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Papers by Janice Denegri-Knott

Journal of Marketing Management

Journal of Consumer Research

The objects we consume increasingly exist in digital form, from audiobooks and digital photograph... more The objects we consume increasingly exist in digital form, from audiobooks and digital photographs to social media profiles and avatars. Digital objects are often argued to be less valued, personally meaningful, and self-relevant than their physical counterparts and are consequently dismissed as poor candidates for possession. Yet, studies have identified highly meaningful, even irreplaceable, digital possessions. In this article, we account for these contradictory narratives surrounding digital possessions, arguing that digital objects are not inherently unsuited to possession, but rather their affordances may not align with consumers’ imagined affordances (i.e., the object affordances that consumers anticipate). Drawing from a qualitative study of 25 consumers and their digital possessions, we identify three recurring types of affordance misalignment—missing affordances, covert affordances, and deficient affordances—that mediate how consumers and digital objects interact (pragmati...

The fundamental question we pose in this article is how should we understand marketing in the age... more The fundamental question we pose in this article is how should we understand marketing in the age of increasingly integrated and networked customer databases? This article argues that new forms of database marketing are best described as customer production processes that rely on the exploitation of the multitude of consumer life. We suggest that the recent increase in available consumer data, computational power and analytical skills leads to a reorganization of the gaze of marketers and increasingly reverses the Fordist articulation of production and consumption. More specifically, instead of flexibly adjusting production regimes to shifting consumption patterns, database marketers collapse the production–consumption dichotomy by manufacturing customers as commodities. Hence, theories about the role of surveillance and simulation technologies for strategies of economic value creation need to be updated in order to acknowledge the evolution of database marketing into a central site...

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

In this article, we introduce an affordance-orientated approach for the study of digital possessi... more In this article, we introduce an affordance-orientated approach for the study of digital possessions. We identify affordances as a source of value for digital possessions and argue that dominant meaning-orientated approaches do not enable us to fully appreciate these sources of value. Our work recognizes that value is released and experienced in “the doing”—people must do things with digital objects to locate and obtain value in and from them. We distinguish three levels of affordance for digital possessions—low, mid, and high—and introduce the concept of digital incorporation to explain how the three levels of affordances come together, with the individual’s own intentionality to enable the achievement of goals. We draw from postphenomenological interviews with 47 individuals in the UK to provide a possession-based and lived experience approach to affordances that sheds new light on their vital role in everyday life and goals.

Journal of Marketing Management

The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing, 2018

Marketing for the purpose of redefining boundaries in the study of power for marketing and consum... more Marketing for the purpose of redefining boundaries in the study of power for marketing and consumer research, surveying the state of research to date and suggest new directions for research. The chapter offers an entrée for those new to the study of power and for the more familiarised reader, it provides a hopefully useful point of reference and departure. Drawing from political and social theory, the original map focused on sovereign, cultural and discursive models of power and was used to establish familial relationships between power concepts and consumer and marketing research. It based its delimitation of sovereign type approaches to power on a Dahlian conception of RE-MAPPING POWER FOR CRITICAL MARKETING AND CONSUMER RESEARCH 3 power as a zero sum, quantitative capacity, where market agents with the most individual or collective resources and skills were deemed powerful. The map also located cultural power at the level of strategic operations carried out by resource rich businesses that have the most say in how market and consumer reality are to be ordered. Making a break with these negative conceptualisations of power as both destructive and repressive, discursive power, was introduced, defining power as productive, relational and exercised across all members of a field. Like its predecessor, the new proposed cartography described in this chapter also reflects the term's complex theoretical roots, not in the spirit of forcing convergences, but rather to help critical marketing and consumer researchers, engage with the study of power more rigorously. Cognizant that power is variously defined according to its theoretical roots (Dowding, 2012; Clegg, 1989; Haugaard, 2002), the formulation of an exact definition of power is omitted in favour of carrying out a comparative analysis of theories of power and discussing their implications for critical marketing and consumer research. The result of this exercise is a conceptual map that provides a contextualized and applied understanding of power. The framework is updated in two significant ways. To begin with, the power territories mapped out in the original cartography have been repopulated to reflect research carried out since the first map was published. Secondly, in order to achieve greater distinction between cultural and discursive models of power and be consistent with theories of power in use in our field, cultural power is now replaced by hegemonic power. This provides a clearer demarcation between the theoretical traditions that inform these two models and RE-MAPPING POWER FOR CRITICAL MARKETING AND CONSUMER RESEARCH 4 enables a more precise articulation and differentiation of agendas, including a clearer identification of steering concepts and preferred methodological approaches. Reading the Map There are still only a handful of comprehensive studies of power in consumer and marketing research (e.g. Denegri-Knott et al. 2006; Desmond, 2003; Hopkinson & Blois, 2013). More generally, the term appears tangentially linked to other related concepts such as consumer resistance, empowerment, sovereignty or agency. In revisiting the map, Haugaard's (2002) conceptual map to power is once again borrowed. The starting point is the partitioning of two broad territories depending of their theoretical origins either in social and political theory. In the social theory tradition, definitions of power are dependent on broader explanations of how society works. Historically, social theories of power have dealt with structural inequalities embedded in society, and sought to expose the ways in which these are reproduced and how they may be subverted. Political theory, in turn has pursued the development of more precise and scientifically grounded way to measuring power. From these two branches, and in order to provide a more useful guide to critical marketing and consumer researchers, three further distinct models have been identified. 1. Sovereign power (political theory) 2. Hegemonic power (social theory) 3. Discursive power (social theory) This revised map, as its precursor did, provides a necessarily selective overview of some key literature. The map is not a comprehensive survey of all work that alludes to the study of power in marketing and consumer research, nor does it provide a synthesis of all power theories. Instead, it offers an impression of what the field looks RE-MAPPING POWER FOR CRITICAL MARKETING AND CONSUMER RESEARCH 5 like, and draws on some illustrative examples to indicate how concepts have been used. Thus, the relationships that are presented for each stream are selective and by no means complete. The filial bonds are of first degree, for example between de Certeau and wide range of consumer researchers who have found his distinctions between strategy and tactics of important analytical and theoretical value when approaching consumer power and resistance. A bold arrow links such first order affiliations. Dotted lines are used to show weaker relationships. This is the case for many marketing studies located in the sovereign power model, where power, whilst not defined, appears to adhere to a quantitative definition of power typical of the political tradition (see figure 1).

