Conference-YouTube Utopias: Profanation and Counter-power on the Front Lines of Social Media

À propos de
l'événement

Le Centre en commerce de détail et marketing numérique est heureux de vous inviter à la conférence YouTube Utopias: Profanation and Counter-power on the Front Lines of Social Media. Cette conférence sera offerte par un invité de prestige, M. Robert Kozinets, professeur à la University of Southern California. À noter que la conférence sera présentée en anglais.

Résumé de la conférence

Utopia is a resilient concept that has long been fraught with ambivalence and skepticism. Some business and marketing research has found utopia to be a feature incorporated into the many small satisfactions of consumerist existence in neoliberal times, while others see the utopian flame burning bright within activism and resistant communities. This presentation addresses the complexity of the topic by overviewing and extending theory relating utopia to consumer culture and then by investigating whether and how ordinary people use social media to participate in utopian discourse. The empirical research uses netnography to explore three sites of utopian discourse on YouTube, presenting 13,935 comments from 9,155 distinct user names. Utopian discourse on social media expands our understanding of consumer activism and resistance in the digital age. It provides an understanding that transcends dichotomized views of utopia either incorporated into low-key marketing utopias, or present mainly with organized activist groups and enclaves. It also draws our attention to the participation of consumers in their own transformative consumer research, opening myriad possibilities for further exploration.