Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Downshifting Consumer = Upshifting Citizen?, Michelle Nelson, Mark Rademacher, Hye-Jin Pack
Downshifting Consumer = Upshifting Citizen?, Michelle Nelson, Mark Rademacher, Hye-Jin Pack
Mark A. Rademacher
Critics suggest that contemporary consumer culture creates over-worked and over-shopped consumers who no longer engage in civic life. We challenge this conventional criticism against consumption within an individualistic lifestyle and argue instead that consumers who are "downshifting" do engage in civic life. In particular, this research examines downshifting attitudes among members of freecycle.org, a grassroots "gift economy" community. Results of an online survey show that downshifting consumers are indeed less materialistic and brand-conscious. They also tend to practice political consumption (e.g., boycotts, buycotts). Most importantly, they tend to engage in a digital form, but not a traditional form, of civic …
Capital, Consumption, Communication, And Citizenship: The Social Positioning Of Taste And Civic Culture In The United States, Lewis Friedland, Dhavan Shah, Nam-Jin Lee, Mark Rademacher, Lucy Atkinson, Thomas Hove
Capital, Consumption, Communication, And Citizenship: The Social Positioning Of Taste And Civic Culture In The United States, Lewis Friedland, Dhavan Shah, Nam-Jin Lee, Mark Rademacher, Lucy Atkinson, Thomas Hove
Mark A. Rademacher
In this paper, we analyze the field of cultural consumption in the United States, drawing on the methods of correspondence analysis employed by Bourdieu (1979/1984). Using the 2000 DDB Lifestyle Study, we analyze a cross section of Americans (N=3,122) in terms of their occupational categories, media usage, consumption practices, social behaviors, and indicators of civic and political engagement. In doing so, we find many parallels to the determinants of taste, cultural discrimination, and choice within the field structure observed by Bourdieu in 1960s French society, though there are also some notable differences, consistent with Peterson and Kern's (1996) concept of …