Videogames now enable players to spend virtual fortunes on exotic virtual goods and even create a... more Videogames now enable players to spend virtual fortunes on exotic virtual goods and even create and sell virtual artefacts. Online consumers may also browse endlessly through virtual marketplaces and create and display virtual goods. These virtual commodities are desired and enjoyed as if they were real, but are not actually bought, or owned in a material sense – often resulting in frustration amongst marketers. In this paper we account for virtualised consumption by highlighting its pleasures. We start by historicising the trend towards imaginary consumption practices, depicting virtual consumption as the latest stage in an ongoing transformation of consumption from a focus on utility through to emotional value, sign value and finally playful experience. Viewed from this perspective, we consider the role of emerging virtual consumption spaces as liminoid, transformational play-spaces and explore examples of consumer practices found in these spaces. Ultimately we argue that virtual ...

The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology

The fundamental question we pose in this article is how should we understand marketing in the age... more The fundamental question we pose in this article is how should we understand marketing in the age of increasingly integrated and networked customer databases? This article argues that new forms of database marketing are best described as customer production processes that rely on the exploitation of the multitude of consumer life. We suggest that the recent increase in available consumer data, computational power and analytical skills leads to a reorganization of the gaze of marketers and increasingly reverses the Fordist articulation of production and consumption. More specifically, instead of flexibly adjusting production regimes to shifting consumption patterns, database marketers collapse the production‐consumption dichotomy by manufacturing customers as commodities. Hence, theories about the role of surveillance and simulation technologies for strategies of economic value creation need to be updated in order to acknowledge the evolution of database marketing into a central site...

The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture

Digital Virtual Consumption

ACR European Advances, 2011

Journal of Marketing Management

Journal of Consumer Research

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Journal of Marketing Management

The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing, 2018

The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology

The fundamental question we pose in this article is how should we understand marketing in the age... more The fundamental question we pose in this article is how should we understand marketing in the age of increasingly integrated and networked customer databases? This article argues that new forms of database marketing are best described as customer production processes that rely on the exploitation of the multitude of consumer life. We suggest that the recent increase in available consumer data, computational power and analytical skills leads to a reorganization of the gaze of marketers and increasingly reverses the Fordist articulation of production and consumption. More specifically, instead of flexibly adjusting production regimes to shifting consumption patterns, database marketers collapse the production‐consumption dichotomy by manufacturing customers as commodities. Hence, theories about the role of surveillance and simulation technologies for strategies of economic value creation need to be updated in order to acknowledge the evolution of database marketing into a central site...

