[pt] Esta dissertação buscou contribuir para análise de como os consumidores da classe C consomem shopping centers. Para alcançar tal objetivo, primeiramente foi revisada a literatura sobre Consumer Culture Theory para proporcionar um contexto relativo à análise, depois estudou-se o consumo no segmento de baixa renda, especificamente o conceito de Nova Classe Média (classe C), segundo Neri (2008), e suas implicações para o comportamento do consumidor. Adicionalmente, buscou-se entender na literatura a questão sobre o comportamento dos consumidores da baixa renda, especificamente da classe C, com relação aos shopping centers. Foram conduzidas 22 entrevistas em profundidade com entrevistados em quatro shopping centers da região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro, todos tendo como público principal consumidores de baixa renda. Na análise dos dados, foram estudadas as entrevistas de membros da classe C, sendo codificadas utilizando o programa Atlas-ti. Os temas e descrições foram relacionados com a teoria fundamentada para, então, se chegar a interpretações dos significados dos mesmos. Os principais achados foram: é mais importante frequentar o shopping para os entrevistados que a compra no shopping; apesar da preferência pelo ambiente do shopping, os entrevistados demonstraram maior intenção de compra nos ambientes varejistas de rua; a internet influenciou mudanças no comportamento dos consumidores da classe C em relação aos shopping centers; e mesmo tendo a expectativa de não reduzir a frequência de idas ao shopping devido à redução de renda, os consumidores da classe C acabaram frequentando menos os shopping após uma redução de renda. / [en] This study sought to contribute to the understanding of how class C consumers consume malls. Firstly, in order to achieve this goal, literature on Consumer Culture Theory was reviewed to provide context to the analysis. Then, consumption by the low-income segment, specifically the New Middle Class (class C), according to Neri (2008), was studied and its implications on consumer behavior. In addition, available literature regarding the behavior of low-income consumers, specifically of class C consumers, with respect to shopping malls was analyzed. A total of 22 in-depth interviews were conducted with respondents in four shopping malls in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro, all having as main target segment low-income consumers. In data analysis, interviews from class C consumers were studied and encoded using the Atlas-ti software. The themes and reports were related to the contextual theory to then arrive at interpretations of the meanings of such accounts. The main findings were: visiting the mall was more important than buying in the malls, as purchase intent in street retail environments was higher than in malls despite the preference for shopping environment; the internet has influenced changes in class C consumer behavior with respect to shopping malls; and even though the expectation of consumers is that their mall visitation frequency will not be reduced as a result of a decrease in income, class C consumers ended up reducing the amount of visits to the mall after an actual income reduction.

This study explores the marketability of Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales, published in the US in 1934. The term marketability is used to refer to the book as a potentially desirable object for sale on the market, successfully promoted by the Book-of-the-Month-Club whose members were intent on educating themselves and refining their taste. The set-up and marketing strategies of the Book-of-the-Month-Club are considered in relation to the role of advertising as a discourse teaching social and personal values in a developing consumer culture where identity and personality were represented as never-ending, imperative projects.  The consuming self is an individual freed from the restraints of tradition and communal values, making her free choice of whom to be on an increasingly diverse market, endlessly reinventing her identity. But this self is also a commodity on an increasingly complex and impersonal market where appearance is destiny. A historically contextualized reading of Seven Gothic Tales makes it possible to use the term marketability to refer to the work itself as a literary investigation of the conditions of identity-construction in a culture dominated by market-mediated relationships. In this reading, the Great Depression figures as a moment that reveals the degree to which consumerist ideology and logic had come to determine the possibilities of imagining being and identity, a condition that Seven Gothic Tales both reflects and resists. The effect of globalized transformation of production and consumption were felt in the two places that went into the making of Seven Gothic Tales: the US where it was first published and colonial Kenya where the author lived between 1914 and 1931 and where the book was begun. This study argues that the success of Seven Gothic Tales in the US depended on the way in which Blixen/Dinesen's experience of colonial Kenya was an experience of commercial modernity that reverberated with the experience of the American readers. Central to this argument is the ideal of feudalism as an explicit and decisive element in the creation of colonial Kenya. The aristocratic theme that permeates Seven Gothic Tales must be understood in relation to a colonial socioeconomic context that reinvented the feudal ideal as a marketable commodity at a time when social status and identity had become negotiable on a consumer market.

