Commodity activism (and its Traces of Hypocrisy): A Netnographic Case Study on Prosumer Interactions in Glossier’s Online Brand Communities
(2019) SKOM12 20191Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Commodity activism can be described as a communication-based strategy that reshapes social and political activism into marketable commodities. This study aims to explore how a brand’s strategic communicative usage of commodity activism, and its potential for hypocrisy, influences the prosumers’ interactions in the online brand communities. More specifically, it aims to examine the destructive aspects of branding, by investigating how commodity activism, and its traces of hypocrisy, is accomplished and negotiated by the prosumers in a brand’s online communities. This is done through a netnographic case study on the beauty brand Glossier’s online brand communities. The theoretical framework of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), commodity... (More)
- Commodity activism can be described as a communication-based strategy that reshapes social and political activism into marketable commodities. This study aims to explore how a brand’s strategic communicative usage of commodity activism, and its potential for hypocrisy, influences the prosumers’ interactions in the online brand communities. More specifically, it aims to examine the destructive aspects of branding, by investigating how commodity activism, and its traces of hypocrisy, is accomplished and negotiated by the prosumers in a brand’s online communities. This is done through a netnographic case study on the beauty brand Glossier’s online brand communities. The theoretical framework of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), commodity activism, and a heuristic model including the metaphors branding as hypocrisy and platforming navigates the study. The findings of the study uncovered contextualised insights on how prosumers act, and react, when faced with commodity activism and traces of hypocrisy in the online brand communities. Overarching themes found in the empirical material includes the features of: self-branding, brand relationships, the prosumer's empowered consumption practices, and hypocritical tensions. The results revealed a fragmentary image of the brand’s online communities where the prosumers display an ambivalence towards the notion of commodity activism and hypocrisy, some adapt into it whilst other openly rejects it, exemplifying the unfavourable position of being a prosumer in today’s capitalised society. The study has produced insights on how to critically approach online brand communities and its prosumers, and urge future research regarding the social and destructive aspects of branding. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8993448
- author
- Holst, Julia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOM12 20191
- year
- 2019
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Commodity Activism, Hypocrisy, Consumer Culture Theory, Branding, Prosumers, Online Brand Community, Interactions
- language
- English
- id
- 8993448
- date added to LUP
- 2019-11-07 11:28:09
- date last changed
- 2019-11-07 11:28:09
@misc{8993448,
abstract = {{Commodity activism can be described as a communication-based strategy that reshapes social and political activism into marketable commodities. This study aims to explore how a brand’s strategic communicative usage of commodity activism, and its potential for hypocrisy, influences the prosumers’ interactions in the online brand communities. More specifically, it aims to examine the destructive aspects of branding, by investigating how commodity activism, and its traces of hypocrisy, is accomplished and negotiated by the prosumers in a brand’s online communities. This is done through a netnographic case study on the beauty brand Glossier’s online brand communities. The theoretical framework of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), commodity activism, and a heuristic model including the metaphors branding as hypocrisy and platforming navigates the study. The findings of the study uncovered contextualised insights on how prosumers act, and react, when faced with commodity activism and traces of hypocrisy in the online brand communities. Overarching themes found in the empirical material includes the features of: self-branding, brand relationships, the prosumer's empowered consumption practices, and hypocritical tensions. The results revealed a fragmentary image of the brand’s online communities where the prosumers display an ambivalence towards the notion of commodity activism and hypocrisy, some adapt into it whilst other openly rejects it, exemplifying the unfavourable position of being a prosumer in today’s capitalised society. The study has produced insights on how to critically approach online brand communities and its prosumers, and urge future research regarding the social and destructive aspects of branding.}},
author = {{Holst, Julia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Commodity activism (and its Traces of Hypocrisy): A Netnographic Case Study on Prosumer Interactions in Glossier’s Online Brand Communities}},
year = {{2019}},
}