Ideological Inconsistencies Research Articles

Negative consumer–brand relationships in services: does gender matter?

PurposeStudies on the negative aspects of consumer–brand relationships have received increasing attention in academia, but most research on this phenomenon is not focused on services. On the other hand, the literature consistently demonstrates evidence that gender affects consumer behavior. In this context, this study aims to unprecedentedly identify the antecedents of brand hate and the effects of consumer gender across different service sectors.Design/methodology/approachThis research compares the results of two studies with service companies. The first was accomplished with 307 consumers of mobile phone operators, and the second study was performed on 450 higher education students. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsIn both studies, females showed greater importance for ideological incompatibility than males. This suggests that females are more sensitive to moral issues and ethical behavior than males. As for males, negative experience is the most relevant antecedent of brand hate in both samples. However, when age is checked, the results indicate that younger males develop more brand hate than older males. This does not happen with females.Originality/valueThis study demonstrates gender differences and compares two samples applied in different service sectors: low-technological and high-touch consumer interactions. The results show that the antecedents of brand hate for males and females in the service sector differ. This study also points out that older males present a different behavior when compared to younger males, which does not happen with females.

Levelling Up, affective governance and tensions within ‘pride in place’

The ‘pride in place’ mission of the UK Government’s Levelling Up agenda has foregrounded the importance of feelings in local and national development strategies. While pride in place gestures to the emotional symptoms of geographical inequality and the so-called left behind, it does not address their structural causes. This article explores how the lens of pride, and the affective governance it demands, has been used to reimagine place in UK policy. We argue that governance has taken a therapeutic and palliative turn, and that the pride in place mission obscures ideological inconsistencies in policymaking. The article explains how the government’s narrow conception of pride as a mechanism of affective governance illustrates tensions in places at different scales: between national and local issues; between public and private spheres; and between individual and collective identities. It claims that a more meaningful understanding of pride must be predicated on people’s collective capacity for felt and emotional responses. Crucially, any metrics for pride must capture that complexity to help restore social infrastructure in places.

Materialism as a worldview position. The second article is about the missing requirement for scientific theories and the ideological vulnerability of the basic ideas of non-classical physics.

The subject of this study is materialism, understood in the broadest sense of this concept: both as a philosophical doctrine and as a way of life corresponding to a certain worldview position. The aim is to clarify the objective role of this worldview position in various fields of human activity. At the center of the research is the question of the essence of materialistic ideas about the world hiding behind the sensually given reality to man. The study consists of two parts, published in separate articles. The first part is devoted to the origins of the materialistic worldview and the main question of philosophy, and in this, its second part, the question of the philosophical problems of non-classical physics is considered, the root of these problems is revealed, a comparative worldview analysis of the basic concepts of classical and non-classical physics is carried out and the overall result of the research is summarized. The methodology of this research is the principle of materialistic monism, according to which absolutely all phenomena of the human-cognizable world can be based only on something material, "influencing". The general conclusions of this study are as follows: the roots of the materialistic worldview go back to the origins of life, to such a condition of successful vital activity of living beings, which is inherently ideological; this condition, called by the author the Main Question of Life, is the historical forerunner of the Main Question of Philosophy; the worldview position, equivalent to the materialistic solution of the OVF, is inherent in the vital activity of absolutely all living beings; all people in their daily and practical activities are born materialists. In addition, this study clarifies the idea of the essence of materialistic teaching; shows the exclusivity of the materialistic worldview as the only true worldview; provides a refined definition of the concept of matter; proves the need to shift the "center of gravity" of modern materialistic teaching from dialectics to the principle of materialistic monism; formulates the missing requirement for scientific theories to ensure their ideological viability; shows the ideological inconsistency the main ideas of the new, non-classical physics.