The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture

Digital Virtual Consumption

ACR European Advances, 2011

In a not so distant future 3D food printers are poised to take over the preparation of our meals,... more In a not so distant future 3D food printers are poised to take over the preparation of our meals, lightening the load of meal preparation by taking on ‘the difficult parts of making food that is hard and/or time consuming to make fully by hand’ (Foodini, 2014). Similarly, food photocopiers that reproduce the molecular structure of food hold the promise of repurposing leftovers into brand new meals (Electrolux, 2009). This future may be unpalatable to some because it supposes a corrosion of human knowledge and a brutal displacement and reduction of human competence by ever-increasing automation of domestic practices within the home kitchen (see for example Fırat and Dholakia, 1998).
A less extreme, but more present infiltration of technology within the kitchen is that of devices like tablets, smartphones and laptops that are routinely used in preparing meals. Based on a global survey of 7,000 cooks, Allrecipes.com (2013) found that nearly half of respondents used smartphones while shopping for food, while almost a third of American and UK cooks surveyed said to routinely use their mobile phones to find recipes. Through these devices home cooks can access an array of food related content including step by step tutorials on YouTube, recipes and recipe reviews on specialist foodie websites and blogs, and themed meal ideas on Pinterest boards. We refer to these devices as digital virtual (DV) devices in that they open up new spaces and opportunities for the home cook. The integrative ontology of the digital virtual (see Shields 2002; Denegri-Knott and Molesworth, 2010; Molesworth and Denegri-Knott, 2012) that we use here enables us to navigate and consider how consumers’ minds (their imagination, memory and knowledge), the digital virtual spaces located on the screens like YouTube and BBC Good Food website, as well as the device itself – as a physical artefact, interact in practice. For us, this helps overcome some of the essentialism that is inherited by perspectives that create clear demarcations between reality and virtuality (for a critique see Shields, 2002; Denegri-Knott and Molesworth, 2010) which deny the presence of constitutive elements of practice, their various locations and how they come into play, in this case, during, meal preparation.
Whilst popular, the presence of DV devices in the kitchen may raise concerns about the growing digitisation of meal preparations, which sees technology as driving the transformation of human practices. A way of eliding the technology determinist standpoint, where use of DV devices like tablets is seen as displacing human labour, is by adopting a practice-based language to account for how human and non-human actors come together in configuring practice. Adopting this approach has two key consequences for our understanding of doing the meal. First, it enables us to document in detail the many ways in which meal practices are transformed when knowledges, skills, and competences necessary to carry out practices around meal preparation are not only distributed across enthusiastic home cooks and material artefacts (such as hand mixers, food processors, cookers, freezers, recipe books and instruction manuals) and other people, but also located in digital virtual space. Second, it helps us see the kind of new meal work that is required from the home cook in maintaining the coupling between the cook and their devices.
In this chapter we discuss the intersection between DV devices and food consumption and resultant practices they configure. Drawing on insights gleaned from in depth interviews with 29 cooking enthusiasts living the South of England, we provide an overview of new configurations, placing emphasis on the ways in which various components of practice – knowledge, competence and commitment – are redistributed between our home cooks and their DV devices. While we acknowledge the significance of ultimate goals, which are to be substantiated and attained through meal work, for example the expression of caring parent or competent cook (see for example Molander’s (2011) work on meal preparation as a meta-practice of love and motherhood) here we focus less on the teleoaffective, or goal dimension of practices to deal with specific meal related projects and tasks, like knowing how to decorate a pirate chest birthday cake or make gluten free bread. In this way we can better hone in on the way in which the coming together of technology and home cook produce new forms of doing meal work.

