"The Citizen-Consumer: Media Effects at the Intersection of Consumer and Civic Culture" Heejo Keum, Narayan Devanathan, Sameer Deshpande, Michelle R. Nelson, and Dhavan V. Shah, Political Communication, 21(3): 369-391, July-September 2004. [DOWNLOAD]

Scholars in various fields have speculated that the commercialization of mass media has contributed to the decline of civic culture. They contend that the personal needs emphasized by product-saturated mass media diminish civic-mindedness by creating an individualistic consumption-oriented culture. Despite this critique, some scholars argue that mass media do not erode civic culture in favor of consumer culture; rather, the two are thought to be positively interrelated. Although these contrasting perspectives have been repeatedly discussed, research has rarely empirically investigated these contending claims. We examine media influences on civic and consumer culture, while considering the interrelationships of consumer attitudes and behaviors with civic participation using the 2000 DDB Life Style Study. In doing so, we distinguish between news and entertainment media and between socially conscious and status-oriented consumption. A latent variable structural equation model is used to test hypotheses. Results suggest that consumption behaviors and civic participation are not conflicting, even though media foster commercial attitudes and motivate consumption. Overall, media effects on this dynamic are positive, suggesting that critiques of media demobilization may be misplaced.

"The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics." Dhavan V. Shah, Douglas M. Mcleod, Lewis Friedland & Michelle Nelson. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. May 2007. [DOWNLOAD]

As consumer culture pervades the social life of citizens in America and Europe, it becomes increasingly important to clarify the relationship between consumption and citizenship. With this in mind, faculty and students at the University of Wisconsin organized an conference entitled "The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics." Held in October 2006, the meeting provided a forum for leading scholars to discuss the interplay of markets, media, politics, and the citizen-consumer. Revised and expanded versions of the papers they presented are collected in this volume with the goal of advancing this emerging area of inquiry. It is our hope that the essays and research papers we have collected here help define the next wave of theory building and research inquiry on the intersections of consumer culture, civic culture, and mass culture.

"Capital, Consumption, and Citizenship: A Correspondence Analysis of the Social Positioning of Taste Cultures in the U.S." Lewis Friedland, Dhavan V. Shah, Nam-Jin Lee, Mark A. Rademacher, Lucy Atkinson, and Thomas Hove. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 2007.[DOWNLOAD]

In this paper, we analyze the field of cultural consumption in the United States, drawing on the methods of correspondence analysis employed by Bourdieu (1979/1984). Using the 2000 DDB Lifestyle Study, we analyze a cross section of Americans (N=3,122) in terms of their occupational categories, media usage, consumption practices, social behaviors, and indicators of civic and political engagement. In doing so, we find many parallels to the determinants of taste, cultural discrimination, and choice within the field structure observed by Bourdieu in 1960s French society, though there are also some notable differences, consistent with Peterson and Kern's (1996) concept of omnivorousness. Specifically, we find that in terms of the form of cultural capital, the distribution of positions is largely defined by patterns of taste that discriminate between refinement, moderation, nurturance, and a communal orientation, on the one side, and coarseness, excess, aggressiveness, and an individual orientation, on the other. Historical and national differences partly account for this variation, but we suspect that a major role is played by the increasing formation of identities around media and consumption, leading to a more gendered and ideological positioning of taste cultures in the U.S context.

"Political Consumerism: Understanding the Roles of Communication Practices and Consumption Orientations." Dhavan V. Shah, Douglas M. McLeod, Eunkyung Kim, Sun Young Lee, Melissa Gotlieb, Shirley Ho, and Hilde Brevik. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 2007. [DOWNLOAD]

Historians and cultural theorists have long asserted that a desire to express political concerns often guides consumer behavior, yet such political consumerism has received limited attention from social scientists. Here, we explore the relationship of political consumerism with dispositional factors, communication variables, and consumption orientations using data collected from a panel survey conducted in the U.S. between February 2002 and July 2005. We test a theorized model using both cross-sectional and auto-regressive panel analyses. The static and change models reveal that conventional and online news use encourage political consumerism indirectly through their influence on political talk and environmental concerns. However, media use may also have some suppressive effects by reducing the desire to protect others from harmful messages. Results demonstrate how communication practices and consumption orientations work together to influence political consumerism beyond previously delineated factors. Implications for declines in political and civic participation and youth socialization are discussed.

