“Amor à mineira”: cultura do consumo e traços da cultura mineira nas comemorações do Dia dos Namorados

Este artigo apresenta resultados de uma pesquisa empírica conduzida com o objetivo de analisar as articulações entre o consumo e o universo cultural do estado de Minas Gerais, Brasil, no contexto das comemorações de uma importante data do comércio varejista – o Dia dos Namorados. Na revisão da literatura foram contempladas discussões acerca das características da cultura do consumo, da Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) e de traços da cultura mineira. Foram conduzidas 10 entrevistas em profundidade com o auxílio de um roteiro semiestruturado de entrevista, cujas transcrições foram analisadas por meio da técnica de Análise de Conteúdo. Os resultados permitem afirmar que o Dia dos Namorados é carregado de sentimentos positivos, característicos do romantismo envolvendo a data, algo que é representado pela presença marcante das palavras “afeto”, “atenção”, “cuidado”, “amor”, “carinho”, “sentimento”, entre outras. Percebeu-se também a presença destacada tanto de atos e comportamentos ligados à presença de presentes e aspectos experienciais do consumo diretamente atrelados a todos esses sentimentos. Em paralelo, identificou-se traços característicos da cultura mineira como apego às tradições, à parcimônia e à sobriedade. Tudo isso parece ratificar a noção de que tanto a cultura do consumo como a cultura mineira permeiam essa data.

Mountain bikers' attitudes towards mountain biking tourism destinations

<p>This thesis, grounded in consumer culture theory, delves into the sociocultural dynamics involved in tourist attitude content and formation. It addresses gaps in special interest tourism, sports tourism and tourist attitudes towards destinations literatures and further knowledge of mountain biking tourism, a niche, but growing, market. Qualitative methods grounded in interpretivism were used to understand how mountain bikers purposefully traveling to mountain bike tourism destinations form attitudes towards these destinations. Twenty-five mountain bikers from Wellington who qualified as serious leisure participants and had previously travelled for the primary purpose of mountain biking were interviewed. Social influence – through social ties, interactions and subcultural involvement – plays a central role in the respondents’ travel motivations and information search process, and thus influences attitude formation, strength and content. Therefore, the respondents are grouped based on centrality of mountain biking identity and subsequent desire to align with the subculture, and differences in attitude formation processes are highlighted. The respondents hold positive attitudes towards most destinations, emphasizing the need to investigate attitude strength and degree of positivity. Four main evaluative dimensions of attitudes are detailed (adventurous, natural, social and utilitarian). It is established that attitudes towards tourism destinations are (1) a qualitative evaluation of the experience anticipated or enabled rather that a quantitative appraisal of attributes, (2) continuously adjusted from the point of naïve awareness onwards, and (3) most relevant and revealing when operationalised as holistic summary evaluations rather than interrelated components. Based on an increased understanding of attitudes towards mountain biking tourism destinations, their formation and mountain biking subculture, recommendations are drawn to better design, maintain and promote sites.</p>

Mountain bikers' attitudes towards mountain biking tourism destinations

<p>This thesis, grounded in consumer culture theory, delves into the sociocultural dynamics involved in tourist attitude content and formation. It addresses gaps in special interest tourism, sports tourism and tourist attitudes towards destinations literatures and further knowledge of mountain biking tourism, a niche, but growing, market. Qualitative methods grounded in interpretivism were used to understand how mountain bikers purposefully traveling to mountain bike tourism destinations form attitudes towards these destinations. Twenty-five mountain bikers from Wellington who qualified as serious leisure participants and had previously travelled for the primary purpose of mountain biking were interviewed. Social influence – through social ties, interactions and subcultural involvement – plays a central role in the respondents’ travel motivations and information search process, and thus influences attitude formation, strength and content. Therefore, the respondents are grouped based on centrality of mountain biking identity and subsequent desire to align with the subculture, and differences in attitude formation processes are highlighted. The respondents hold positive attitudes towards most destinations, emphasizing the need to investigate attitude strength and degree of positivity. Four main evaluative dimensions of attitudes are detailed (adventurous, natural, social and utilitarian). It is established that attitudes towards tourism destinations are (1) a qualitative evaluation of the experience anticipated or enabled rather that a quantitative appraisal of attributes, (2) continuously adjusted from the point of naïve awareness onwards, and (3) most relevant and revealing when operationalised as holistic summary evaluations rather than interrelated components. Based on an increased understanding of attitudes towards mountain biking tourism destinations, their formation and mountain biking subculture, recommendations are drawn to better design, maintain and promote sites.</p>