Right-Wing Leftists, Left-Wing Rightists, and Traditionalist Liberals: Core Political Values and Ideological Inconsistency at the Party-Elite Level in Bulgaria

The growth of heterodox ideological configurations, or ideological inconsistencies, among the electorate of Western countries, has been offered as one explanation for recent momentous political events, such as Brexit or the election of Donald Trump as US President. Previous research, however, suggests that ideological inconsistency has been typical for Central and Eastern European (CEE) states for the past thirty years after the fall of the Socialist regimes there. Based on a survey of 102 active members of local and national party structures in Bulgaria, followed by in-depth interviews with the same respondents, I develop a conceptual and methodological approach aimed at objectively measuring Bulgarians’ political values and ideological orientations. Building on previous research on the statistical independence of the social and economic dimensions of ideology, this study identifies three main models of ideological inconsistency at the party-elite level in Bulgaria, offering evidence of the “homogeneity in ideological inconsistency” in this post-Socialist country, with party elites and electorate following the same patterns of inconsistency. The existence of a conservative value complex, integrating traditionalist, statist, and nationalist attitudes regarding the social sphere, is another major finding of the study. I discuss the specific historical and socio-cultural background contributing to ideological inconsistency in Bulgaria and potential implications for the wider CEE region.

How Harmful Brand Hate Can Be: The Moderating Role of Neuroticism and Extraversion

This research analyses some of the antecedents and consequences of brand hate and examines the moderating effects of neuroticism and extraversion personality traits on behavioral outcomes. After collecting 375 responses, the data analysis was based on the structural equation modeling. Results show that symbolic incongruity, ideological incompatibility, and perceived value are predictors of brand hate, and that brand hate influences negative word-of-mouth, anti-brand actions and complaining. The relationship between brand hate and behavioral results are reinforced for consumers with high neuroticism traits and, in contrast, are attenuated in consumers with high extraversion traits. This investigation innovates by combining signaling theory and expectancy violation theories to explain the emergence of brand hate and its impacts on brand-related outcomes. It particularly explores the possibility of a curvilinear relationship, where brand hate tends to grow exponentially with the intensity of the signals.

Towards an ‘Interfaith Nationalism’? Christians and Their Relations to Muslims in the History Textbooks of the Syrian Arab Republic

This study examines how Christian–Muslim relations are presented in Syrian history textbooks and deployed by the embattled regime of Bashar al-Asad in its quest for legitimacy both at home and abroad since the eruption of the war that displaced half the country’s population. To that end, Critical Discourse Analysis is applied to selected texts from the school curricula stressing the harmonious coexistence between the country’s only two officially recognized faiths (Islam and Christianity), in addition to the Syrian Christians’ commitment to national unity from time immemorial, as nationalist discourses retrospectively assert. The historical narratives in question are juxtaposed with the ideological inconsistencies of the Arab nationalist Ba’th party that has ruled Syria since 1963 vis-à-vis religious sects and minorities, while being discussed against the backdrop of the recent geopolitical developments.

Antecedents and consequences of the “cancel culture” firestorm journey for brands: is there a possibility for forgiveness?

ABSTRACT This paper aims to discuss the antecedents and consequences of cancel culture and assess if brands can gain the forgiveness of consumers and mitigate the damages of social media firestorms, that usually evolve from online abuse (e.g. cyberbullying, harassment, and offensive talk). A quasi-experiment study was conducted through an online survey simulating the cancellation journey. Results show that cancel culture is triggered by ideological incompatibilities such as religion, racism, animal rights, LGBTQIA+ and environmental issues. After the scenario that simulated an ideological incompatibility related to racism, 178 respondents rated high levels of brand hate, negative WOM, brand avoidance, brand boycott, brand retaliation, and intention to cancel the brand. However, an ‘apology’ by the brand leads to brand forgiveness, a decrease in the intention to cancel the brand and an increase in purchase intention.

