Com um olhar voltado para a cultura gaúcha e sob uma perspectiva teórica de mercado, fluxos globais e formas de resistência, esta tese teve o objetivo de compreender e analisar as práticas de resistência que os agentes locais desenvolvem no âmbito do mercado, para a preservação da tradição e da cultura local. Para isto, sua organização seguiu diferentes percursos, iniciando por um percurso teórico, que envolveu uma construção teórica acerca da cultura do mercado e das formas de resistência. No percurso empírico, adotou-se uma perspectiva interpretativista, por meio de um estudo de cunho etnográfico na cultura gaúcha. A coleta de dados ocorreu no período de 2009 a 2012, por meio de entrevistas, observação participante, coleta de artefatos e survey. A análise dos resultados foi apresentada em oito partes, organizadas a partir das categorias de análises geradas na interpretação dos dados. Além de descrever densamente a cultura gaúcha, os resultados foram interpretados tanto pelo lado da resistência – reconhecendo a existência de uma resistência de mercado –, quanto por uma perspectiva de cidadania – reconhecida como um conjunto de práticas que geram um sentimento de pertencimento à cultura gaúcha. Os resultados alcançados buscam contribuir principalmente na teorização acerca do modo como o mercado media a articulação de diferentes agentes locais (produtores, consumidores e organizadores) em práticas de resistência e cidadania. / With an attention on gaucho culture and under a theoretical perspective of market, global flows and resistance forms, this thesis has the objective to understand and to analyses local agents’ resistance practices developed in the market to preservation of the tradition and local culture. For this, its organization follows different courses, beginning with a theoretical course that involves a theoretical construction around market culture and resistance forms. In the empirical course, it was adopt an interpretative perspective, using an ethnographic inspiration to analyze the gaucho culture. Data collection was conducted between 2009 and 2012 through interviews, participant observation, artifacts’ collection and survey. Result analyses were presented in eight parts organized from analytic categories generation during data interpretations. Results include a dense gaucho culture description and data interpretation include a resistance perspective – recognizing the existence of a market resistance –, as well as a citizenship perspective – identified as a practice set that generate a belonging felling around the gaucho culture. Results search to contribute specially in the theorization about the forms of how the market mediate the articulation of different local agents (producers, consumers, organizers) in resistance and citizenship practices.

Cette recherche, centrée sur le concept de « valeur de lien », traite plus spécifiquement de sa mobilisation au sein de l’entreprise d’assurance mutualiste, en vue d’esquisser un renouveau de son modèle ainsi que de l’idéal démocratique dont il est porteur. Elle s’inscrit dans les évolutions de la société contemporaine, dans laquelle le consumérisme de masse fait progressivement place à une consommation choisie, et où la relation de pur commerce prend une dimension sociétale. La dichotomie classique producteur-consommateur est ainsi tempérée, et l’on assiste à l’établissement de nouveaux types de relations entre les acteurs de la consommation. L’analyse de ce processus d’effacement progressif des frontières entre acteurs de la consommation est au cœur de notre travail. En effet, au sein des sociétés d’assurance mutualistes, les parties prenantes nouent des relations spécifiques, qui dépassent la relation de consommation classique, apportant à l’échange marchand, au-delà d’une valeur d’échange et d’une valeur d’usage, une « valeur de lien ». Le concept de valeur de lien est issu des sciences sociales. L’émergence des « communautés de marques » dans le domaine de l’économie des biens a conduit les théoriciens et les praticiens du marketing à mobiliser ce concept dans les sciences de gestion. Mais la mobilisation de ce concept dans l’économie des services et plus spécifiquement dans l’assurance, reste encore fragmentaire et partielle, laissant ainsi un champ libre à ce travail de recherche. Notre recherche trouve son ancrage dans un travail d’enquête effectué au sein du sociétariat et de certains personnels du groupe Macif. Nous avons été conduits à qualifier la valeur de lien « d’objet fuyant », et donc à concevoir une démarche d’investigation spécifique permettant de la mettre en évidence et de la caractériser au sein de l’entreprise. Cette démarche s’appuie sur une analyse d’entretiens effectués auprès d’un groupe exploratoire constitué de sociétaires et de personnels en contact du groupe Macif. Elle met en œuvre une technique de codage des données et un traitement informatique adapté (logiciel Modalisa). La démarche d’investigation s’effectue selon une double analyse des données, de type étique-émique (ou