Consumer Subjectivities in Marketing Governmentality Literature. A Literature Review.
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School of Business |
Bachelor's thesis
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Authors
Date
2019
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Mcode
Degree programme
Markkinointi
Language
en
Pages
30
Series
Abstract
This literature review examines how consumer subjectivities are viewed and (re)produced in marketing governmentality literature. Adopting a discursive understanding of power, the analysis aims to demonstrate that by making marketers’ governmental practices more visible, the literature also participates in producing what it is to be a consumer. Thus, the research question is as follows: what kinds of consumer subjectivities do marketing governmentality produce? Based on the readings, three distinct foci of interest were recognized in the marketing governmentality literature: consumer corporeality, prosumerism and dataveillance. Consumer corporeality views the consumer body as constructed in social relations. Government works mainly through exposing the consumer to the public gaze and making the consumer feel negative towards his own body. Prosumerism highlights the problematic aspects of value co-creation paradigm, portraying a picture of a working consumer. Government takes place by activating the consumer with positive associations such as self-disclosure, creativity and liberation. Finally, the literature on dataveillance produces a monitored consumer, whose personal data is used to seek out, form and utilize new business opportunities in the fringes of consumer culture. The reviewed literature emphasizes consumers’ active role in governing themselves but allows little space for consumer resistance and consumers’ creative practices in the marketplace. Thus, it is suggested that future research could more closely take into account the empirical individual life practices of the consumers to be able to recognize deviant and possibly even transformative consumer behaviour in marketplace power relations.Description
Thesis advisor
Salminen, EmmaKeywords
governmentality, panopticon, consumers, subjectivity, resistance