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Mobile Technologies And Boundaryless Spaces: Slavish Lifestyles, Seductive Meanderings, Or Creative Empowerment?, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Detlev Zwick
Mobile Technologies And Boundaryless Spaces: Slavish Lifestyles, Seductive Meanderings, Or Creative Empowerment?, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Detlev Zwick
Nikhilesh Dholakia
According to the instrumental theory of technology, mobile technologies - what McLuhan's refers to as electronic prostheses - promise opportunities for greater freedom, creativity, leisure, and productivity by enhancing organic bodily functions. Correspondingly, as (Cavallaro, 2000) would argue, objects such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable physiotherapy units, laptops, and portable stereos - to name just a few - seem to impart a sense of solidity to consumers' lives. Just like prostheses, they are inserted into our everyday lives, helping our "inadequate" bodies along in fulfilling practical tasks. Phenomenologically, these kinds of mobile technologies supposedly support the subject's …
The Epistemic Consumption Object And Postsocial Consumption: Expanding Consumer‐Object Theory In Consumer Research, Detlev Zwick, Nikhilesh Dholakia
The Epistemic Consumption Object And Postsocial Consumption: Expanding Consumer‐Object Theory In Consumer Research, Detlev Zwick, Nikhilesh Dholakia
Nikhilesh Dholakia
We introduce the concept of the epistemic consumption object. Such consumption objects are characterized by two interrelated features. First, epistemic consumption objects reveal themselves progressively through interaction, observation, use, examination, and evaluation. Such layered revelation is accompanied by an increasing rather than a decline of the object’s complexity. Second, such objects demonstrate a propensity to change their “face‐in‐action” vis‐à‐vis consumers through the continuous addition or subtraction of properties. The epistemic consumption object is materially elusive and this lack of ontological stability turns the object into a continuous knowledge project for consumers. Via this ongoing cycle of revelation and discovery, consumers …