Digitalizing Consumption ― How Devices Shape Consumer Culture

Contemporary consumer society is increasingly saturated by digital technology and digital communication. The devices which deliver this has made significant transformations in consumption patterns. Social media, mobile internet, smartphones, mobile apps, virtual fashion and digital retailing are merging with traditional consumption. As a result, we see this whole sphere is itself supported by the new market of digital devices. These "market devices" are significant in that they are not only consumed but are also increasingly used by consumers to consume.

This volume will explore the digitization of consumption through a number of empirical studies which analyses the impact of digital devices, especially in terms of gender, ethics and power relations. Bringing together contributions from international and interdisciplinary scholars, this coherent and insightful collection studies how the shaping of product markets are deeply intertwined and mediated by different market devices.

Digitalizing Consumption makes an important contribution to practice-based approaches to consumption, and particularly the use of market devices in consumers’ everyday consumer life, and will be of interest to scholars of marketing, cultural studies, consumer research, organization and management.

Franck Cochoy is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaures and a member of CERTOP- CNRS, France. He works in the field of economic sociology, with a focus on the human and technical mediations that frame the relationship between supply and demand. He has published several books in both French and English including On the origins of self-service (Routledge, forthcoming).

Johan Hagberg, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg. His research examines market practices in the field of retailing.? His current work investigates consumer logistics, digitalization of consumption and retailing.

Niklas Hansson is PhD in European Ethnology and senior researcher at the Centre for Consumer Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His current work examines digitalization of ethical consumption practices, consumer logistics and marketization of cultural heritage on second hand markets in the Swedish context.

Magdalena Petersson McIntyre is PhD in European Ethnology and Associate Professor at the Centre for Consumer Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research interests are within consumption, gender and retail and she has published on fashion, service work and normativity.