horizontal-vertical), visant tout d’abord à comprendre ce qui fait sens à travers les discours des répondants, ensuite à dégager de ce sens les éléments d’une structuration de la valeur de lien. Une telle démarche implique notamment, de la part de l’intervieweur, une capacité d’empathie avec les répondants. Notre recherche nous conduit à dégager les résultats suivants : • En premier lieu, nous qualifions « l’expérience du lien », fondée sur les émotions, une intention de réciprocité, une éthique de fonctionnement et une confiance partagée. • Ensuite, une caractérisation de la valeur de lien dans le champ mutualiste est proposée, sur la base d’une extension de la typologie de Rémy (2000), qui fait actuellement référence dans le champ des entreprises de service. • Puis nous montrons comment la valeur de lien se manifeste, selon que le lien est fondé sur un militantisme a priori, ou sur une relation suscitée a posteriori lors de l’échange entre les personnels en contact et les assurés. • Nous soulignons les principaux traits de la valeur de lien : une capacité à tempérer l’altérité créée par le contrat, une dissymétrie entre les partenaires de l’échange, un manque de sentiment communautaire au sein-même du sociétariat. • Nous dégageons les domaines d’expression privilégiés de cette valeur de lien : l’empathie dont témoignent les personnels en contact et les dispositifs à visée solidaire et de l’entreprise. • La reconnaissance émerge également comme fondatrice de la valeur de lien. Notre démarche s’inscrit dans le champ de la théorie de la reconnaissance qui fonde une éthique de la relation interpersonnelle, constitutive du lien social. [...] / This research focuses on the concept of « linking value », applied to mutualist insurance companies, in order to contribute to the revival of their core values and democratic ideals. It is fed by the evolutions of contemporary society, where chosen consumption is progressively replacing mass consumerism, thus moderating the producer-consumer dichotomy, which allows new types of relationships between actors to emerge. The progressive disappearance of the borders between consumption actors is key to our work, as the mutualist insurance companies’ stakeholders build new types of relations, beyond classic consumption relations, which yields not only exchange value and use value, but also a linking value. The concept of linking value was originally developed by social science, and further brand community developments have led to mobilize this notion in the marketing field. Its usage in the field of insurance services is new. Our work comprises a survey among members of Groupe Macif, including interviews with Macif employees, Macif delegates, and Macif’s historic founder. Linking value is an “evasive object”, and we had to implement a specific research methodology in order to bring it to light and characterize it within the company. To analyze the interviews, we used an appropriate coding technique, through dedicated software (Modalisa). The research is carried through a double data analysis method, named etic - emic (or horizontal – vertical), aimed first at understanding what has a meaning in the respondent’s locutions, and then at identifying the elements of structure of the linking value from the meanings identified. Such reasoning requires that the interviewer has empathy capacities with the respondents. Our research brings the following results: • First, we qualify the “link experience” based on emotions, a reciprocity intention, an ethical functioning and shared confidence. • We then propose a characterization of linking value in the mutualist field, based on an extension to Rémy’s typology (2000), which is the current reference for services companies. • Next, we show how linking value emerges, depending on it being based on a priori activism, or on a posteriori relationship between the employees and the policy holder. • We establish the main characteristics of linking value: its capacity to temper the otherness created by the contract, an asymmetry between the partners of the exchange, the very lack of community feelings among members. • We expose the privileged expression vectors for this linking value: the empathy deployed by company’s employees and the solidarity schemes. • Recognition emerges also as a foundation to linking value. We register our reasoning in the field of recognition theory, as it founds an ethic of interpersonal relationship, constituent of social link. The mutual recognition dynamics allows each individual to experience a “collective revival”, and to share his belonging to a political or ethical community, without losing his identity. Mutualist insurance companies need to recognize such a pluralist community, in which each individual sees himself in the purpose of a company model, as this recognition founds linking value. We finally show that resuming the democratic ideals that historically founded Mutualist Associations is what will allow them to restore an authentic social link, in the spirit of modern mutualism.

