Russ Belk Minneapolis

organic intellectualism, conclusion, and references: consumption ...

Organic Intellectualism, Conclusion, and References: Consumption Studies, Part 12 of 12

The Consumption Studies paper was originally written in 1998 and submitted to the Journal of Consumer Research. Although I received some very interesting and encouraging feedback, the paper was rejected. And for very good reasons, I believe.

The illustrative example of technological consumption meanings demonstrates a focus limited to only a few contexts relevant to the topic, and is certainly flawed and needs to be developed further (some of that work I have started to do here, and will continue to do). But it seeks to prove a point about the different lenses that get lumped together as “qualitative” work, and how they actually differ and complement each other.

Through that example, various overlapping contexts provided occasions for coordinating techniques of introspection, textual and historical analysis, and critical theoretic cultural criticism. A big ingredient that was missed in the original version that you saw posted here, which was picked up in subsequent revisions to the original document, was the inclusion of the intersubjective voice of others, of consumers reflecting about their own technology consumption . In fact, in subsequent revisions that included consumer interviews, it was this element that rose to the forefront, completely overshadowing the semiotic reading of the technology ad and the overt green criticism (implicitly, it remained). In future blog postings, I’ll have more announcements about the final deposition of the paper that this once was. I think the open format, showing you (the public, as well as those of you who practice “The Craft” of Re:Search) the tricky process of journal submission, rejection, and revision, can be quite informative.

On to the analysis, and the conclusion for this lengthy set of blog entries.

As the cultural meanings of that one single advertisement (the Sun Microsystems ad) met the subjective perceptions of one particular reader (yours truly), the result was a subjective account that highlighted the way in which science fiction meanings from the macro-social field had been appropriated by the industrial field of high technology marketing. The sociohistorical contexts of this association were empirically examined through textual interpretation and historical analysis. A collective framework that drew from contemporary criticism of consumer culture, particularly its social (e.g., Murray and Ozanne 1991, Rosenblatt 1999) and ecological (e.g., Ross 1991) aspects then explored the macro-societal ramifications of this conjunction of meanings. It concluded with a consideration of the collective context and a suggestion of a response from the research community.

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