The Authority Of The Consumer

This book is about the authority of the consumer in contemporary society. It explores the implications of consumer society - charting its meanings in particular contexts and debating the merits or drawbacks of this way of understanding the relationship between providers and recipients. Some have seen this development as involving a radical shift of authority - away from the provider/producer and towards the recipient/consumer. But they have differed in their responses to this shift, either welcoming it in terms of democratization, anti-elitism or empowerment, or decrying it as commercialization, populism or loss of integrity. Others have been more sceptical.

The Authority of the Consumer explores the implications of consumer society - charting its meanings in particular contexts and debating the merits or drawbacks of this way of understanding the relationship between providers and recipients . Some have seen this development as involving a radical shift of authority - away from the provider/producer and towards the recipient/consumer. But they have differed in their responses to this shift, either welcoming it in terms of democratization, anti-elitism or empowerment, or decrying it as commercialization, populism or loss of integrity. Others have been more sceptical. These issues are explored in this important and wide-ranging book. The authors have drawn from several disciplines in the social sciences and humanities and include several non-academics. Keat has also published Enterprise Culture , with Urry (Routledge, 1991); Politics of Social Theory (Blackwell, 1981); and Understanding Phenomenology (Blackwell, 1991). Abercrombie has published Contemporary British Society (Polity, 1988); and Social Change in Contemporary Britain (Polity, 1991). Review: The distinctive perspective of this collection is in linking the emphasis on consumerism in contemporary public discourse with our theorizations of power, or more precisely authority, in late-modern Britain...One of the great pleasures of this book is that the authors are clearly working seriously at the extent to which we have to re-think established prejudices..