Artificial intelligence that can change the way we live is less of a future possibility and more ... more Artificial intelligence that can change the way we live is less of a future possibility and more a present reality. Social Robots that help the elderly, play children’s games and learn from their environment in order to adapt and interact with humans are some of the latest breakthroughs (The Guardian, 2015). Such technological developments may make some people feel uneasy - perhaps a car’s cruise control function or robot vacuum cleaners are more familiar robotic technology advances that rest more comfortably with people. Even less extreme, but much more common, technological advances sees the use of digital devices and software applications being adopted by many and integrated into their everyday lives. For instance, wearable technology and fitness and weight loss apps that track performance, set goals and provide progress reports were amongst the most popular smartphone apps of 2015 (Techradar, 2015). GPS on smartphones is offered via Google Maps so there is little need to know where you are going or prepare a journey in advance or even be able to read a map accurately. Apps such as Timehop remind users of specific memories once posted on social networks, providing personalized material to reflect on and be nostalgic about. In relation to consumer practices, a wide variety of applications are routinely used via smartphones, tablets and laptop computers, and are consequently changing the way that people engage in practices and the ways that people consume more generally. For instance, 100 million monthly active users of Pinterest search, pin and share things they desire (Fortune, 2015) and can make purchases of these objects via the site. Nearly 50% of people reported using their smartphones while shopping for food and a third use their smartphones to find recipes as a matter of routine (Allrecipes.com, 2013). What these examples tell us is that there is a growing delegation of everyday practices to technology and it is clear that consumption has been altered and enhanced by such advances in digital technology.
In this chapter we explore the growing digitalisation of consumer practices from a perspective of how human and non-human actors come together in configuring such practices. We draw on practice theory – an accepted and growing area of work in consumer research – to introduce the foundational concept of human-non-human hybrids. We then focus particularly on the ways in which consumers’ cognitive abilities are apparently extended by and externalised to digital technologies and use the concept of extended mind (Clark and Chalmers, 1998) to develop this line of thinking. In particular, we focus on consumers’ knowledge, imagination and memory related to a given practice or consumption object. To do this, we draw on data from a large, on-going study related to digital virtual consumption conducted over the last eight years, which enables us to consider how digital devices and the various platforms and software applications that are accessed through them are integrated in and consequently transform consumer practices. We identify the kinds of new work that is required from consumers in terms of using digital technology – i.e., developing skills, knowledge, competence and a commitment to their use. We also consider the implications of this for practice and for the consumption experience.

Digital Virtual Consumption, 2012

This paper extends prior critical discussions of digital prosumption by demonstrating that prosum... more This paper extends prior critical discussions of digital prosumption by demonstrating that prosumer reliant online business models represent new ways to valorise consumer labour through the creation of digital consumption objects (DCOs) that are simultaneously enacted as assets by companies, and as possessions by consumers. We argue that this multiplicity means that consumers’ ‘possession work’ no longer serves to separate these objects from the market sphere, as proposed in prior literature. This produces a new form of consumer lock-in as consumers’ efforts to singularise DCOs ensnare them within market relations. We compare consumer ensnarement to other forms of lock-in mechanisms including psychological attachments seen in ‘brand love’, proprietary tie-ins, and access-based market systems in order to consider the implications of such ensnarement mechanisms. We propose that whilst for companies’ ensnarement is as an attractive mechanism for on-going valorisation of consumers’ ‘free labour’, it presents significant consequences for ensnared consumers who may be subject not only to on-going financial exploitation but also to restricted and unstable interactions with digital possessions that may hold significant personal meaning.

Journal of Marketing Management

This theoretical paper highlights limitations in the current trend towards dichotomizing full own... more This theoretical paper highlights limitations in the current trend towards dichotomizing full ownership and access-based consumption by recognizing a broader, more complex array of ‘fragmented’ ownership configurations in the context of digital virtual goods (DVGs). In challenging this dichotomy we recognise that the relation between ownership and possession becomes particularly significant. We therefore consider how prominent DVG ownership configurations may shape the way in which possession is assembled, potentially reducing consumers’ scope of action relative to DVGs and leaving possession susceptible to disruption. Conversely, we acknowledge ways in which consumers’ continued attempts at possession may impinge upon the agency of ownership mechanisms within the market. Our analysis ultimately builds upon existing understandings of both ownership and possession, theorizing their often overlooked relation in consumption.

The world has undergone significant transformations over the past few decades. Emerging economics... more The world has undergone significant transformations over the past few decades. Emerging economics, global South or developing nations are those whose economic development measured in GDP has increased most in relative terms. Therefore, the entire notion of " development " and " markets " may it be economic or social can be challenged. Recent research provides useful insights towards this very challenge; Buen vivir (Gudynas, Penaloza, 2015) to name the few. However, much remains to be uncovered in the broader socioeconomic , political, cultural and other areas that work to define contemporary development in the era of the market, market places and market formation. This conference seeks to mobilize diverse and multidisciplinary perspectives in this regard toward a better understanding of the processes of practices of development in contemporary society. Part of the goal for this conference then is to bring together traditional and emerging thoughts on the new era of markets and its connection to human development in all its forms. In this regard, we encourage papers and sessions on a redefinition of development grounded in contemporary understanding of markets from a multidisciplinary perspective. That is, we seek works that explore the current nature of development and the role that markets play in it. Historical and traditional treatments of marketing and development are also welcome. Some questions that are worth pondering for purposes of the conference are: Who are the beneficiaries of contemporary development efforts? Who are marginalized by these efforts? And what can be done to enhance development benefits and mitigate the negative effects? As with earlier ISMD conferences, we anticipate thinking and investigations that rely on existing models to suggest new avenues for enhancing development around the world. We invite even challenge the essence of the term " development " and " markets " ! To this end, we are inviting submissions to 14th topical conference tracks described below but not limited to these topics. Each paper or panel submission should be addressed to only one specific track. Please select the track closest to your submission. For special session proposals or topics that are not captured by the identified tracks, please send proposals to Pia Polsa (pia.polsa@hanken.fi)

