Personal Consumption Reflective Essay
Personal Consumption Reflective Essay
( it should start with reflection, then use the concept, how reflection is captured by the concept.
lecturer suggested i use those 3 concepts :
display of taste
Holt, D.B., 1997. Distinction in America? Recovering Bourdieu’s theory of tastes from its critics.
Poetics, 25(23), pp.93120.
Holt, D.B., 1998. Does cultural capital structure American consumption?. Journal of consumer
research, 25(1), pp.125
Warde, A., 1997. Consumption, food and taste. Sage.
Bourdieu, P., 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard University Press.
heritage
Friedman, M.T. and Silk, M.L., 2005. Expressing Fenway: managing and marketing heritage within
the global sports marketplace. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 1(12),
pp.3755
Misiura, S., 2006. Heritage marketing. Routledge.
Brown, S., McDonagh, P. and Shultz, C.J., 2013. Titanic: consuming the myths and meanings of an
ambiguous brand. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(4), pp.595614.
identity
Wattanasuwan, Krit (2005) “The Self and Symbolic Consumption”, Journal of American Academy of
Business, 6(1), 179184.
Supplementary Reading:
Belk, R., 2014. Digital consumption and the extended self. Journal of Marketing
Management, 30(1112), pp.11011118.
For the second part of this assignment, you are tasked with writing a 2,500 word reflective essay,
which explores your relationship with a significant object or consumption experience. You must
choose a single entry from your introspective diary ( the ROLEX Submariner) and use the formative
feedback that you received on course work one to develop this essay. With this essay, you must draw
more indepth parallels, contrasts and connections between the theories that you are engaging with
in lecture sessions and through your reading. These insights should also be used to develop
observations/arguments in relation to consumption related topics/debates covered in this module
both through lectures and reading resources.
Having completed the reflective essay, you must use a medium of your choice (photograph, collage,
painting, drawing, model making), to create a representation that captures your relationship with the
consumption object/experience. You will not be assessed on the artistic quality of this representation,
rather the purpose here is to give you an opportunity to reflect upon the understanding and insights
developed in this essay in a creative way. Previous examples of student representations are available
on Moodle.
You may, once again, consider the following questions to further develop your reflective essay:
In what ways do you use consumption to support the construction of your identity?
How are the symbolic meanings associated with your consumption choices important to you? Is the
information processing view of consumers relevant to your consumption patterns?
Is the experiential view of consumers relevant to your consumption patterns?
Do you use consumption as a means of connecting within a community of likeminded others? Do
you have consumption objects that are particularly significant in your life?
The principal aim here is for students to reflect upon their own consumption experiences so that they
can begin to understand and interpret the many ways that consumers form relationships with objects/
and through experiences. It is essential that you utilise the feedback received on your introspective
journal entries in order to develop more indepth insights in your reflective essay.
Useful Resources:
Belk, R.W., 2013. Extended self in a digital world. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(3), pp.477
500.
Marwick, A.E., 2015. Instafame: Luxury selfies in the attention economy. Public Culture, 27(1 75),
pp.137
160.
Holbrook, Morris B., and Elizabeth C. Hirschman. “The experiential aspects of consumption: Consumer
fantasies, feelings, and fun.” Journal of consumer research 9.2 (1982): 132140.
Elliott, R. and Wattanasuwan, K., 1998. Brands as symbolic resources for the construction of
identity. International journal of Advertising, 17(2), pp.131144.
Wattanasuwan, K., 2005. The self and symbolic consumption. Journal of American Academy of
Business, 6(1), pp.179184.
McAlexander, J.H., Schouten, J.W. and Koenig, H.F., 2002. Building brand community. Journal of
marketing, 66(1), pp.3854.
McCracken, G., 1986. Culture and consumption: A theoretical account of the structure and movement
of the
cultural meaning of consumer goods. Journal of consumer research, 13(1), pp.7184.
Heisley, D. D., & Cours, D. (2007). Connectedness and worthiness for the embedded self: A material
culture perspective. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 10(4), 425450.
