Abstract
Consumer researchers have most frequently looked at the influence the marketplace has on consumers' identity projects, while the reverse process - how consumers' identity projects influence the marketplace and general culture - is an important issue that has received less attention. Aiming to contribute to the development of this literature, we conduct a qualitative netnographic investigation of the Fat Acceptance Movement, an online-based movement led by consumer-activists who attempt to change societal attitudes about people who are fat. Our main goal is, therefore, to investigate how consumer activists who congregate online, that is, cyberactivists, reframe market offers while attempting to promote market and cultural change. We identify several rhetorical strategies employed by online consumer activists in their quests to change themselves, other consumers, and the broader culture. Our findings advance consumer research on how consumers may mobilize resources to initiate and promote self-, market-, and cultural transformations.
Highlights
With the revitalization of blogs as networking platforms and the popularization of social media, consumer activists have found on the internet a platform to extend their capabilities of promoting social and cultural change - both online and offline
Our main goal in this study is to investigate how consumer activists, in the context of the social fat acceptance movement, reframe market offers while pursuing identity projects, and attempting to promote market and cultural change
When focusing on posts related to market offers, the goals of the Fat Acceptance (FA) movement converge towards denouncing the dissemination and reinforcement of fat stereotypes by the media and other companies
Summary
With the revitalization of blogs as networking platforms and the popularization of social media, consumer activists have found on the internet a platform to extend their capabilities of promoting social and cultural change - both online and offline. Activists usually frame distinct movement cultures as alternatives to the status quo that the movement criticizes or challenges. These acts of framing have been considered a key factor in a movement’s ability to successfully promote market and cultural change (Benford & Snow, 2000). Kozinets, 2002; Kozinets & Handelman, 2004; Muñiz & Schau, 2005) and their relationship to the market This collective body of work has explored “the heterogeneous distribution of meanings and the multiplicity of overlapping cultural groupings that exist within the broader sociohistoric frame of globalization and market capitalism” Highly relevant to our study, these bodies of work have not sufficiently addressed three important aspects of consumers’ collective activism
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