Com um olhar voltado para a cultura gaúcha e sob uma perspectiva teórica de mercado, fluxos globais e formas de resistência, esta tese teve o objetivo de compreender e analisar as práticas de resistência que os agentes locais desenvolvem no âmbito do mercado, para a preservação da tradição e da cultura local. Para isto, sua organização seguiu diferentes percursos, iniciando por um percurso teórico, que envolveu uma construção teórica acerca da cultura do mercado e das formas de resistência. No percurso empírico, adotou-se uma perspectiva interpretativista, por meio de um estudo de cunho etnográfico na cultura gaúcha. A coleta de dados ocorreu no período de 2009 a 2012, por meio de entrevistas, observação participante, coleta de artefatos e survey. A análise dos resultados foi apresentada em oito partes, organizadas a partir das categorias de análises geradas na interpretação dos dados. Além de descrever densamente a cultura gaúcha, os resultados foram interpretados tanto pelo lado da resistência – reconhecendo a existência de uma resistência de mercado –, quanto por uma perspectiva de cidadania – reconhecida como um conjunto de práticas que geram um sentimento de pertencimento à cultura gaúcha. Os resultados alcançados buscam contribuir principalmente na teorização acerca do modo como o mercado media a articulação de diferentes agentes locais (produtores, consumidores e organizadores) em práticas de resistência e cidadania. / With an attention on gaucho culture and under a theoretical perspective of market, global flows and resistance forms, this thesis has the objective to understand and to analyses local agents’ resistance practices developed in the market to preservation of the tradition and local culture. For this, its organization follows different courses, beginning with a theoretical course that involves a theoretical construction around market culture and resistance forms. In the empirical course, it was adopt an interpretative perspective, using an ethnographic inspiration to analyze the gaucho culture. Data collection was conducted between 2009 and 2012 through interviews, participant observation, artifacts’ collection and survey. Result analyses were presented in eight parts organized from analytic categories generation during data interpretations. Results include a dense gaucho culture description and data interpretation include a resistance perspective – recognizing the existence of a market resistance –, as well as a citizenship perspective – identified as a practice set that generate a belonging felling around the gaucho culture. Results search to contribute specially in the theorization about the forms of how the market mediate the articulation of different local agents (producers, consumers, organizers) in resistance and citizenship practices.

This thesis investigates the production and consumption of the independent music sector in South Korea in the digital age. It examines the value of music and how it is created in the digital age. Thus, it suggests the impacts of the Internet for consumers and producers. The investigation is based on the view that there has been a transition to value co-creation by consumers and producers, away from the traditional view of value being produced by firms alone, and that this value can be symbolic, emotional and experiential. The thesis shows that this transition has indeed occurred in the music industry. To investigate value and value creation in popular music in the digital age, an in-depth single case study of the independent music industry in South Korea is conducted. Qualitative data was collected, using semi-structured interviews, from independent music consumers and independent record labels. This research reveals that consumers’ music consumption is made up of both information-processing and experiential behaviours. Their desire to minimize the inappropriateness and maximize the appropriateness of independent music and its culture contributes to its sustainment and expansion. This research also reveals the online practices of consumers, categorized into three themes: acquisition, relationship and engagement. In addition, the examination of music communities in South Korea shows that consumers are resource integrators. It reveals that the consumption communities are organized and maintained through various operant resources of the participants. The data from the independent record labels reveals that they are trying hard to interact with consumers and benefit from the new media. They are found to conduct four value (co)creation strategies: contacting, bonding, spreading and managing. Finally, this research shows that difficulties in utilizing social media can be categorized into the following: adaptability, uncontrollability, representability and applicability. The key contributions of this research are as follows: Firstly, it extends our understanding of the symbolic consumption of music. Secondly, it identifies a form of consumption community, which can be termed a ‘co-creative consumption community’. Lastly, it demonstrates the value (co)creation practices used by consumers and the strategies used by producers. These findings extend the existing knowledge and suggest new evidence that contributes to an increased understanding of the concept of value co-creation, and to consumer research in general. In addition, the findings will benefit marketers and producers, especially in cultural industries such as the music industry.

