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Biking, Buying And Belonging: An Exploration Of How An Irish Subculture Of Consumption’S Socialisation Process Equips Its Members To Critically Filter Marketing Messages, Roger Sherlock, Geoffrey Weller

Conference papers

This paper identifies how members of an Irish biker subculture of consumption critically decode marketing messages, brands and products using a subcultural filter (peculiar to the subculture) learnt through localised socialisation. This critical filter develops through prolonged subcultural immersion and is influenced by the word-ofmouth purchase advice and product judgement of other members of the subculture of consumption; with a parallel between its development and use, and the development of the subcultural identity, from experimentation, to identification and conformity, to mastery and internalisation of both filter and identity (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). It is internally utilised by the members to …