This thesis updates John Berger's work of critical visual theory, Ways of Seeing, to accommodate emerging web 2.0 technologies and new social media platforms. It analyzes the symbols of wealth and status encoded in both 15th century oil paintings and contemporary Instagram posts and attempts to dissect how American celebrity culture complicates methods of self-promotion and upscale emulation.

Physical exercise is a trend that continues to grow, especially at the gym, but there are still members that do not use their training card in full. The overall aim of this study was therefore to investigate infrequent member’s experience of their training card. To answer this, focus was on motives to card purchase and perceived opportunities and difficulties of using the training card. The data was collected at IKSU trough a group interview with four managers within the organization, a questionnaire replied by 39 infrequent members and of those 11 individual interviews. The results showed that the motives differed between the informants but the main was the physical health. The three factors that were identified as affecting were frame-, facility- and personal factors. The conclusions drawn was that training facilities can develop procedures to capture their infrequent members in three areas; the occasion for the card purchase, customized training card and follow-up.

The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how individual consumers negotiate in the collective community in order to co-create value. By making use of the concepts of ‘resources’ from the Service Dominant Logic of Marketing and ‘cultural lens’ from Consumer Culture Theory, this dissertation considers both individual and collective interaction in order to demonstrate the roles of individual consumers in the value creation process and how the value creation process works. A comprehensive and up to date review of literature provides a guide to the theory and a path for research. This dissertation employed netnography to understand social and cultural aspects of consumption from an online football fan community. The data collection also included participant and non-participant observations, and local fans interviewings. Hermeneutical framework of interpretation was used to analyse data. The findings show that consumers can co-create value among themselves through the roles of ‘provider’ and ‘beneficiary’. It shows the dynamic movement of individual consumers within the continuous learning process of value creation. This dissertation demonstrates that brand community plays a role as a platform of value creation. Consumers can co-create value among themselves through the process of engaging, educating and enriching. The finding demonstrates active roles of consumers in value creation process. This dissertation also discusses how inequalities between resources of consumers in brand community can cause conflicts among them and how these conflicts stimulate consumers to co-create the collective resources. Within this process, consumers have collectively balanced the power through the social interaction in order to eliminate the domination and conflicts. This dissertation extends the previous researches in value creation within brand community by demonstrating how individual consumers engage and negotiated in value creation process. It contributes to respond working consumers and double exploitation through ‘sacrifice’.

Whilst the idealisation of extreme slenderness is widely recognised as a problematic issue, the negative portrayal of larger individuals is rarely criticised for its link with stigmatisation and problems with self-esteem. To the contrary, the representation of larger individuals in dehumanising terms – whether in news reports, advertising and research accounts – is generally regarded as a necessary means to encourage the pursuit of a ‘better’, ‘healthier’ self. However, these negative stereotypical portrayals – generally excluding the perspective and consent of those depicted – can also have adverse effects on human dignity, legitimacy and self-esteem of those thus depicted. Building on the work of fat studies scholars, as well as feminist marketing researchers, this research project seeks to contribute to the inclusion and rehumanisation of fuller-figured individuals, by involving them in the dialogue of visual and research representation. To do so, this research invited a group of fuller-figured women living in the UK and Canada, to ‘envision’, ‘model’, and ‘review’ their own self-presentations, primarily via the use of self-directed portraits, blogs, and conversations. Whilst the inclusion of their embodied perspectives is expected to contribute to humanising the representation of larger individuals – and offer a glimpse into what could be if we started considering women ‘of size’ as authors of their own depictions – it also contributes in filling a gap left by consumer researchers who have overlooked the way larger individuals make sense of their selves, bodies and well-being. As such, this research contributes to existing consumer research theories by explaining the ways individuals can envision their selves/bodies in the shadow of, but also in contrast with, the dominant marketplace promotion of slenderness. In terms of contribution, this research illustrates the relevance of therapeutic and embodied perspectives to understand the self, the body and to engage in acts of consumption. A new ‘self-nurtured’ discursive position offers challenges to the meanings generally attributed to larger individuals, and to the traditional approaches taken by consumer researchers to solve the ‘obesity crisis’. Overall, this research provides empirical, methodological and theoretical contributions to the field of consumer research. It also offers practical implications for the representation of larger individuals, and recommendations for those interested in the social marketing of health to enjoin people of all sizes in mindful acts of self-care and consumption.

