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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Consumer Subjectivity And Us Healthcare Reform, Emily West
Consumer Subjectivity And Us Healthcare Reform, Emily West
Emily E. West
Health care consumerism is an important frame in US health care policy, especially in recent media and policy discourse about federal health care reform. This paper reports on qualitative fieldwork with health care users to find out how people interpret and make sense of the identity of “health care consumer.” It proposes that while the term consumer is normally understood as a descriptive label for users who purchase health care and insurance services, it should actually be understood as a metaphor, carrying with it a host of associations that shape US health care policy debates in particular ways. Based on …
When You Care Enough To Defend The Very Best: How The Greeting Card Industry Manages Cultural Criticism, Emily West
When You Care Enough To Defend The Very Best: How The Greeting Card Industry Manages Cultural Criticism, Emily West
Emily E. West
The American greeting card industry, in particular industry leader Hallmark Cards, makes substantial efforts to deflect cultural critiques in its communications with the public, demonstrating how culture industries actively manage their negative associations with mass culture as well as the public’s fears of an advancing ‘commodity frontier’ (Hochschild, 2003: 30). Hallmark frames its cultural production as creative while de-emphasizing its industrial nature, and whenever possible, aligns itself with the legitimating cultural categories of art and the folk to counter the idea that greeting cards are false, manufactured sentiment. Hallmark also argues that the consumer is sovereign in order to contradict …