Ideological capacities in consumer communities : an exploration of the "presenteers" tribe

Taştan, İrem and Ozdamar Ertekin, Zeynep (2024) Ideological capacities in consumer communities : an exploration of the "presenteers" tribe. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 27 (5). pp. 724-749. ISSN 1352-2752 (https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-05-2023-0059)

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Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to explore how a postmodern tribe enacts and re-interprets ideologies as a part of consumers’ collective experience, to enhance our understanding of consumer communities in conjunction with ideological capacities. Design/methodology/approach: The community of “presenteers” is conceptualized as a self-organized tribe with heterogeneous components that generate capacities to act. Netnographic observation was conducted on 18 presenteer accounts and lasted around six months. Real-time data were collected by taking screenshots of the posts and stories that these users created and publicly shared. Data were analysed by adopting assemblage theory, combining inductive and deductive approaches. Firstly, a qualitative visual-textual content analysis of the tribe’s defining components was conducted. Then, the process continued with the thematic analysis of the ideological underpinnings of the tribe’s enactments. Findings: Findings shed light on the ways in which consumer communities interpret the entanglement of religious, political, and cultural ideologies in shaping their experiences. In the case of the presenteers tribe, findings reflect a novel ideological interplay between neo-Ottomanism, post-feminism and consumerism. Research limitations/implications: The study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of “presenteering” and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market. Originality/value: The study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of “presenteering” and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market.

ORCID iDs

Taştan, İrem ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9893-9953 and Ozdamar Ertekin, Zeynep;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)