This is a teaser. It is part of chapter one of a forthcoming collection - The Routledge Companion... more This is a teaser. It is part of chapter one of a forthcoming collection - The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing Studies - which I have co-edited with Matthew Higgins, Janice Denegri-Knott and Rohit Varman. To get the rest, you'll need to order a copy for your local university library or treat yourself to an early Christmas present. The entire manuscript is now with the publisher. Here is the ToC:

The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing Studies (Editors: Mark Tadajewski, Matthew Higgins, Janice Denegri-Knott and Rohit Varman)

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introducing and Advancing Critical Marketing Studies (Mark Tadajewski, Matthew Higgins, Janice Denegri-Knott and Rohit Varman).
Chapter Two: Postmodernism and Critical Marketing (Nikhilesh Dholakia and Fuat Fırat).
Chapter Three: Postcolonialism, Subalternity, and Critical Marketing (Rohit Varman).
Chapter Four: Feminist Perspectives in Marketing: Past, Present and Future (Pauline Maclaran and Olga Kravets).
Chapter Five: Critical Social Marketing: Reflections, Introspections and Future (Ross Gordon).
Chapter Six: Critical Macromarketing, Sustainable Marketing and Globalization (Bill Kilbourne).
Chapter Seven: Critical Perspectives on Place Marketing (Massimo Giovanardi, Mihalis Kavaratzis and Maria Lichrou).
Chapter Eight: Critical Arts Marketing (Gretchen Larsen and Finola Kerrigan).
Book Section Break: Critical Marketing – Marketing Practices in Focus
Chapter Nine: Critical Studies of Marketing Work (Peter Svensson).
Chapter Ten: The Cultural Turn in Lifestyle Research: Overview and Reflections (Gokcen Coskuner-Balli).
Chapter Eleven: Advertising Practice and Critical Marketing (Chris Hackley).
Chapter Twelve: Critical Reflections on the Marketing Concept and Consumer Sovereignty (Mark Tadajewski).
Chapter Thirteen: Service-Dominant Logic: The Evolution of a Universal Marketing Rhetoric (Chris Miles).
Chapter Fourteen: Metaphor and Relationship Marketing Discourse (Lisa O’Malley).
Chapter Fifteen: Critical Perspectives on Ethical Consumption (Michal Carrington and Andreas Chatzidakis).
Chapter Sixteen: Religious Critiques of the Market (Aliakbar Jafari).
Book Section Break: Rethinking Consumers and Markets – Critiques of Markets
Chapter Seventeen: Re-mapping Power for Critical Marketing and Consumer Research (Janice Denegri-Knott).
Chapter Eighteen: Ideology and Critical Marketing Studies (Giana M. Eckhardt, Rohit Varman and Nikhilesh Dholakia).
Chapter Nineteen: Non-Western Cultures and Critical Marketing (Özlem Sandıkcı Türkdoğan).
Chapter Twenty: Choice and Choicelessness in Consumer Practice (Ruby Roy Dholakia, A. Fuat Fırat and Nikhilesh Dholakia).
Chapter Twenty-One: Managing Racial Stigma in Consumer Culture (David Crockett).
Chapter Twenty-Two: Consumer Vulnerability: Critical Insights from Stories, Action Research and Visual Culture (Susan Dunnett, Kathy Hamilton, and Maria Piacentini).
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Embodied Consumer (Maurice Patterson).
Book Section Break: Critical Marketing – Marketing Practices in Focus
Chapter Twenty-Four: Critical Perspectives on Brand Management (Adam Arvidsson and Alex Giordano).
Chapter Twenty-Five: Gender, Marketing, and Emotions: A Critical, Feminist Exploration of the Ideological Helix that Defines Our Working Worlds (Lorna Stevens).
Chapter Twenty-Six: Biopolitical Marketing and the Commodification of Social Contexts (Detlev Zwick and Alan Bradshaw).
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Exploitation and Emancipation (Bernard Cova and Bernard Paranque).
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Political Economy Approaches to Transnational Commodity Markets: An Application to the Case of the Global Palm Oil Market (Martin Fougère).
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Social Media, Big Data and Critical Marketing (Christian Fuchs).
Chapter Thirty: Marketing and the Production of Consumers’ Objective Violence (Eduardo André Teixeira Ayrosa and Renata Couto de Azevedo de Oliveira).