ORGANISATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Organisational Research Methods

Organisational Research Methods

Introduction

Before beginning empirical analysis in order to evaluate the most significant issues posed by previous analysts of collective consumption, it is necessary to establish a broad theoretical framework for conceiving of this behaviour. Analysis will commence with those models used most frequently and directly to explore collective consumption: subculture, fandom, and audience. Finally, a social theory focused on the intersection of cultural norms will be outlined, one built on theorizing by scholars in anthropology and consumer culture theory [CCT]. Therefore, all the issues related to Organisational Methods will be discussed in detail.

Analysis

The popularity of CCCS sub cultural theory has spawned a cottage industry of critiques by cultural studies scholars, who have repeatedly pointed out the significant flaws that resulted from this approach. For one, while CCCS authors viewed subcultures and their unique stylistic blends as emanating from the class position of their members, they possessed no comprehensive theory of how the actual experiences of working-class youths translated into these particular tastes and activities, certainly no framework approaching the sophistication of the theory of class-based consumption Pierre Bourdieu (1977) was developing during the same period. The rigidity of the structural Marxist approach as practiced by CCCS scholars gave them little room to assess why particular individuals became involved in these forms of collective consumption, why some were more committed to them than others, what the role of these activities was in their overall lives, and how much demographic and cultural diversity was present in these social formations (Hochschild, 1983, 182).

Even the most sophisticated uses of the subculture concept, then, continue to expend effort defending the notion that particular consumption-focused interactions should somehow be seen as unique, whether via their ability to shock popular sensibilities or because of their creative autonomy. This insistence artificially narrows their object of research and thereby impedes the broad exploration of repetitive, intensive, consumption-based social life that I am interested in pursuing here. Additionally, once we realize that the 'sub-' in subculture is untenable not referring to a fundamental difference in consumer behaviour, but to a folk label given ex post facto to some instances of that behaviour, people are left with an unwieldy metaphor which does more to create an unnecessary barrier between collective consumption and broader society than it does to explain how the former is shaped by the latter. And even more vitally, a prolonged preoccupation with the basic viability of the paradigm's problematic central concept has hindered sub cultural studies' ability to formulate a social theory that can be put to use in exploring the forces which drive collective consumption rather than simply laying out the core characteristics of this behaviour, as Hodkinson does. In a continued attempt to develop such a theory, many people move on to another widely used model (Silverman, 2000, 834).

The empirical complexity introduced to reception studies by this inductive ethnographic approach in turn led authors to significantly problematize the audience concept in the late ...