"Downshifting Consumer = Upshifting Citizen?" Michelle Nelson, Mark A. Rademacher, and Hye-Jin Pack. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 2007. [DOWNLOAD]

Critics suggest that contemporary consumer culture creates over-worked and over-shopped consumers who no longer engage in civic life. We challenge this conventional criticism against consumption within an individualistic lifestyle and argue instead that consumers who are "downshifting" do engage in civic life. In particular, this research examines downshifting attitudes among members of freecycle.org, a grassroots "gift economy" community. Results of an online survey show that downshifting consumers are indeed less materialistic and brand-conscious. They also tend to practice political consumption (e.g., boycotts, buycotts). Most importantly, they tend to engage in a digital form, but not a traditional form, of civic and political participation. We contend that alternative forms of consumption might be a new form of civic engagement.

"Opinion Leadership and the Citizen Consumer: Revealing the Connections between Media, Consumption, and Engagement," Heejo Keum and Dhavan V. Shah, presented to International Communication Association (Mass Communication), New York, May 26-30, 2005.Currently under journal review

Despite a lengthy history of debate surrounding the relationships between media use, consumption, and civic life, the empirical linkages among these variables at the individual level are just beginning to be investigated. Recent research suggests that the influences of media use on indicators of consumer and civic culture are generally positive, as are the interrelationships between citizen participation and consumption activities. Expanding on this research, this study examines the possibility that opinion leadership (i.e., individuals' status as influencers in various non-political domains) can explain these interrelationships. That is, opinion leadership may spur a constellation of behaviors that include informational media use, consumption, and participation. To explore these issues, this study performs a secondary analysis of the 2000 DDB Life Style Survey data. Results show that, through informational media use, opinion leadership indirectly influences both citizens' engagement in community life and their consumption activities. In addition, opinion leadership is found to underlie the positive interrelationship between two different orientations toward consumption - socially conscious consumption and status conscious consumption - and citizen activism. Implications for future theory building and research in this burgeoning domain of empirical inquiry are discussed.

"Communication, Consumption, Contentment, and Community: A Test and Replication of a Non-Recursive Model," Dhavan V. Shah, R. Lance Holbert, Lucy Atkinson, Eunkyung Kim, and Sun Young Lee, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (Mass Communication Theory and Society), San Antonio, TX, August 10-13, 2005. "Top Faculty Paper" Designation. Currently under journal review

Theories of social capital and civic culture suggest a positive reciprocal relationship between personal contentment and engagement in cooperative activities. Yet Coleman and Galbraith assert, that contentment, especially a sense of satisfaction stemming from economic affluence and associated consumption, may diminish inter-reliance, weaken the strength of social ties, and ultimately reduce civic volunteerism. Patterns of media use may also have implications for this dynamic, with various types of television and newspaper use related to individual differences in both contentment and participation. This research examines these relationships using national survey data from 1997 and 2000. We use these two national datasets to test and then replicate a non-recursive structural model composed of the endogenous variables of civic participation and life contentment. Our analysis clarifies the mechanisms underlying the relationship between these democratic ideals at the individual level. Notably, the largely negative relationship of consumer culture variables explains more variance in contentment and participation than the varied effects of media use predictors when accounting for demographic, situational, dispositional, and attitudinal factors. More important, although participation in civic activities enhances assessments of life contentment, the opposite it not true. Indeed, the causal flow appears to run only from participation to contentment, with civic volunteerism and participation fostering a sense of satisfaction, but satisfaction unrelated to changes in levels of participation.