The data economy: How technological change has altered the role of the citizen-consumer

TLDR

Citizenship and consumption have been linked for over a century, underscoring the citizen‑consumer’s pivotal role, and in today’s data economy they are now active market parties, content producers, distributors, and key sources of economic value. This article investigates how technological change in the data economy transforms the citizen‑consumer’s role, tracing historical continuities and discontinuities and exploring new operational channels. The authors examine the commercial side of consumer citizenship by comparing the 1930s–40s mobile citizen‑consumer introduced by the US car industry with the post‑1990s era of cell phones and the Internet, using Finland as a technologically advanced example. The study concludes that the digital turn offers citizen‑consumers new operational channels, reshaping their everyday lives.

Abstract

Citizenship and consumption have been linked for over a century, emphasizing the pivotal role played by the citizen-consumer in society as a whole, and the voting power of the consumer's money. In the modern, digitalized world of the data economy, citizen-consumers are being assigned new roles: active market party, content producer, distributor, and an important source of economic value formation. This article examines how the role of the citizen-consumer is transforming in the data economy, giving a simplified account of historical continuities and discontinuities. We concentrate on the commercial side of consumer citizenship, scrutinizing two periods in the history of technology: first, the 1930s–40s when the mobile citizen-consumer was invented, designed, and promoted by the US car industry; and second, the post-1990s when an even greater sense of mobility was introduced by cell phones and the Internet, drawing examples from outlying yet technologically advanced Finland. We close with a discussion of how the digital turn has given citizen-consumers new channels of operations, querying how technological change has influenced their everyday lives.