The Voice of the Citizen Consumer

The interconnection between the politics of consumption and the techniques of market research, dealing with the methodical observation of consumers as well as with the more controversial theme of the ‘citizen consumer’ which has excited historians of consumption over the last decade, is a topic that had to be addressed. Kerstin Brückweh and the participants of a 2008 conference at the German Historical Institute in London have gone some way to meet this need. The timeliness of the appearance of this book is emphasised by the fact that its contributors could build on a variety of recent approaches to the interventions of different groups of consumers in political life. Admittedly, the book does not live up to the publisher’s promise to provide us with ‘the story of the political sphere in Western consumer societies’; but then, dust-jackets need to be read with caution. However, the larger question of how exactly the invoked ‘citizen consumer’ relates to, and coexists with, more established concepts of citizenship and political communication could have featured more prominently in some of the contributions

Citizenship · Consumption (sociology · German · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Public sphere · Social science · Sociology · Theme (computing · American History and Culture · European history and politics · History · Law