The goal of CCCP is to bridge scholarship from communications, economics, history, marketing, political science, psychology and sociology to investigate the fluid and evolving relationships among media, consumption, markets, and public life. We approach this work from a multiplicity of perspectives, focusing on topics such as taste cultures, identity politics, conspicuous consumption, political marketing, globalization and the notion of the citizen consumer.

In Fall 2006, the CCCP hosted a conference on "The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics," bringing together leading scholars from Europe and North America who study these issues. Through this conference, we sought to foster research in this fertile area by (1) creating a venue for sharing current projects and inquires, including those that we are leading at the UW-Madison, (2) building research collaborations around these topics, and (3) encouraging joint grant submissions to conduct large-scale, comparative studies. We published a collection of this work in a volume of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The collection of articles on the politics of consumption appeared in the May 2007 issues of the ANNALS.

These activities have been organized by faculty and graduate students within the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Co-sponsored with support from the Department of Communication Arts; the Department of Marketing; the Department of Political Science; the Center for Communication and Democracy, the Center for European Studies; the Center for German and European Studies; the Center for International Business Education and Research; the Center for Politics; the Center or World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), and the Global Studies Program. Additional underwriting for the conference and research initiative has been provided by the Journal Foundation/Walter J. & Clara Charlotte Damm Fund.