About this ebook
Over the past forty years, Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) has emerged as a distinctive field of study that synthesizes diverse subjects such as anthropology, cultural studies, marketing, political theory and sociology to provide new insights into consumers’ relationships to the marketplace and the influence of commercial action on culture.
This book, edited by leading scholars in CCT, contains contributions by many of its leading researchers, and distills this interdisciplinary field into a concise accessible overview for students and early career researchers. It describes the key themes, concepts and theoretical areas of CCT; explains why they are useful in understanding consumption and marketplace phenomena; and shows how they can be applied to a wide range of research contexts.
Drawing on real-world scenarios, reflective tasks and international case studies to help aid theoretical understanding and critical thinking, the text is designed to support a course in CCT, supplement related study, and guide undergraduate and postgraduate students in writing a CCT-related dissertation/thesis. It is the go-to text for anyone who is curious about, new to CCT, or looking for an integrative compendium of CCT research and its implications.
Eric J. Arnould is Emeritus Professor of Marketing at the Aalto University Business School, Finland.
Craig J. Thompson is the Churchill-Bascom Professor of Marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
David Crockett is Professor of Marketing at the University of Illinois Chicago, USA.
Michelle F. Weinberger is Associate Professor at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA.
About the author
Dr. Eric Arnouldis Visiting Professor of Marketing at the Aalto University Business School and Adjunct Professor at EMLYON France. He has been on faculty at four European universities and several in the US. He has pursued a career in applied social science since 1973, receiving a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1982. Aalto University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2016. Early ethnographic research in West Africa inspired his approach to contemporary market mediated society. Current interests include collective consumer creativity, human branding, sustainable business practice, visual representations, and digital mobility.
Craig J. Thompson is the Churchill Professor of Marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published in a wide range of marketing, consumer research, and sociological journals. He has co-authored the book The Phenomenology of Everyday Life and co-edited Sustainable Lifestyles and the Quest for Plenitude: Case Studies of the New Economy. Craig has served as an associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Consumer Culture. Craig is the current president of the Consumer Culture Theory Consortium. Craig was the Society for Marketing Advances 2014 Distinguished Marketing Scholar Award. In 2017, he was named an Association of Consumer Research Fellow.
