Culture and Consumption Flashcards
Why is culture relevant to understanding consumer behaviour
Distinguish members from one group to another
Shared understanding
Blueprints as part of culture
What needs to be understood as a condition for consumption choices
The cultural context in which they are made
Collective memory of society
Accumulation of shared meanings and norms
Meaning transfer
Frames patterns of consumption
What is culture
A societies culture includes the values, ethics and material objects produced by people
Accumulation of shared meanings and traditions among members of society
Constantly evolving e.g binging
Cultures differ in the relationship to space, time and emphasis on individualism v collectivism
E.g China and Malaysia are more collectivist
What is szmigins (2014) definition of culture
Sum of the total learned beliefs, values, knowledge and customs that together regulate the behaviour of members of a particular society
What are beliefs
Thoughts an individual holds about some object, idea or person
What are values
Deep rooted and enduring beliefs or ideals about what is good and desirable
What is knowledge
Familiarity with people or things which can include understandings, facts and descriptions
What are customs
Norms of behaviour that have been passed on from generation to generation e.g porogotive aspects of households
What is enculturation
Refers to how an individual learns the traditional content of his or her native culture
Mostly takes place in family contexts
Children begin to mimic behaviours of adults
What is acculturation
The idea of movement between places or cultural contexts
What is customer acculturation
The process of movement and adaptation to the customer cultural environment in one country by persons from another (penzola, 1994)
How is culture communicated
Through a common language and shared symbols
Advertising provides models of behaviour
What are the different dimensions of cultural values
Individualsim Masculinity Power distance Uncertainty avoidance Long term orientation
What are the two types of norm
Enacted (explicitly defined) Crescive (embedded in culture) - customs - mores - conventions
What is a myth
Story that contains symbolic elements that express shared emotions and ideals of a culture
What are the role of myths
Primitive belief in modern society
Used to market health foods anti aging
Myths are an example of what we can call a template or cultural blueprint for interpretation because they help us understand what we observe in social life (Arnold)
Stories containing symbolic elements that express shared emotions and ideals of a culture
How are myths used in advertising
Evokes nostalgic behaviour and can encourage consumers to look back in time
E.g hovis 150 years advert
What is a ritual
A type of expressive, symbolic activity constructed of multiple behaviours that occur in a fixed, episodic sequence and that tend to be repeated over time (Rook)
What is consumer culture
A social arrangement in which the relations between lived culture and social resources and between meaningful ways of life and the symbolic and material resources on which they depend are mediated
How has consumer culture developed
Global market expansion Increasing importance of materialism Loosening of class boundaries Faster flow of information Influence of fashion industry
What does McCracken say about cultural meaning
Flows continually between its several locations in the social world, aided by the collective and individual efforts of designers, producers advertisers and consumers
What is mckrakens meaning of transfer model
World to goods
- advertising
- fashion
Good to person - possession Exchange Grooming Divestment
What is a possession ritual
Transforming mass produced products from the marketplace into more personal products
What are exchange rituals
Consumers acting as gift givers are made agents of meaning transfer to the extent to which they selectively distribute goods with specific properties to individuals
What are grooming rituals
Situations where cultural meanings have to be drawn out on a repeated basis due to the perishable nature
What are divestment rituals
Applies to goods the consumer is dispensing with either by giving them away or selling them
For second hand goods it involves erasing meaning of the previous owner
What are holts metaphors for consumption
Consuming as experience
Consuming as integration
Consuming as play
Consuming as classification
What are sacred domains
Set apart form everyday activities or products collecting is one of the most common ways of experiencing sacred consumption
What is a subculture
A group of consumers connected through a shared commitment your a particular product class, brand or consumption activity
What is a subculture of consumption
A group of consumers connected through a shared commitment to a particular product class, brand or consumption activity
What is a brand community
A specialised non geographically bound community based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of the brand
Rituals and traditions are often shared through sacred experiences
Moral responsibility to look out for newbies
What is a consumer tribe
A group of people emotionally connected by similar consumption values and usage
May be a member of several kind simultaneously
What are the 4 dimensions of consumer acculturation
Assimilation
Maintenance
Resistance
Segregation
What are the elements of the cultural system