This research explores how Vietnam’s embrace of capitalism and global markets has impacted consumer culture. Through ethnographic research conducted in Hanoi, Vietnam in June-August 2015, this study seeks to interrogate how the political atmosphere in Vietnam coexists with market freedoms in a country which opened its economy to the world during the 1986 Doi Moi (renovation) reforms. Vietnam now conducts a considerable amount of foreign trade with major foreign investment from countries including Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. This study emphasizes the role international relations have played in these developments as Vietnam has embraced partnerships with countries with which it was previously at war. This approach includes a self-reflexive critique of my role in the research process as a young, white American. This research engages conceptually with critical cultural studies and theories of articulation to challenge the assumed evolution of communism to capitalism within modernization theory as well as the global, homogenous spread of neoliberalism by examining how these articulations manifest in everyday life. To this end, this study seeks to explore how changing patterns of consumption brought on by open market economics are articulated with global political relationships. The analysis argues that neoliberalism is applied selectively to maintain single-party politics and an oppressive state formation, and that foreign advertising in Vietnam serves as an index of narratives of progress and economic growth. This research has significant implications for consumerism within developing countries, studies of neoliberalism, and postsocialist state formations.

I takt med att reklamtröttheten ökar i västvärlden växer sig marknadsföringsstrategin influencer marketing allt starkare. Influencers, vilka i grund och botten är helt vanliga människor, har en stor makt på sina sociala medier med tusentals till miljoner följare. De gör reklamsamarbeten med företag mot pengar och gratis produkter, och i gengäld hjälper de företagen nå ut till enormt stora målgrupper. Utöver betalda samarbeten lägger de ut fina bilder vilka stärker deras varumärken, vilket vanligtvis innebär att framhäva sig själva som snygga, roliga och fina personer med ett fantastiskt och åtråvärt liv. Att influencer marketing är en effektiv form av marknadsföring har nog gått få förunnat, men utöver att påverka konsumenters köpbeteende påverkas konsumenter på ett djupare plan. Givet tidigare forskning som undersöker en något äldre kvinnlig målgrupp valdes unga kvinnor i generation Z som målgrupp för studien. Målgruppen är uppvuxna med sociala medier och är därför intressanta att undersöka. Således är studiens syfte att undersöka hur unga kvinnor i generation Z påverkas av influencer marketing på Instagram. För att svara på syftet har två frågeställningar formulerats. Studien har utförts med en kvalitativ metod som bestod av intervjuer med en urvalsgrupp på unga kvinnor i åldrarna 15-20 år samt med hjälp av bildanalyser av en influencers Instagramflöde, för vilket influencern Bianca Ingrosso valts. Studiens resultat visade att influencers påverkar unga kvinnor i generation Z i deras identitetsskapande och konsumentbeteende, bland annat genom att måla upp påhittade problem vilka de förstärker med ouppnåeliga, perfekta idealbilder samtidigt som de skapar starka relationer till sina följare. Detta gör att målgruppen, trots att de är kritiska till influencers och medvetna om att allt inte är så perfekt som det verkar på Instagram, jämför sig själva -– framförallt sina utseenden och sina liv – och ifrågasätter sin identitet. De konsumerar i hopp om att stärka identiteten samt för att lösa de uppmålade problemen och i försök att uppnå idealbilden. Detta bidrar till stress och press, och i vissa fall psykisk ohälsa. Att tillhöra en grupp är viktigt för målgruppens identitetsskapande och de upplever att Instagram bidrar till en rädsla för utanförskap, samtidigt som dyrkande av influencers och att hålla sig uppdaterade hjälper dem känna grupptillhörighet. De är dock generellt positiva till influencers i aspekten att de bidrar till underhållning och inspiration samt tycker sig se en positiv trend bland vissa influencers att allt inte längre måste vara perfekt, vilket får dem att känna starkare förtroende för dem. / As advertising fatigue increases in the western world, influencer marketing is growing ever stronger as a marketing strategy. Influencers, who are basically ordinary people, earn great power on their social media platforms with thousands to millions of followers. They partner with companies for money and free products, and in return, they help companies by reaching huge target groups. In addition to paid partnerships, they publish beautiful images that strengthen their brand, which usually means to emphasize themselves as good looking, funny and nice people with fantastic and desirable lives. The fact that influencer marketing is an effective form of marketing has probably been gaining ground, but in addition to influencing consumers' purchasing behavior, they also have some influence on them on a deeper level. Given previous research examining a slightly older female target group young women in generation Z were selected as the target group for this study. The target group hass grown up with social media and is therefore interesting to investigate. Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate how women in generation Z are influenced by influencer marketing on Instagram. To answer the purpose, two questions at issue were formulated, and the study was conducted using a qualitative method that consisted of interviews with a sample group of young women aged 15-20 and with the help of image analyzes of an influencer's Instagram feed. The results of the study showed that influencers affect young women in generation Z by painting up inventive problems, which they reinforce with unattainable, perfect ideal images while creating strong relationships with their followers. This means that the audience, despite being critical of influencers and aware that everything is not as perfect as it seems on Instagram, compares themselves - their looks and their lives - and thus questions their identity and consumes in hopes of strengthening it and to solve the painted problems as well as trying to achieve the ideal image. This contributes to stress and pressure, and in some cases mental illness. Belonging to a group is important for the target group when creating their identity and they feel that Instagram contributes to a fear of exclusion, while cultivating influencers and staying up to date on social media helps them feel group affiliation. However, they are generally positive to influencers in the aspect that they contribute to entertainment and inspiration. They find themselves seeing a positive trend among some influencers that everything no longer has to be perfect, which makes them feel like they are able to trust them more.

My degree project has been developed through my research on the topics of originality, consumption, vanitas and consumer culture. It referneces the politics of consumption, desire, pollution, waste, the passing of time, the effect of decay, and death. The scene is a reconstruction of a "still life" scene, referencing Baroque painting. The light-box installation comprises coloured sculptures which are emblems of consumerism. The hanmade and the organic are joined in composition, as if united in ruin and decay. The sculptures resemble the still life genre and allude to memento-mori. The project also addresses the industrial food system. It emphasises efficiency, profit and power in ways that are narrowly constructed, sometimes at the expense of other environmental and social values. It consist of a glass-cast modern cornucopia. The glass captures decomposing traces and makes them solid and everlasting. Even with something so fragile and temporary as life, the material can freeze it in time. The glass captures life.

Internet has become increasingly ubiquitous and with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies and concepts it has almost become second nature for many Internet users. This study attempts to view the “social life” of this “new” online environment through its current manifestation in the form of the popular social networking site Facebook. It argues that Facebook has become a tool for the management of one's self both online and offline and that people's reflexive relation to their self-identity is made visible through their engagement with this social media. How such a new form of social media incorporates itself into everyday life but also how the media acts as an extension of the reflexive self has been the main focus of this study.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how men and women experience personalized advertising, whether it affects the purchase decision and whether there are differences between men and women. A qualitative method has been used with the help of structured interviews within a delimitation of the Stockholm area. The theories used in this study consisted of the AIDA model, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Relationship Marketing (RM), Customization and Personalization and Consumer Culture Theory. Results of the study show that there are clear differences in how men and women experience Instagram. The main difference is that women have a more positive view of personalized advertising, which leads to actual purchases to a greater extent than men. The men in the study, on the other hand, show that it is negative to individualized advertising to a greater extent.

Keywords: ritual, rite of passage, social change, consumer culture, media This thesis deals with a ritual observed today in a panorama of extremely dense consumer culture in the highly industrialized society of Japan. The ritual in exam is known under the name of Shichigosan (translated into English as Seven-Five-Three) and it is observed by children of three, five and seven years of age. The ritual has its predecessors in various rural ritual observances that were associated to certain ages seen as threshold in the child's life. The consolidation of the urban pattern of the ritual went along with the transformation and urbanization during the Tokugawa shogunate from the 17th century onwards. The thesis describes the historical development of Shichigosan during which it has proved capable of adaptation to changing social and economic conditions without losing those elements that render it recognizable as a ritual mode of expression. The ritual in exam unfolds as a shared platform of meaning where basic social values, views on children and family life, and also individual perceptions emerge, are expressed and shaped at the same time. The main scope of the thesis is to interpret not only the reasons of the popularity of this observance, but more importantly, how its meaning in the modern Japanese...