Uppsatsen har för avsikt att skapa förståelse i hur symboliska värden påverkar konsumtionen av naturvin. I den postmoderna konsumtionskulturen sker konsumtionen i syfte att bygga upp bilden av sig själv, snarare än att konsumera produkter av praktisk nytta. Studien omfattar ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av symbolisk interaktionism, konsumtionskulturen och den postmoderna marknadsföringen. Genom en existentiell fenomenologisk metod har konsumenters upplevelser med naturvinet studerats och tolkas. Tolkning utfördes genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys och mynnade ut i betydelsefulla symboler. Resultatet pekar på att symbolerna i naturvinet bidrar till ett gott liv, en gemenskap och en kamp om vinets existens. I studien framgår det att konsumtionens främsta anledning inte handlar om smakupplevelsen utan har en djupare mening än så.

Along with an increased online presence, as well as expanded trade agreement between EU countries, the Swedish online gambling market has been facilitated and made more accessible than ever before. As a consequence, this growing gambling market has also correlated with increased gambling-related health- and economical issues amongst Swedish gamblers. At the same time online gambling companies keep increasing their investments in external communication and marketing activities. In order to protect the public, the governmental initiative “Spelinspektionen” initiated the new law, spellagen (2018:1138), which from the 1st of January 2019 is supposed to regulate marketing from online gambling companies. Based on a multimodal critical discourse analysis, the purpose of this study is to examine how spellagen (2018:1138) has affected marketing strategies from three different gambling companies; Leovegas, Ninja Casino and No Account Casino. The analysis studies a material based on six movies before the introduction of spellagen, and six movies after the introduction. Four central discourses has been identified, called The Hero, Action, Escapism, and Alonetime. Based on these discourses, the analysis used different tools from a multimodal discourse analysis in order to distinguish the strategies upon which the hidden- or open message was communicated. The analysis found that the gambling companies regularly used Per Binde ́s motives for gambling in their commercials. At least three out of five motives were identified through identity-creating strategies and emotional strategies which could be connected to Bindes motives “chances of winning”, “the jackpot-dream” and “moodswings”. The most prominent strategy for all of the commercials was the use of symbols and representation, which allows the company to communicate hidden or subtle meanings through connotations the company know that their target group will make. This main strategy did not make any drastic changes after the introduction of spellagen (2018:1138). The same message was still communicated, but now more often through visual elements rather than linguistic ones. The conclusion pointed out that in order for spelinspektionen to protect Swedish gamblers, spellagen (2018:1138) must be more concrete and descriptive, so that no alternative interpretations can be made. Other measures for spelinspektionen to consider is the amount of gambling commercials which the Swedish public are exposed to today.

Thesis advisor: Stephen Pfohl / The purpose of this study is to investigate the new media ecologies of urban, low-income youth and youth of color, and how they develop literacies and competencies around technology in the particular spaces of Community Technology Centers (CTCs), while placing them within their broader technological experiences and raced, classed, and gendered identities. This study builds on the concept of youth as experiencing a "new media ecology" in which youth engagement with technology is understood as a phenomenon which connects all spheres of experience. Through this work, I refine the understanding of how marginalized young people engage with technology in order to expand our understanding of digital inequality and its effects, as well as how digital inequality and inclusion interact with young people's identities and social worlds more broadly. Young people, marginalized by their raced, classes, and gendered identities, are both accused of being wasteful in their technology engagement, and are welcomed into these non-traditional learning spaces in order to cultivate their uses of technology into more meaningful and productive outcomes. There is a growing proliferation of informal and creative digital learning programs, and corresponding research and interrogation of the activities within these spaces. However, we lack a full and holistic understanding of who these young people are as technological citizens and consumers, an understanding that is necessary to inform effective interventions around digital inequality. Through qualitative research within two Boston-area Community Technology Centers, including participant observation and interviews, this study presents an analysis of how young people as agentic individuals interact with the contexts they enter into to produce new forms of agency and disempowerment. Rather than focusing on one area of the digital learning environment or youth technological experience, as other researchers have done, I delineate a more complete and dialogic view of less-advantaged young people and their technological engagement. My findings build on the need for supportive informal technology learning environments for marginalized youth, both in terms of providing stable environments with rich resources for technological exploration and skill-building, as well as providing learning environments which valorize and encourage youth agency and identity work. It is also necessary to recognize and allow for differences among youth in these spaces, who vary not only in terms of race, class, and gender, but also skills, abilities, interests, and motivations. I also call attention to the ways in which structural inequalities enter into these informal learning environments, resulting in their reproduction. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

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