American Self-Enhancement Culture and the Cyborg Consumer: Consumer Identity Construction Beyond the Dominance of Authenticity

Social critics of American self-enhancement culture often lament that it draws individuals in a biomedical consumerism that frustrates the construction of genuine self-identity. This "lost authenticity" critique ignores that consumers can forge their identity in narrative terms not dominated by modernist questions regarding inauthentic vs. authentic. Americans injecting Botox for self-enhancement purposes draw from a new model: the cyborg consumer. We develop this conception to analyze how consumers partially and inconsistently transcend historically established dualities-nature vs. technology, authentic vs. inauthentic-to create consistent "stories of the self." We profile an emerging historical discontinuity between a modernist identity protocol prescribing self-authenticity as the ultimate goal and a competing protocol challenging this authority by prescribing unlimited agency through technological selfenhancement

Consumers and Artificial Intelligence:An Experiential Perspective

Artificial intelligence (AI) helps companies offer important benefits to consumers, such as health monitoring with wearable devices, advice with recommender systems, peace of mind with smart household products, and convenience with voice-activated virtual assistants. However, although AI can be seen as a neutral tool to be evaluated on efficiency and accuracy, this approach does not consider the social and individual challenges that can occur when AI is deployed. This research aims to bridge these two perspectives: on one side, the authors acknowledge the value that embedding AI technology into products and services can provide to consumers. On the other side, the authors build on and integrate sociological and psychological scholarship to examine some of the costs consumers experience in their interactions with AI. In doing so, the authors identify four types of consumer experiences with AI: (1) data capture, (2) classification, (3) delegation, and (4) social. This approach allows the authors to discuss policy and managerial avenues to address the ways in which consumers may fail to experience value in organizations’ investments into AI and to lay out an agenda for future research

Consumer Gift Systems

This article develops a critique of the dyadic model of consumer gift giving and an extension of the classic paradigm of gift giving as elaborated in fundamental anthropological and sociological texts. I conceptualize and present empirical evidence for the notion of a consumer gift system, a system of social solidarity based on a structured set of gift exchange and social relationships among consumers. Social distinctions, norm of reciprocity, and rituals and symbolisms are defined as key characteristics of a consumer gift system and are shown to be present in peer-to-peer music file sharing at Napster. Implications for extant research on solidarity, gift giving, and consumption are discussed, and future research directions are provided. (c) 2006 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Conflict and Compromise: Drama in Marketplace Evolution

How do markets change? Findings from a 7-year longitudinal processual investigation of consumer performances in the war on music downloading suggest that markets in the cultural creative sphere (those organizing the exchange of intellectual goods such as music, movies, software, and the written word) evolve through stages of perpetual structural instability. Each stage addresses an enduring cultural tension between countervailing utilitarian and possessive ideals. Grounded in anthropology and consumer behavior, I illustrate this historical dynamic through the process of marketplace drama, a fourfold sequence of performed conflict among opposing groups of consumers and producers. Implications for theorizing on market system dynamics and the consumption of performance are offered. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