The program-to-campaign linkage: Party organization and ideological inconsistency during election campaigns

What determines party strategies in the short run during election campaigns? In this paper, I highlight a novel aspect of party behavior pertaining to the connection between election programs and actual campaign statements issued by party elites in the media. I argue that party leaders may feel compelled to fine-tune their rhetoric and stances during campaigns and thus deviate from their party’s election programs. Nonetheless, their ability to conduct ad-hoc adaptations is limited. The theory I propose posits that two features of party organizations will determine if party leaders can engage in short-term inconsistencies. First, membership-dominated parties will be less likely to be inconsistent because their leaders will fear alienating (the strong) party members and getting punished as a result. Second, parties with strong societal integration—those that maintain strong ties with society and an extensive network of local branches—are more likely to indulge in ideological inconsistency because they establish close bonds with voters based on problem-solving rather than broad ideological principles. I test these dynamics in 14 European democracies between 1972 and 2017 and find strong empirical support. The findings show that intricate party organizations and robust connections with normal citizens influence parties’ short-term strategies during election campaigns.

Games archcriminals play: Mabuse vs Fantômas

The modern understanding of crime and criminals is rooted in game-playing. Videogames engage players as active participants in fictional crimes, and news stories routinely present the heads of powerful criminal organizations as players, distinguishing the archcriminals who head these organizations from the more proletarian lackeys they employ. Archcriminals have been particularly common in serial fiction, where the longer narrative arc allows for the unfolding of successive and increasingly complex criminal schemes that escalate in audacity and consequence. As Ruth Mayer has shown, the link between supercriminals and seriality goes even deeper, establishing these criminals as liminal, deceptively flat and indeterminate figures whose viral presence is everywhere but whose identity remains hidden behind their public branding: ‘Whatever the master criminal instigates is geared toward and subject to spread and expansion. And, more generally speaking, so is the figure itself.’1 Mayer, who identifies Fu Manchu as an incarnation of ‘the yellow peril’, contends that ‘The serial mode through which the Fu Manchu stories have been disseminated is in perfect concord with the stock imagery illustrating yellow peril scenarios’.2 Mayer and Shane Denson have gone on to argue that ‘the seriality of a serial figure is really not that different from the seriality of a serial killer’, because the liminality of the serial figure – its existence at the intersection of various contradictions and material contingencies – proves to be its most crucial attribute. The serial enactment of recurring figures, figure constellations, or plot lines revolves, in all of our case studies, around fundamental conceptual or ideological inconsistencies which are dramatised or showcased, rather than ‘reflected’ or resolved. […] the ideological parameters of a serial figure are manifested in the serial structure of its enactment; ideology works as series.3

“I will always hate you”! An investigation of the impact of anthropomorphism in online anti-brand communities

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate whether brand anthropomorphism has a direct impact on brand hate and what are the prevailing factors that play a significant role in this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThis study provides insights on brand anthropomorphism phenomenon and negative consumer–brand relationships in the context of social media-based anti-brand communities. Using a quantitative analysis of the data gathered from an online survey, this study analyzes brand anthropomorphism in the three main online anti-brand communities toward Apple.FindingsFindings indicated that brand anthropomorphism in itself does not impact on brand hate directly. Nevertheless, when it is used by consumers to express their negative feelings toward the hatred brand, the consumers’ attribution of responsibility and intentionality to Apple brand’s behavior positively affects brand hate, and ideological incompatibility is a good moderator for brand hate.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study are based on a limited number of survey respondents because anti-brand community members are very difficult to access, and thus, it was not easy to have their collaboration for this research.Practical implicationsThis study highlights the power of social media as a tool for establishing negative consumer–brand relationships. Therefore, brand managers must recognize that consumer activists may be a serious threat to the company and deal with the consumers’ tendency to use anthropomorphism to express their hate.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the link between brand anthropomorphism and brand hate, analyzed through a quantitative analysis.

