture also encouraged Argentines to view the world through the logic of spectacle, according to which anything or anyone, given the mass cultural treatment, could be transformed into entertainment. While the transformation of culture into a for-profit entertainment venture and a consumer good made it possible for more aspiring artists to make a living at writing or performing, it also provoked frequent criticisms of the industrialization of culture, the mercantilism of producers, the quality of cultural works, and the naïveté of audiences and aspiring creators.
To better understand the tensions in play in this new cultural dynamic, I advance the concept of “cultured consumption,” a term I use to identify the dominant ideal of consumption in early twentieth-century Buenos Aires. As a loose complex of practices, cultured consumption was characterized by a tension between competing models of social aspiration: one, based on the performance of gentility and refinement, per aristocratic practices; another, founded upon a middle-class ideal of comfortable domesticity and family-centered values. Thus, by participating in cultured consumption, Argentines asserted their ascription to a certain set of potentially competing values and desires, from upward mobility and good taste to economy and family unity. Furthermore, according to the premises of cultured consumption, purchase of certain products and participation in certain activities would mark consumers as authentically and patriotically Argentine. Nevertheless, it was not clear how Argentine culture was to reconcile refinement and moderation, performance and authenticity, and public and private activity. Cultured consumption was, thus, both progressive and conservative, aspirational and protective of the status quo; in it, standards of taste took on moral and even political connotations. Through it, culture was both democratized and limited according to a set of sometimes competing standards and values.
In this way, mass culture promised ever broader sectors of the population that by participating fully in it they could satisfy their heterogeneous desires, experience self-actualization, and improve their lot in life. At the same time, mass culture invoked consumption, spectatorship, and artistic aspirations as possible threats to the stability of the family and social structure to limit the expansion of access to culture and cultural production. Mass culture, thus, set itself up as the articulating joint between public and private life in Buenos Aires: a series of practices that increasingly defined participation in, and an interpretative lens that allowed Argentines to make sense of, public and private life—including mass culture and consumption themselves.
Against the limited narratives of the period traditionally proposed by literary criticism and cultural history, this dissertation argues that it is precisely this heterogeneous area of mass cultural production that can help us better understand Argentine culture of the period more broadly: it allows us to see how these tensions played out on a massive scale. Considering cross-object study to be essential for understanding the new cultural dynamic, this dissertation recuperates archival materials and understudied genres such as mass-circulation periodicals, advertisements, reviews, advice literature, recitation manuals, celebrity profiles, and popular plays and music, and analyzes both the texts themselves and the interactions, institutions, and practices around them. This methodology allows me to do two things: first, to put disciplines such as consumer history and media studies in dialogue with literary criticism, theater history, and cultural studies; second, to complicate the narratives of the period traditionally espoused by literary critics and cultural historians. While the former, through their focus on aesthetic and political polemics, largely erased an area of cultural production massively consumed in the early twentieth century, the latter, by portraying culture as tangential to a more important political or economic narrative, deny culture its historical agency. My dissertation, in contrast, considers Argentine mass culture of the period to be not only a cultural dynamic that comprised systems of production, practices, and content, but, more broadly, the mouthpiece of a new worldview that redefined all areas of life. This worldview, originating in the cultural realm, would shape the course of Argentine social, economic, and political history to come. In foregrounding mass culture in this way, I propose a new corpus and lens for evaluating modernization in Buenos Aires.