Struggle of the story: towards a sociocultural model of story world tension in communal consumption

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the consumption of climbing tourists to Norway and Sweden to show how consumers are captured by collective story worlds in communal consumption. Whereas prior marketing research has been preoccupied with narrative transportation as a mental imagery process, we suggest a sociology of narrative approach that focuses on the institutional shaping of communities within which consumers engage in cultural formation with a shared social and historical context. Our empirical findings show that consumers in the climbing community experience two distinct story worlds, with different ethos, conventions and content rules, that structure why and how stories are told. We extend existing knowledge within marketing through a multifaceted understanding of how collective narratives operate and present a sociocultural model of story world tension in communal consumption.