Examining the motivations of sharing political deepfake videos: the role of political brand hate and moral consciousness

PurposeDeepfakes are fabricated content created by replacing an original image or video with someone else. Deepfakes have recently become commonplace in politics, posing serious challenges to democratic integrity. The advancement of AI-enabled technology and machine learning has made creating synthetic videos relatively easy. This study explores the role of political brand hate and individual moral consciousness in influencing electorates' intention to share political deepfake content.Design/methodology/approachThe study creates and uses a fictional deepfake video to test the proposed model. Data are collected from N = 310 respondents in India and tested using partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS v3.FindingsThe findings support that ideological incompatibility with the political party leads to political brand hate, positively affecting the electorates' intention to share political deepfake videos. This effect is partially mediated by users' reduced intention to verify political deepfake videos. In addition, it is observed that individual moral consciousness positively moderates the effect of political brand hate on the intention to share political deepfake videos. Intention to share political deepfake videos thus becomes a motive to seek revenge on the hated party, an expression of an individual's ideological hate and a means to preserve one's moral self-concept and strengthen their ideologies and moral beliefs.Originality/valueThe study expands the growing discussion about disseminating political deepfake videos using the theoretical lens of the negative consumer-brand relationship. It validates the effect of political brand hate on irrational behavior that is intended to cause harm to the hated party. Further, it provides a novel perspective that individual moral consciousness may fuel the haters' desire to engage in anti-branding behavior. Political ideological incompatibility reflects ethical reasons for brand hate. Therefore, hate among individuals with high moral consciousness serves to preserve their moral self.

You’ve Over the Line! Muslim Consumers are Resistant to Opposite Brand Values

The consumer's antagonistic behavior towards brands is hotly discussed because of the political issues it carries. However, factors affecting Muslim consumers to reject a product still requires more paucity of empirical evidence. The current study casts the light on antecedent factors that influence Muslim consumers to reject a product, and on a pattern between the reasons for refusal and the intention to boycott a brand. The online survey was able to reach 450 respondents from the Muslim community. This paper uses scenarios from confirmed cases of Muslim consumer boycotts against Unilever brands in Indonesia. Using the snowball-sampling technique, many of the respondents were from the educated young urban Muslim community. The model was tested using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Moreover, the interaction moderation technique was applied to examine the effect of moderators on the structural model. The results showed that brand hate fully mediates all variables except symbolic incongruity. The results further revealed that brand hate is a construct with three first-order formative triggers (religious animosity, ideological incompatibility, and subjective norms). In addition, this study theoretically contributes to providing clear delineation that brand hate is a dichotomous concept consisting of the dimensions of intention to boycott (intention to incite, intention to avoid, and intention to punish).

An investigation of celebrity brand hate influence in the arts marketing sector of Ghana

PurposeThis study aimed at investigating negative past experience (NPE), symbolic incongruity and ideological incompatibility on celebrity brand hate (CBH) within the arts marketing sector.Design/methodology/approachAnchored on the self-congruity theory (SCT), the study is based on two studies with 618 hip-life music (HLM) listeners in Ghana (Study 1 = 340 face-to-face participants; study 2 = 278 online participants), who responded to 20 celebrities they hate. The study validates Hegner et al.'s (2017) product brand hate (BH) model in the arts sector utilizing the structural equal modeling in testing the research hypotheses.FindingsThe study found that negative past experience, symbolic incongruity, and ideological incompatibility significantly influences CBH. Furthermore, CBH significantly influences celebrity brand avoidance (CBA) and negative word-of-mouth (NWoM), brand retaliation, private complaint and brand switching. Nevertheless, CBH had no significant influence on CBA in the second study. In all, BH had the strongest effects on NWoM for products in Hegner et al. (2017) model, whereas in our model BH strongly impacts on brand retaliation for celebrities (i.e. people).Practical implicationsThe study provided evidence to marketing scholars, celebrity image managers and brand professionals, on critical factors to consider in building and sustaining celebrity brands as viable currencies for economic leveraging within the arts industry.Originality/valueThough BH has received academic recognition, little is known about the concept of CBH and its outcomes in the arts marketing literature.

