Module Code - Title:
MK4004
-
CONSUMPTION AND CONSUMER CULTURE
Year Last Offered:
2025/6
Hours Per Week:
Grading Type:
N
Prerequisite Modules:
MK4002
Rationale and Purpose of the Module:
This course aims to provide coverage of the nature of consumer culture.
* To reflect the general shift within consumer culture in the basic emphasis of economic systems from exchange or production to consumption.
* To define the domain of consumer behaviour, including some areas of interest to consumer behaviour researchers, policymakers, and marketers.
* To provide coverage of the circle of consumption and how consumption relates to other technological and economic processes.
* To explore contemporary theories of consumption.
* To encourage students to critically reflect upon their own consumption.
Syllabus:
The Circle of Consumption; Motivational Dynamics; Culture; Cultural Values; Myths & Symbols; Cultural Rituals; Types of Meanings; Meaning Transfer; Strategic Analysis of Consumers; Self Concept; Subcultures of Consumption; Lifestyles; Embodiment & Consumption; Classic Theories of Motivation; Consumer Motives in Cultural Perspective; Involvement; Consumer Experience; Consumer Learning; Purchasing; Gift Exchange; Organisational Consumption; Family & Household Consumption; The Social Context of Personal Consumption; Tools of Influence; Reference Groups; Innovation; Adoption and Diffusion; Resistance; Compulsive Consumption; The Disposition Process; Profiles of Disposition Behaviours; Factors Affecting Disposal Choices.
Learning Outcomes:
Cognitive (Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Evaluation, Synthesis)
On successful completion of this module, students should be able to;
Delineate the domain of consumer behaviour, including areas of interest to consumer behaviour researchers, policymakers, and marketers.
Articulate the differences between approaches to consumer behaviour based on information processing and experiential accounts.
Illustrate and interpret aspects of their own consumption activities.
Investigate the connections between identity and consumption in a consumer society.
Discriminate between the alternative meanings that might be associated with consumption objects.
Challenge the accepted wisdom that the purchase process represents the core focus of consumer behaviour and acknowledge the critical importance of acquisition, consumption and disposition processes.
Affective (Attitudes and Values)
Display a professional commitment to collaboration and teamwork.
Practice empathic awareness of and sensitivity towards individual and cultural differences.
Psychomotor (Physical Skills)
None
How the Module will be Taught and what will be the Learning Experiences of the Students:
The module will be delivered through a series of weekly lectures and supportive tutorials. An experiential and interactive teaching and learning approach is taken with the use of in-class exercises and case studies and continuous assessment to help students engage independently and in groups with the module material and develop autonomy and responsibility as learners. A selection of seminal and state-of-the-art articles from the Journal of Consumer Research are adopted to enhance student knowledge on the topic. Furthermore, creative, teamwork and communication skills are fostered through the module continuous assessment, which includes oral, written and visual elements. Finally, students will be given opportunities to reflect on their own and on others' consumer behaviour to encourage a reflexive understanding of the role of cultural perspectives on consumption and to develop sensitivity to individual and cultural differences.
Research Findings Incorporated in to the Syllabus (If Relevant):
Prime Texts:
Solomon, M.R., Bamossy, G., Askegaard, S. and Hogg, M.K. (2013)
Consumer behaviour: a European perspective
, Pearson
Other Relevant Texts:
Arnould, E., L. Price and G. Zinkhan (2004)
Consumers
, McGraw-Hill
Programme(s) in which this Module is Offered:
BBBUSTUFA - BUSINESS STUDIES
BBBSFRUFA - FRENCH
BBBSGEUFA - GERMAN
BBBSJAUFA - JAPANESE
Semester(s) Module is Offered:
Spring
Module Leader:
myles.kingston@ul.ie