Consumers and Consumption

TLDR

Consumption is a social, cultural, and economic process of choosing goods that reflects modern opportunities and constraints, bridges economic and cultural institutions, and shapes identity through new technologies, ideologies, and delivery systems. The study aims to investigate how consumption constructs the consuming subject and collective identity and traces historical transitions to a consumer society. The authors analyze consumer products, industries, and sites to examine the institutional field of consumption. Ethnography, interviews, and historical analysis reveal a global consumer culture fostered by media and marketing professionals yet subject to different local interpretations.

Abstract

Consumption is a social, cultural, and economic process of choosing goods, and this process reflects the opportunities and constraints of modernity. Viewing consumption as an “institutional field,” the review suggests how consumption bridges economic and cultural institutions, large-scale changes in social structure, and discourses of the self. New technologies, ideologies, and delivery systems create consumption spaces in an institutional framework shaped by key social groups, while individual men and women experience consumption as a project of forming, and expressing, identity. Studying the institutional field requires research on consumer products, industries, and sites; on the role of consumption in constructing both the consuming subject and collective identity; and on historical transitions to a consumer society. Ethnography, interviews, and historical analysis show a global consumer culture fostered by media and marketing professionals yet subject to different local interpretations.