2003. The anthropology of file sharing: Consuming Napster as a gift

Abstract This research seeks to inform our understanding of the consumption meanings and communal activities surrounding file-sharing systems. In the present netnographic analysis of Napster consumption meanings, we develop a theoretical framework that conceptualizes file-sharing systems as gifting communities. Within this framework we discuss the gifting structure, describing the mode of exchange and the ways in which it constructs community. We then employ four predominant metaphors to conceptualize gifting motivation as realization, purification, participation and renovation. This netnography is based on cyber-interviews, emails, homepages and entries on message boards. 2 Extended Abstract Different online gatherings are on the rise and of interest to consumer research. In this exploratory netnographic analysis of Napster consumption meanings, we analyze 40 cyberinterviews, 35 emails, 56 homepages and 40 entries on message boards. We develop a theoretical framework centering the concept of the parasitic gifting community. Within this framework we discuss the gifting structure, describing the mode of exchange and the ways in which it constructs community before conceptualizing gifting motivation through four predominant motivational metaphors of gifting as realization, purification, participation and renovation. The study of Napster holds several important insights for consumer behavior in the fields of gift giving, community in cyberspace, consumer resistance and emancipatory consumption. The Napster network is built upon a software base that combines the convergence of mp3 music files with an Internet relay chat feature which enables free access to, and download of, up to 2 million copyrighted songs archived on the private hard drives of 60 million subscribers word-wide. We suggest that Napster exchanges can be fruitfully conceptualized as a new form of gift giving that transpires in digital networks. Individual Napster consumers evaluate single transactions in the context of multiplicity. First, a gift is always a perfect copy of an mp3 file stored on the donor's hard drive. Second, a donor is usually recipient and a recipient is usually donor at the same time but not to each other. Third, it is the recipient and not the donor who initiates a gift transaction. Fourth, donor and recipient are anonymous and gift exchange is usually not reciprocal. Therefore and with respect to the fact that negotiation of equivalent or formal return is absent, Napster's gifting economy is parasitic because consumers assume the role of host, troublemaker and parasite at the same time. The basic paradox underlying Napster consumption draws back on Weiner's (1992) suggestions of maintaining through giving. Unity over exchange points to a continuous not necessarily moral connection, but to an economic linking value. Following Mauss' (1924) fundamental interpretation of giving of gifts as a prototypical contract, Napster constructs community. Two basic conceptual distinctions can help to organize our theorization of gifting motivations at Napster -the purpose of action (cf. Holt 1995), which is gifting here, and the addressee of gifting. In terms of purpose, gifting behavior can be both ends in itself (autotelic) and means to some further ends (instrumental). In terms of addressee, gift giving may range from agonistic, where the consumer uses gift giving as "a vehicle for self-aggrandizement" 1 THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FILE SHARING: CONSUMING NAPSTER AS A GIFT "The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of controland it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these. It no longer needs to be rational, because it no longer measures itself against an ideal." Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra & Simulation Napster.com is the premiere example of an information exchange technology referred to as peerto-peer file sharing. Aggregating more than 10 million users in six months and attaining a growth rate of 200.000 new subscribers in a single day, Napster became the noisy center of a new social reality that struck terror into even the most sturdy of music entertainment executives. Behind this threatening new reality stands a software combining the convergence of mp3 music files with an Internet relay chat feature. Together, they enabled not only community, but free access to and download of a up to 2 million copyrighted songs archived on the private hard drives of 60 million subscribers world-wide. Based on peer-to-peer music-sharing using a particular software format, Napster presents a transferable site of an online subculture of consumption acknowledging Schouten's and Napster's decline from the bad boy to the toothless tiger seems preordained. Yet its "outlaw mystique" hearkens back to the later Jean Baudrillard and society's transformation into hyperreality (Baudrillard 1981 and Over the past decade, qualitative consumer research has broadened its domain of inquiry to incorporate different cyberspace consumption phenomena. An increasingly diverse set of research methods has been developed, including socio-cognitive analysis (Granitz and Ward This article has two objectives. First it presents a netnographic analysis of one file sharing community, Napster, operationalized as the totality of people using the Napster software to exchange mp3 files. Secondly, it argues in favor of a new form of gift giving in networks having precedence here as a powerful analytic category for understanding the objects and consumption meanings within Napster and other file sharing communities. We begin with a methodological description of the project and then discuss our findings in terms of two major concerns: (1) the structure of Napster as a gifting economy and (2) its motivation understood as the underlying values and their expression and maintenance. METHOD Following Kozinets (1997), netnography presents "a fusion of established and innovative ethnographic techniques adapted to the naturalistic study of virtual communities, and their research representation" striving for the profound experiencing of digital sociality (Sherry and Kozinets 2000) and enabling immersion into Napster's virtual consumption cortex. Terms and conditions of data gathering evoked by this netnographic research are given further account in the following section. 4 Data and Analysis The data used in this study was gathered by the authors throughout a period from October 2000 until February 2001 and includes cyber-interviews, emails, board postings, homepages, functional and historical writings as well as the authors' own observation using Napster.com. All data was electronically catalogued and stored. As was suggested in previous research (Kozinets 1997) all informants' names were changed in order to guarantee confidentiality. In addition, informants' permission for direct quoting in this paper was explicitly sought by email resulting in participants' unanimous agreement. Cyber Interviews. A primary data set is used including 40 cyber interviews virtually recorded on Napster's Instant Messaging System documenting the normative expectations of behavior and the ideology attending the consumption of Napster.com. In order to find potential informants the authors occasionally entered Napster's instant messaging system as ordinary subscribers "knocking on other online subscribers' doors" projectively tasking potential informers for a "friendly talk about Napster" in service of an in situ, conversational semidirective individual interview. Contacting potential informants, contacting the authors by informants and meeting was perceived to be simpler than in meatspace. In order to attract potential informants' attention an intrication homepage (Kozinets 1995) presenting research questions and offering ways to contact the authors was used. Though facing financial restrictions in accessing technology and information (Dougan 1997) integration and participation are simplified due to the participatory egalitarian ethics of the Internet originating in its early ARPANET days The cyber interviews represent both the richest and most sensitive set of data and are given interpretive primacy in this study. However, the broad and structured, participative, observational and interview procedures of ethnographic research in face-to-face situations (for an account see, e.g., Belk, STRUCTURE At its core, Napster's software combines the convergence of mp3 music files with an Internet relay chat. Although forms of textual communication between members are inherent to the system and also possible on Napster's website message boards, Napster's primary function is the sharing of mp3 files. Each member's computer functions as a node presenting a certain amount of mp3 files which can be accessed and copied to any other member's computers. This principle suggests the mp3 transaction to be classified as a gift transaction between donor and recipient. However, it is one that requires some technical broadening that acknowledges four important 7 consequences of digitized information in digital networks. First, a gift is always a perfect copy of an mp3 file stored on the donor's hard drive. Second, a donor is usually a recipient and a recipient is usually a donor at the same time but not to each other. Third, it is the recipient and not the donor who initiates a gift transaction. Fourth, donor and recipient are anonymous and gift exchange is usually not reciprocal. "Jeff's" (connected via cable, sharing 352 files) comment, however, hints at yet another form of reciprocity: Actually I'm one of [60] millions of anonymous people accidentally spread all over the globe but involved in the same thing -sharing. I'm part of a community to which I contribute with my stuff and which showers me with music in return. A different form of reciprocity occurs introducing the third "virtual exchange partner," the "community" which itself simultaneously assumes the role of donor and recipient relative to any connected member. Instead of constructing Napster's gifting economy as one that takes place in between individuals, Jeff's statement suggests that some informants see it from an individual consumer's perspective as a reciprocal giving to and receiving from the "community." This is in line with an earlier anthropological understanding of gift giving behavior. Mauss (1924) has presented it as a way of creating social networks and individual integration. Reciprocity in social networks does not necessarily involve total reciprocity between two individuals, but the social obligation to give, accept, and "repay" -which means to reciprocate within the network (cf