Ecology- whether, population- Japanese space saving devices
Social structure- sterotypes
Ideology - mental characteristics of people
What is a custom
Norms of behaviour that have been passed from generation to generation
What are mores
Particular forms of custom and have a strong moral overdone
What are conventions
Specific forms of custom and relate to the norms for the conduct of everyday life
What are the definitions of sacred and profane
Sacred- used to refer to objects and events that are set apart from normal activities
Profane- capture those customer objects and events that do not share the specialness
What is objectification
Sacred qualities are attributed to mundane items
What is CCT
Explores heterogenous distribution of meaning and the multiplayer of overlapping cultural groupings
Conceptualises culture as the very fabric of experience meaning and action
cCT explores how consumers actively rework and transform symbolic meanings eroded in ads, brands and goods to manifest their particular personal and social circumstances
The market provides consumers with an expansive pallet of resources from which to construct an identity
Where are the 3 places mckraken finds culture
The constituted world
The consumer good
Individual consumer
How ones culture constitute the world
Culture is a lens through which individuals view phenomena
Culture is a blueprint to human activity
What are the instruments of meaning transfer world to good
Advertising- conduit from which meaning constantly pours
Fashion system- takes new styles of clothing and home furnishing and associates them with established cultural categories and principles
Undertaken by opinion leaders
Fashion system encourages the radical reform of cultural meaning
Where is cultural meaning located
Products- serve as media for the expression of the cultural meaning that constitutes our world
How does meaning transfer from good to consumer?
Ritual- opportunity to affirm, evoke, assign or revise the conventional symbols and meanings of the cultural order
What are the rituals mckraken identifies
Exchange rituals
Possession rituals - claiming is an attempt to draw from the object the qualities that it has been given by the marketing forces of the world of goods
Grooming
Divestment
Why has mckrakens view of movement of meaning been criticised?
Not seeing the creation of meaning as a two way process
What does tynan (1997) find
Consumers play a role in linking product and consumption meanings and advertisers should tap into this pool
How does Christmas relate to rituals
Cultural meaning has to be reestablished
After pre cleaning rituals decorations were brought out for grooming
Exchange rituals for gifts
Divestment for recycling cards etc
What is consuming as experience
Views consumption as a psychological phenomenon, emphasising emotional states that arise during consumption
Can experience baseball in 3 ways
Accounting - make sense
Evaluating- construct value judgements
Appreciating- respond emotionally to baseball
What is consuming as integration
How consumers acquire and manipulate objects and meanings
E.g fans of baseball integrate particular elements into their identity
Consuming as classification
Views consuming as a process in which objects, viewed as vessels of cultural and personal meanings act to classify their consumers
Classify through objects e.g a team t shirt
What is consuming as play
People use consumption objects to play and develop the relationship between this aspect and the other 3
What is the importance of collecting
One of the most common ways of experiencing sacred consumption
What is desacralisation
Objects that previously were sacred lose their sacred meaning to culture or specific groups within culture
What is an anti brand community
E.g I hate Starbucks
What is a myth
Story that contains symbolic elements that express shared emotions and ideals of culture
Can be used is a nostalgic way
Provide psychological models and
What are the elements of a ritual
Ritual artefacts- objects and products that acompany or are consumed in a ritual setting
Ritual script - guides the use of the ritual artefact
Ritual performance roles- roles occupied by people involved
Ritual audience- people who witness or who are involved in the ritual
What are the rituals rook identifies
Grooming Possession Gift giving Self gift Holiday Rite of passage - marks a change in social status
What is contamination
When objects associated with g sacred events or people become sacred in their own right.
What are some examples of subcultures based on demographic
Age based
Sex roles- Mumsnet
Regional, ethnic or religious
What are the 4 entrenched functions myths serve in culture
Metaphysical - explain origins of existence
Cosmological - emphasise that all components of the universe are part of a single picture
Sociological- maintain social order
Psychological- provide models for personnel conduct
What are the elements of CCt
Consumer identity- mythic and symbolic resources through which people construct identity
Market culture- consumers are culture producers
May create cultural worlds through the persuit of common interests
Socioeconomic patterning- how consumption is shaped by social class hierarchies
Ideology
What are the different age based groups
Tweens- consumers in training
Teens- digital natives and tech savvy
Gen Y- confident and self involved
Gen X- pessimistic and suspicious of advertising
Baby boomer- sizeable and important market
