La consommation en régime d'abondance. La confrontation aux offres culturelles dites illimitées

Nicolas Auray

Revue française de socio-Economie, 2011, vol. n° 8, issue 2, 85-102

Abstract: Cultural ?commercial unlimited offers?, which propose to consumers (in exchange for a fixed price) access to a quasi-infinite cultural content, are a privileged observatory for studying the process of confrontation of users to exciting aspirations or unlimited desires. Indeed, they combine three dynamics: (1) a dynamics of anomy, (2) a dynamics of resignation by which consumers accept autorestrictions, (3) and a dynamics of dispute which is based on irritation with constraints imposed by the providers. The purpose of this paper is to see how the balance between these dynamics is fulfilled differently in the four sectors of cultural industry considered: book publishing, music, video games and movies. Does the excess of goods generate good exploratory discovery practices, or does it generate anomy and a cowering of people in segments of content they already knew? It is grounded on observations and interviews of consumers of illimited offers.

Keywords: cultural industry; unlimited; anomy; exploration; consumption; market; digital culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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