Determinants of Halal Awareness and Its Implications for Behavioral Intention

Aims: This study aims to investigate the effect of consumer awareness influenced by knowledge, religiosity, and subjective norm on behavioral intention to buy halal food products in Indonesia. Methodology: Structural equation modeling methods were used in hypothesis testing. Results: The eight tests show no causal relationship between Knowledge and Behavioral Intention. This means that Knowledge does not significantly influence Behavioral Intention to buy halal products. Furthermore, Knowledge, Religiosity, and Subjective Norm have a significant simultaneous influence on Attitude. Similarly, Knowledge, Religiosity, Subjective Norm, and Attitude have a significant concurrent influence on Behavioral Intention. Conclusion: In scientific development, theoretical contributions in halal food are carried out by adding variables, including halalness value creation quality to develop a sustainable halal ecosystem. However, further research should be conducted, especially in the value creation process using another grand supporting theory. Novelty: This study uses quantitative analysis by providing a new conceptual model and the relationship between variables based on consumer culture theory as a novelty.

‘He’s got the touch’: Tracing the masculine regulation of the body schema in reciprocal relations between ‘self-others-things’

The purpose of this article is to examine the interconnections between embodiment and masculinity. Departing from the predominant discursive view of masculinity, I explain how a phenomenological, post-dualistic approach, inspired by Merleau-Ponty and Butler, can be mobilized to conceptualize masculinity as an embodied, performative accomplishment that reverberates around socio-material relations. Towards this end, this article traces the masculine regulation of the body schema as it develops in reciprocal relations between ‘self-others-things’. Drawing from reflexive field notes and participant interviews, gathered over a 5-year period of observant participation with male motorcycle repairers, the article shows machinic masculinity as an embodied emplacement that is constituted by socio-material entanglements and performative enactments. In so doing, the article conceptually reframes how masculinity and embodiment are understood in Consumer Culture Theory (CCT).

Resisting to Game of Thrones: a fannish agonism

PurposeFans have been characterized as specialized consumers who often express disagreements with the entertainment industry's decisions, especially when it comes to the original content of the works that serve as the basis for the development of media products, evidencing a kind of consumer resistance. Under a Foucauldian perspective aligned with the consumer culture theory (CCT), power relations are established in a dynamic of power exercise and resistance to power. Based on this, the authors pose the following research question: how do fans of media products resist the changes made by the entertainment industry in relation to their canons?Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted the Foucault's genealogy of power as a method, analyzing the comments posted on the Westeros.Org website, the main discussion forum of fans of A Song of Ice and Fire (ASoIaF) book series and Game of Thrones (GoT) TV series.FindingsThe findings reveal ways of resistance in relation to the adaptation of the media text permeated by an entertainment dispositif, which considers the adaptation legitimate, and a fannish dispositif, which criticizes the way this adaptation was made. However, their empirical categories reveal that they are forged not only from singularities but also from overlaps. The authors conclude, therefore, that this process occurs in an agonist way, in which conflicts are fought as a reciprocal incitement revealing a productive and ethical relationship.Originality/valueThe agonism shows how consumers can simultaneously be led to incorporate and resist to discourses and market practices. This demonstrates how resistance is not necessarily a force opposed to another, but a dynamic of reciprocal negotiation.

Consumer movements, brand activism, and the participatory politics of media: A conversation

This is a scripted adaptation of a conversational podcast interview between Henry Jenkins and Robert Kozinets about contemporary consumer activism and its relationship to media studies. After the interview, the conversants agreed to develop the transcript of the conversation in order to be more relevant to a scholarly audience who are interested in how Jenkins’ ideas apply to the understanding and investigation of consumer culture today. The conversation frames and synthesizes a range of thinking around activism, fan studies, brand management, and consumer culture theory. Couched in the American context but containing themes that may also relate to global culture in the current moment, it covers the theoretical as well as the pragmatic concerns of many of the stakeholders in the world of contemporary consumer activism, from the activists themselves to the brand managers who respond to their actions to the creators who write the stories that inspire them both. Topics include the relevance of participatory culture today, anti-racism and the role of media, consumer conflicts with brands and the corporations who police them, the importance of civic imagination to civic engagement, differences between brand managers and story creators, consumer activism in the workplace, activist and participatory approaches to civic research, the nature of contemporary consumer activist movements, the impact of intersectionality, and the prefigurative possibilities for change today.