ABSTRACT
In considering the emergence of ‘Consumer Studies’ as a discipline in its own right, there may well be an argument for suggesting that research, and most markedly, theory, has become somewhat preoccupied with the more melodramatic aspects of the ‘changing consumer’. In this chapter, I want to suggest that this is particularly the case when you consider discussions of young people as consumers. Many social scientists, marketeers and consumer researchers in general have recognised the significance of young people both as an emerging consumer market and as a barometer of social change. However, the social scientific tradition, in particular, has tended to focus on melodramatic expressions of youth. As such, conceptions of youth consumption have, in turn, tended to degenerate into little more than stark generalisations and stereotypical portrayals of youth sub-cultures. The intention of this chapter is to discuss the core role that consumption plays in the everyday construction of young people’s lives and how that role may be even more fundamental in a world where youth sub-cultures appear to have dissipated. The contention here which I develop further elsewhere (Miles 2000a) is therefore that the notion of ‘lifestyle’ may play a particularly invaluable role in Consumer Studies’ efforts to address the impact of consumption on young people’s lives and vice versa, but also as a means of coming to terms with young people’s relationship with social change.
