ABSTRACT

Contemporary consumer society is increasingly saturated by digital technology, and the devices that deliver this are increasingly transforming consumption patterns. Social media, smartphones, mobile apps and digital retailing merge with traditional consumption spheres, supported by digital devices which further encourage consumers to communicate and influence other consumers to consume.

Through a wide range of empirical studies which analyse the impact of digital devices, this volume explores the digitization of consumption and shows how consumer culture and consumption practices are fundamentally intertwined and mediated by digital devices. Exploring the development of new consumer cultures, leading international scholars from sociology, marketing and ethnology examine the effects on practices of consumption and marketing, through topics including big data, digital traces, streaming services, wearables, and social media’s impact on ethical consumption.

Digitalizing Consumption makes an important contribution to practice-based approaches to consumption, particularly the use of market devices in consumers’ everyday consumer life, and will be of interest to scholars of marketing, cultural studies, consumer research, organization and management.

chapter 2|21 pages

Big data challenge for social sciences and market research

From society and opinion to replications

chapter 4|26 pages

Serendipitous effects in digitalized markets

The case of the DataCrawler recommendation agent

chapter 5|18 pages

Extending the mind

Digital devices and the transformation of consumer practices

chapter 6|19 pages

Promoting ethical consumption

The construction of smartphone apps as “ethical” choice prescribers

chapter 8|23 pages

“Write something”

The shaping of ethical consumption on Facebook

chapter 9|23 pages

Digitalized music

Entangling consumption practices

chapter 10|13 pages

Marketing and cyberspace

William Gibson’s view 1

chapter 12|21 pages

From the logs of QR code readers

A socio-log-y of digital consumption