New insights into online consumption communities and netnography
Introduction
The study of different types of consumption communities has become a staple topic within the field of consumer culture theory (Luedicke, 2006, McAlexander et al., 2002, Schau et al., 2009; for CCT, see Arnould & Thompson, 2005). More recently, however, research interest has concentrated on social consumption activities taking place in online consumption communities (Cova and Pace, 2006, Kozinets, 2002, Muñiz and Schau, 2005). But as the online realm is continuously evolving, some assumptions need to be revisited. The rise of network society was proclaimed long ago already (Castells, 1996), but it is only recently that the full effect of how global ideologies and digitally enabled information flows shape local consumption contexts have become visible (Appadurai, 1990, Bennett, 1999, Kjeldgaard and Askegaard, 2006). Contemporary online environments are recognized as catalysts for the fragmentation and cluttering of the marketplace with meanings and signs, as outlined in postmodern frameworks of consumption (Brown, 1995, Deuze, 2006, Firat and Dholakia, 2006, Firat and Venkatesh, 1995). By consequence, online environments have become multiple and delocalized with people sharing various connections or maintaining digital presences in multiple communities across the globe (Kozinets, 2010). However, this type of multiplicity between online consumption communities lacks theorization, and especially methodological concerns need addressing.
The main purpose of this study is to illustrate some of the consequences of this technological and cultural shift in consumer research of online communities. The study illustrates how the increasing connectivity between online consumption communities makes defining a community's structure as being tied to one single consumption interest difficult — a problem noted in some recent works (Arsel and Thompson, 2011, Kozinets, 2007, Thomas et al., 2013). Based on findings from a longitudinal research project with a strong autoethnographic and introspective orientation conducted in a Finnish online consumption community, this study shows that members of such fragmented online consumption communities are increasingly engaging in communities from a more individualistic perspective and by connecting to a multitude of contexts — both offline and online. This study also underlines the difficulties in defining community structure through traditional means, such as subcultural capital (Thornton, 1996). Finally, this study illustrates how researching such complex contexts can greatly benefit from autoethnographic and introspective approaches.
Section snippets
Theoretical background
The study of different types of consumption communities has claimed centrality in research on consumer collectives, resulting in conceptual breakthroughs such as subculture of consumption, brand community and consumer tribe (Canniford, 2011, Cova et al., 2007, Schouten and McAlexander, 1995, McAlexander et al., 2002). While many of these prior studies have also dealt with the online element of consumption communities, more recent research projects have investigated consumption communities from
Method and research context
The online community Stealth Unit (SU, www.stealthunit.net) was the focus of this study's netnographic inquiry (Kozinets, 2010). SU originally came together in 2001 as a site for a small circle of Finnish enthusiasts of the electronic music genre drum n bass, which, as an eclectic bass-driven offshoot of the UK rave culture, emerged in the mid-1990s (McLeod, 2001). The community has since grown considerably, peaking around 2009 with more than 5000 registered members and contributors as well as
Findings
The findings concentrate on two specific themes: 1) how the community's members were now engaging with the community on an individual level and 2) what kind of performances or phenomena the community enables on a communal and inter-communal level. The community members' individual orientation towards the community is conceptualized as situated individualism. On the level of the entire community, the community is now increasingly enabling delocalized performances that are shared, negotiated and
Discussion
The primary contribution of this study is to illustrate the inherent difficulties in defining online consumption communities as singular consumption fields and in seeing that member hierarchy comes about straightforwardly by the mastery of the field. While one central topic can still have a strong orienting effect in many online communities (as such centrality is often maintained, for example, through active moderation and intervention), the findings in this study illustrate how understanding
Acknowledgment
We thank the editor and the anonymous reviews for their highly constructive comments and patience throughout the writing process of this manuscript. We thank John W. Schouten for his valuable commenting during the write-up of the final draft. We thank the research participants for agreeing to share their stories with us.
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