Consumer Culture Theory
- Eric J. Arnould - Aalto University, Finland
- Craig J Thompson - Univesity of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Consumer Behaviour
Outlining the key themes, concepts and theoretical areas in the field, this book draws on contributions from prominent researchers to unravel the complexities of consumer culture by looking at how it affects personal identity, social interactions and the consuming human being.
A field which is characterised as being theoretically challenging is made accessible through learning features that include case study material, critical reflection, research directions, further reading and a broad mix of the types of consumers and consumption contexts including emerging markets and economies.
The structure of the book is designed to help students map the field in the way it is interpreted by researchers and follows the conceptual mapping in the classic Arnould & Thompson 2005 journal article. The book is organised into three parts - the Consumption Identity, Marketplace Cultures and the Socio-Historic Patterning of Consumption. Insight is offered into both the historical roots of consumer culture and the everyday experiences of navigating the contemporary marketplace.
The book is supported by a collection of international case studies and real world scenarios, including: How Fashion Bloggers Rule the Fashion World; the Kendall Jenner Pepsi Commercial; Professional Beer Pong, Military Recruiting Campaigns, The World Health Organization and the Corporatization of Education.
The go-to text for anyone new to CCT or postgraduate students writing a CCT-related thesis.
Edited by the luminary co-founders of the CCT movement, this book is more than mere reference work, it's a rallying cry! Explaining the fundamentals of consumer culture theory in a sophisticated and rigorous, yet accessible, tone and format, this volume speaks to a new generation of CCT scholars—educating, engaging, and informing them like no other book in the field. I can't wait to bring this into my classroom!
Consumer Culture Theory is one of the most exciting areas of interdisciplinary inquiry today. This textbook offers the definitive review of CCT by the leading scholars in the field. Each chapter tackles a complex theoretical issue in CCT and brings it to life with verve. The volume delivers a range of challenging theories in an accessible and exciting manner without in any way diluting the power of the ideas. A book that readers will be eager to turn to again and again.
Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) made easy – a solid overview of the most important sources and insights forming the research community of Consumer Culture theorists. Interested marketing practitioners and scholars – also from consumer research and marketing outside CCT, consumer sociologists/anthropologists,… Indeed, everybody grabbling to understand consumer culture… you can all start here!
This collection is a well-curated set of contributions on some of the key topics we need to know about to understand consumer culture. I think it will be essential reading for graduate student seeking entrée to studying consumer culture, and useful for seasoned scholars seeking to extend some of the key conversations in our field.
Right from the opening pages it is clear that this is no run-of-the-mill textbook. It is a collection of lively and engaging works that illuminate the kind of innovative and challenging research, as well as the diverse positions and contexts that have helped shape this dynamic discipline. It is bound to become a major resource for CCT scholars and students at all levels of their career.
In this well-curated volume, editors Arnould and Thompson bring coherence to the eclectic CCT field and make it approachable for a broad audience. The different chapters represent a wide variety of theoretical traditions, methodological orientations, and empirical settings and manages to give room for necessary stylistic idiosyncrasies, without ever compromising the consistency of the book as a whole.
A sociologically informed view of the theoretics of consumer culture, this engaging collection of essays by a distinguished group of international scholars orients readers to the interplay of ideology and materiality in the contemporary world. Replete with compelling examples and provocative pedagogy, the text is classroom friendly and sure to promote discussion.
This user-friendly textbook is most informative for students of consumer research who want to find out what Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) is and how CCT’s sociocultural perspective complements conventional consumer psychology. The chapters, which provide simple yet lucid synopses of recent research and make theory accessible with cases are most welcome.
This collection of essays by highly reputable CCT scholars provides an exciting textbook for understanding consumption as primarily a social and cultural activity, rather than as a psychological process. It shifts from consumption as passive acquisition of symbols for sale toward it being an active process of cultural meaning production.