The Authority of the Consumer

The aim of this collection is to explore the implications of 'consumer society' charting out its specific meanings in particular contexts and debating the potential merits or otherwise of this way of understanding and constructing relations between 'providers' and 'recipients'. In particular, some have seen this development as involving a radical shift of authority - away from the provider/producer, towards the recipient/consumer - in judging the value and meaning of the activities concerned, or in the character of the social relations involved in them. But they have differed in their responses to this shift, either welcoming it in terms of democratization, anti-elitism, or empowerment, or decrying it as commercialization, populism, loss of integrity, and the like. Others have been more sceptical. These are the issues explored in this important and wide-ranging book. The authors have drawn from several disciplines in the social sciences and humanities and include several non-academics.