Media Censorship and Consumer Identity

Polina Landgraf and Tami Kim

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2024, vol. 9, issue 4, 378 - 389

Abstract: From Gone with the Wind to Dave Chappelle’s The Closer, much media content has been perceived as violating today’s social mores by offending consumers from marginalized groups. As a result, many streaming platforms have faced calls for censorship from consumers. Four preregistered studies, employing different paradigms and diverse groups of consumers, investigate when and why consumers—specifically those belonging to marginalized groups—espouse or reject content censorship. When media content threatens the values that consumers deem critical to protect their marginalized identity, they press for completely deleting the content (study 1). This effect is mitigated when consumers (a) share an identity with the content creator (studies 2A and 2B) and (b) view the issue from a different identity’s perspective (study 3). The findings demonstrate how marginalized consumers facing identity threats can use censorship as a means for minority activism and provide insight into the psychology of those traditionally overlooked by consumer behavior researchers.

Date: 2024
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