Giesler, Markus (2008), “Conflict and Compromise: Drama in Marketplace Evolution,” Journal of Consumer Research, 34 (April), 739-753. (lead article, based on dissertation thesis).

<p>How do markets change? Findings from a 7-year longitudinal processual investi- gation of consumer performances in the war on music downloading suggest that markets in the cultural creative sphere (those organizing the exchange of intellec- tual goods such as music, movies, software, and the written word) evolve through stages of perpetual structural instability. Each stage addresses an enduring cultural tension between countervailing utilitarian and possessive ideals. Grounded in an- thropology and consumer behavior, I illustrate this historical dynamic through the process of marketplace drama, a fourfold sequence of performed conflict among opposing groups of consumers and producers. Implications for theorizing on market system dynamics and the consumption of performance are offered.</p

Giesler, Markus (2012), “How Doppelgänger Brand Images Influence the Market Creation Process: Longitudinal Insights from the Rise of Botox Cosmetic,” Journal of Marketing, 76 (November), 55-68.

<p>Using actor-network theory from sociology, the author explores the creation of new markets as a brand-mediated legitimation process. Findings from an eight-year longitudinal investigation of the Botox Cosmetic brand suggest that the meanings of a new cosmetic self-enhancement technology evolve over the course of contestations between brand images promoted by the innovator and doppelgänger brand images promoted by other stakeholders. Each contestation addresses an enduring contradiction between nature and technology. A four-step brand image revitalization process is offered that can be applied either by managers interested in fostering an innovation’s congruence with prevailing social norms and ideals or by other stakeholders (e.g., activists, competitors) interested in undermining its marketing success. The findings integrate previously disparate research streams on branding and market creation and provide managers with the conceptual tools for sustaining a branded innovation’s legitimacy over time.</p