How far does influence and desire affect consumption in the postmodern era?

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Postmodern Consumption                Behavioural Aspects Of Marketing

Postmodern Consumption:

How far does influence and desire affect consumption in the postmodern era?

Abstract: Examines how the consumer can be affected by influence looked at by Leiss et al., Abrams, Bearden et al., Williams and what impact does desire have on consumer behaviour looked at by Elliot, Taylor and Saarinen, Kunda, Campbell.  Also this review will look at the symbolic linkage to consumer behaviour the main theorist here being Russell Elliot. There is evidence suggesting that consumers are influenced by others directly and indirectly (compliance, identification, internalisation values and consumer susceptibility) these are looked in depth by Bearden et al., Kropp et al., Kellman and Kahle.  This review will highlight linkages and affects of advertising, influence, symbolism, socio-culture, desires, state of consciousness, matter and meaning in relation to consumer behaviour.

Rationale: The consumer is an ever-changing entity; consumer behaviour will continue to change for the foreseeable future.  Consuming a product(s) is seen by many to be a straightforward process but many academics do not agree.  Academics believe that consumers are influences by other human beings, advertising and that consumption is never purely an individual task that excludes all intervention by others or the media, all consumption is influenced or become susceptible in some way, shape or form.  Others believe that emotions, sexuality, state of consciousness and symbolism have a huge impact on consumer behaviour.  This review will highlight what the main theorists’ points of views and opinions are in their respective field of study.  There are copious amounts of literature on consumption and the process of accurately determining what constitutes to consumer behaviour may prove to be one step too far for all involved.  This review is only quantitative and only explores what is already written in the subject, at the end of the review there may be evidence suggesting that relevant topic areas have not yet been explored to date and these topic areas should be explored. The purpose of this research is to determine if there is an unambiguous theory to the way humans consume products that is widely agreed by many academics.

Review: Elliot (1997) in his article ‘Existential consumption and irrational desire’ explored five dialects to help unpack some of the complexity of the consumption experience, he used the five dialects as analytical frames for reviewing competing theories on the meanings of consumption.  The five dialects: (1) the material versus the symbolic; (2) the social versus the self; (3) desire versus satisfaction; (4) rationality versus irrationality; and (5) creativity versus constraint.  

 

According to Firat (1993) marketing is truly the ultimate social practice of postmodern consumer culture I believe that this is a bold statement that carries the heavy burden of determining the conditions and meanings of life for the future (Firat and Venkatesh, 1993). One of the most compelling forces today would appear to be the advent of postmodernism. Postmodernism, as a new perspective has been very effective in the arts and humanities (Foster, 1985; Kaplan, 1987; Stephanson, 1988), as well as in architecture (Jencks, 1987), postmodernism seems likely to make, and by some accounts is already making (Gitlin, 1989; Habermas, 1983; Hutcheon, 1988; Jameson, 1992), an impact on contemporary culture, consumer culture, and the society on the whole. Social theory is now focusing on consumption as playing a central role in the way the social world is constructed, and it can be argued that marketing is too important just to be left to marketers as it plays a key role in giving meaning to life through consumption (van Raaij, 1993). Postmodern theories of consumption is the proposal that consumers have more emphasis on style rather than substance, they focus more upon the designer ideology, products in fact become commodity signs (Baudrillard, 1981). In fact the consumer is disillusioned (Debord, 1977) Products loose their value and they become things and not products as a whole (Taylor and Saarinen, 1994).

Symbolism has raised many arguments between academics. (LeVine, 1984; Storr, 1973) who believe that symbols do have a direct influence on consumer behaviour, I agree to some extent. According to Derrida (1977) there is nothing outside the text, Sperber (1975) argues that symbolic interpretation is essentially non-rational improvisation that does not obey the codes of language but operates at the unconscious level, I believe this adds confusion to the subject.  Elliot also suggests even for the sign dependent human things are never always purely material or purely meaningful and that there is always a relation between matter and meaning.  It is clear to suggest that this relationship is due to the consumer’s ability to understand and interpret the relationship between the material and the symbolic.  

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Elliot (1995) also suggests that symbolic meaning of products have two directions, outward in constructing the social world (social-symbolism) and inward towards constructing our self-identity (self-symbolism).  This draws attention to the fact that consumption of the symbolic meaning of products is a social process experienced by the consumer that helps to visibly maintain the basic categories of a rapidly changing culture.  According to Douglas and Isherwood (1978) the consumer’s choice becomes a vital source of the culture of the moment and that the meanings of consumer goods are grounded in their social context and the demand for goods derives ...

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