Consumer Culture Theory Cct and Liberatory Postmodernism

Consumer Culture Theory & Post Modernist Article Review

Marketing

The first article of focus in this summary is "Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): Twenty Years of Research," written in 2005. The research the authors review spans the period from 1985 -- 2005, in which significant developments occurred regarding consumption, advertising, technology, and culture. This article aims to describe the nature and philosophy of Consumer Culture Theory. The authors contend that Consumer Culture Theory varies from other homogenous theories and concepts of culture. They describe consumer culture as a social arrangement between individuals and society. For the authors, Consumer Culture Theory concentrates upon and describes the world as multitudinous. In the world of Consumer Culture Theory, there are many meanings and groups in the global capitalist market. Consumer Culture Theory recognizes the links among everyday experience, material resources, social resources, and the mediation of resources through economic markets. The thesis of the article regards the pluralistic nature of Consumer Culture Theory, empirically generated data in CCT research, and how that research should be applied to several aspects of culture such as to the social sciences (in general), management, and public policy.

Through an extensive literature review and analysis, the authors were able to condense the findings in two tables as presented in the article. Their data analysis reveals a comprehensive description and function of Consumer Culture Theory. The authors conclude that CCT is concerned with relationships among market behaviors and culture, trying to understand them through historical and economic contexts. They emphasize the social and cultural aspects of human behavior upon which Consumer Culture Theory concentrates. The article is succinct and convincing. The authors are thorough and understand the implications of the theory and the research activity in CCT very well.

The second article, "Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption," describes the role of another theory within the field of consumer research; the theory of focus for the authors is postmodernism. The authors begin by explaining a little about what the postmodernist perspective and theory are. They also describe a brief history of the ways postmodernism has been used in various fields of study over the past century, approximately. Then, the authors begin their discussion of postmodernism's role in understanding and performing consumer research. The authors spend quite a bit of time explaining the critiques of postmodernism. This is an interesting and effective strategy to understand the context within which consumer research uses postmodernism. It is also an interesting and uncommon strategy to begin by highlighting a theory's weaknesses in great detail before extolling its virtues and utility. It is a different approach and it was a nice break from typical academic journal style argumentation. The thesis of the article is composed of four parts with primary focus on the urge to aptly, accurately, and fully describe the postmodern consumer market spectrum of experience within a single unifying logic, which they call market logic.