Educational Imperialism: Phantom India and The Non-Aligned Movement’s New World Information Order, 1969-1980

This article explores how the BBC’s new educational format, the BBC-2 docu-series, became consequential to global politics in the “long” 1970s. While educational television in the U.S. has long been an issue of contention among liberal and conservative political factions, European educational television was often understood by European legislators and media scholars as central to public broadcasting. This paper challenges such assumptions by uncovering 1970s debates over media ownership. In June 1970, the BBC showcased its new documentary series, <em>Phantom India</em> to much disapproval from the Indian state and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). In response to the <em>Phantom India</em> affair, the NAM established its Commission for Broadcasting in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in 1976. And yet, this article shows how ideological inconsistencies between Yugoslav broadcasting and its foreign policy undermined the NAM’s efforts to truly challenge Western media hegemony. Through close textual analysis and archival research, I offer a new understanding of educational television in the 1970s as a battleground for political and cultural dominance in the, then, faltering liberal world-system.

Influencing millennials to embrace sustainable fashion in an emerging market: a modified brand avoidance model perspective

PurposeThis study applies the modified brand avoidance model to examine factors that influence sustainable fashion avoidance behaviour among millennial shoppers in South Africa.Design/methodology/approachA positivistic approach and a web-based online survey were employed to collect cross-sectional data from 423 millennial fashion shoppers. Standard multiple regression analysis was used to test proposed hypotheses.FindingsUnmet expectations, materialism and symbolic incongruence emerged as major predictors of millennials' intention to avoid sustainable fashion. Sustainable fashion avoidance intention was found to have a positive effect on sustainable fashion avoidance behaviour.Research limitations/implicationsThis study relied on self-reported data collected from millennial shoppers. Future studies may improve the generalizability of this study's results by conducting a comparative study with other cohorts such as baby boomers and Generation X who espouse different shopping values. Future studies may benefit from the use of longitudinal data in order to understand how millennial shoppers relate to sustainable fashion as it evolves.Practical implicationsThe results of this study suggest the importance of developing value propositions that align sustainable fashion with cultural, personality and symbolic cues valued by millennial shoppers. Consumer education on the benefits of sustainable fashion is recommended as a long-term behavioural change strategy.Social implicationsThe purchase behaviour of sustainable fashion should be encouraged as it enhances environmental sustainability including safeguarding the livelihoods of future generations.Originality/valueThis study contributes to literature on sustainable fashion avoidance behaviour. This is one of the pioneering studies to empirically examine the influence of unmet expectations, symbolic incongruence and ideological incompatibility in the context of an emerging market, such as South Africa.

Service brand avoidance in business-to-business relationships

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the drivers of service brand avoidance in business-to-business relationships within an emerging economy setting.Design/methodology/approachThis study used an explanatory research design with a quantitative approach. Data was obtained through self-administered questionnaires and a uniform resource locator via Google Forms. The hypothesised relationships were analysed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.FindingsThis research reveals that unmet expectations, symbolic incongruence and failed communications directly influence brand avoidance, while ideological incompatibility significantly impacts symbolic incongruence. In contrast, unacceptable trade-offs and ideological incompatibility do not directly influence brand avoidance in B2B relationships.Research limitations/implicationsFuture studies may consider examining brand avoidance by business clients within other specific industries and its impact on co-branding agreements.Originality/valueThis study provides empirical evidence of drivers of service brand avoidance within business markets from an emerging economy perspective.

Partisan attachments in a multidimensional space

How do party positions in a multidimensional space affect party identification? This article argues that when parties take consistent ideological positions across dimensions, they clarify their brand, fostering party identifications. An analysis that uses data from the European Social Survey and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey provides evidence for this argument. The results also indicate that the effect particularly holds for the less educated and politically less interested. In addition, ideological inconsistency affects individual parties’ electoral appeal, as parties that take different positions on two dimensions tend to have a smaller partisan base. The results provide important insights into how multidimensional party competition shapes the development of party attachments.

