ABSTRACT
This book aims at providing the reader with a set of research strategies and techniques for using digital methods to explore the processes of platformisation of consumer culture unfolding within digital environments (Caliandro et al., 2024). In the new century, most consumer activities migrated onto digital platforms: as a result, consumer culture gradually went through a process of platformisation (Duffy et al., 2019). The systems of meanings and practices consumers articulate around products, brands, or services are increasingly shaped by the socio-technical architecture of digital environments themselves (Carah and Angus, 2018) – besides and beyond traditional social institutions, such as class (Bourdieu, 1984), subcultures (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995), or communities (Muñiz and O'Guinn, 2001). Although social classes as well as consumer subcultures and communities still exist, and, indeed, exert a strong influence on consumer activities, such social formations have been profoundly reconfigured by the advent of digital media (Marres, 2017). Given these conditions, we argue that digital methods provide useful conceptual and practical tools to understand the emerging phenomenon of platformisation of consumer culture.
