Countervailing Market Responses to Corporate Co-optation and the Ideological Recruitment of Consumption Communities

Craig J. Thompson and Gokcen Coskuner-Balli

Journal of Consumer Research, 2007, vol. 34, issue 2, 135-152

Abstract: From a conventional theoretical standpoint, the corporatization of the organic food movement is an example of co-optation. Co-optation theory conceptualizes the commercial marketplace as an ideological force that assimilates the symbols and practices of a counterculture into dominant norms. Our alternative argument is that co-optation can generate a countervailing market response that actively promotes the oppositional aspects of a counterculture attenuated by the process of commercial mainstreaming. To develop this theoretical argument, we analyze community-supported agriculture, which has emerged in response to the corporate co-optation of the organic food movement. We conclude by discussing how tacit political ideologies structure consumption communities. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2007
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:34:y:2007:i:2:p:135-152

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