The moderating role of complaint handling on brand hate in the cancel culture

PurposeThis study investigates the moderating role of complaint handling between ideological incompatibility, symbolic incongruity, negative past experience and corporate social irresponsibility on brand hate.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs the Duplex Hate theory which assumes that hate is the manifestation of multiple factors. A survey-based self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 smartphone users at Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan.FindingsThe findings suggest that ideological incompatibility, symbolic incongruity, negative past experience and corporate social irresponsibility contributes to brand hate. The complaint handling (moderator) weakens the effects of ideological incompatibility and symbolic incongruity on brand hate.Practical implicationsThe research provides insights into the cancel culture and clarifies how brand hate can be controlled.Originality/valueEmpirical study on the antecedents of brand hate remains insufficient. The current study contributes to the brand hate literature by providing an understanding of the phenomenon of brand hate and by empirically examining the different antecedents responsible for causing the behavior. The study has also provided an additional determinant of brand hate, which is corporate social irresponsibility. The role of moderators for controlling brand hate is greatly ignored in the existing literature. The current work also extends previous studies by investigating a moderating factor for reducing brand hate, which is complaint handling.

“I’m hatin’ it”! Negative consumer–brand relationships in online anti-brand communities

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a better understanding of negative consumer–brand relationships in social-media-based anti-brand communities from a consumer culture theory (CCT) perspective. In particular, it investigates the purpose and the meaning of the consumer participation in online anti-brand communities, also through the analysis of the ways in which they express negative feelings toward the hated brands.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies a “symbolic netnographic” method to six anti-brand communities related to four global brands, namely, Apple, Nestlé, Uber and McDonald’s. Moreover, several interviews were conducted with anti-brand community administrators.FindingsThe findings show that the main reason for consumers to join anti-brand communities is a desire to participate in the construction of new meanings and values of modern consumption, translating their ideological incompatibility with certain brands into negative engagement and activism aimed at destroying the hated brand’s image and reputation. Furthermore, the findings reveal that brand anthropomorphism is a frequent means of communication also used in the context of negative consumer–brand relationships, to strengthen the battle against the hated brand in a more frontal and direct manner.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this research provides some initial insights into negative consumer–brand relationships in the social media anti brand communities, the paper also has some limitations. The netnographic approach should be analyzed within more and different anti-brand communities. In this investigation, the authors perceived how difficult it is to obtain feedback from communities and to secure the collaboration of their administrators. There is also a need for research on other potential factors that can play a key role in negative consumer–brand relationships in social-media anti-brand communities, such as cultural capital or the impact of cultural perceptions. Moreover, future research should focus on different types of products and brand services, such as hedonic vs. utilitarian brands, as these might generate different types of consumer behavioral responses. Finally, a further direction for future research would be to consider the set of “brand recovery strategies” that can be implemented by companies to deal with negative consumer–brand relationships, including the identification of situations in which “not acting” could be preferable.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the antecedents and types of negative consumer–brand relationships enables companies to identify “brand recovery strategies” for managing negativity in the appropriate manner. Moreover, negative feelings toward brand could even be an opportunity for improving branding management.Originality/valueThis research improves on previous few studies dealing with online anti-brand communities from a CCT perspective. Firstly, it provides a holistic perspective of negative consumer–brand relationships in general and specifically of brand hate, thus advancing our understanding of the sociocultural dynamics of negative consumer–brand relationships; secondly, it provides new insights into the brand anthropomorphism phenomenon emerging in the negative feelings context. Overall, this research contributes to knowledge for both academics and managers as to why, how and for what purpose consumers experience negative engagement toward certain brands in the specific context of social-media-based anti-brand communities.

The Program-to-Campaign Linkage: Party Organization and Ideological Inconsistency During Election Campaigns

The Program-to-Campaign Linkage: Party Organization and Ideological Inconsistency During Election Campaigns