Cultural Consumption Research: Review of Methodology, Theory, and Consequence

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Cultural Consumption Research: Review of Methodology, Theory, and

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Article in International Review of Sociology · March 2004

DOI: 10.1080/0390670042000186743
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International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2004
Cultural Consumption Research: Review of Methodology,

Theory, and Consequence
TALLY KATZ-GERRO
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Introduction
This paper discusses methodological and theoretical issues that arise in
contemporary analyses of cultural consumption. First, I review measures of
cultural consumption that receive attention in the literature and I put forward
several others that broaden the definition and measurement of this concept.
I propose the inclusion of a variety of consumption realms and consumption
publics, and advocate the use of integrated and flexible measures. I discuss the
comparability of consumption indicators in the context of cross-national, cross-
cultural, and longitudinal research, and submit that it is important to have
standardized measures for the sake of their reliability and validity, but also that
it is important to have case-specific measures in order to prevent blurred
cultural distinctions.
Second, I suggest that consumer culture research further develop a series of
theoretical questions that stand at the core of the field, particularly those that
acknowledge the significant social consequences of cultural consumption: the
transition from production to consumption; cultural consumption and the
social matrix; cultural consumption as a generative concept; multiple
consumer identities; and cultural consumption and cultural policy. The shared
emphasis of these theoretical questions is on locating the position of individ-
uals on multidimensional hierarchies of consumption, thus facilitating concep-
tualization of lifestyle tribes, status groups, or taste communities as generators
of values, attitudes, and behavior.
Sociological literature at the intersection of culture and consumption
increasingly emphasizes the importance of cultural consumption and tastes in
shaping the contours of social locations and social relations. Cultural prefer-
ences and lifestyles are initiators and sustainers of identities and group bound-
aries (Warde, 1994; Lamont and Molnár, 2001); they mark and maintain social
distinction (Peterson and Kern, 1996; Katz-Gerro, 2002); they reflect and
create symbols and symbolic meanings (Bryson, 1996); and they are sources of
new conflicts and new social movements (Schor, 1999). Cultural ‘tribes’ crys-
tallize on the basis of lifestyles as when both individuals and groups objectify
themselves and their values through their consumption acts. Such tribes
include, for example, cultural omnivores, down-shifters, environmentalists,
nonsmokers, residents in gated communities, clubbers, and hackers.
ISSN 0390-6701 print/1489-9273 online/04/01011-19 © 2004 University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’

DOI: 10.1080/0390670042000186743
12 T. Katz-Gerro
The distribution of cultural consumption practices is sociologically inter-

esting for two main reasons. First, cultural tastes serve as a means for distin-
guishing social groups. Cultural consumption is a standard and a basis for
social and cultural positions, preferences, and behaviors. Second, consump-
tion is central to the process by which social groups reproduce themselves. In
the sphere of culture, resources are embodied in symbolic abilities and tastes,
and the consumption of cultural products with high symbolic value contributes
to the legitimization of privilege and facilitates the selection of the next
privileged generation.
Many of the theoretical claims aimed at formulating a new agenda for
Sociology of Consumption in contemporary society are not supported by
sufficient and diverse empirical evidence. Without the discipline of data it is
difficult to integrate theoretical understandings in different areas, particu-
larly culture, consumption, lifestyle, and leisure. Furthermore, scholarly
inquiries into the common ground of consumption and culture sometimes
overlook the diversity in the relationship of consumers to the market, state,
and policy (Miller, 1995a, b). Consequently, national differences in
consumer movements, consumption-based institutions, consumption-based
politics, and consumption patterns are not analyzed through the local as well
as the global lens. Although the discussion of cultural consumption has
evinced interesting developments, little analysis has been conducted on
cross-national and cross-cultural similarities and differences in categories of
cultural consumption, cultural tastes, and lifestyle preferences. Scholars have
neglected a specifically comparative point of view on differences in cultural
consumption that stem from different economic regimes, different responses
to globalization processes, varying power relations of the state vis-à-vis the
market, and historical traditions. To provide a strong empirical basis for the
advancement of central debates in the field of consumption, it is crucial that
we explore the cross-national and cross-cultural validity and reliability of the
way we define, measure, and interpret preferences and tastes for cultural
consumption.
In the following I highlight several methodological and theoretical issues
involved in the study of cultural consumption. In terms of measuring cultural
consumption, I consider types and variety of consumption indicators, integra-
tion of different indicators, and cultural frameworks. In terms of theory I
discuss the way research can elaborate on five theoretical concerns that
underlie current debates in the field and concern the determinants and the
consequences of consumption.
Measuring Cultural Consumption

How does the main body of research think about cultural consumption, taste,
and lifestyle? A traditional approach refers to the distinctive style of life of
status groups (Weber, 1978; Sobel, 1981; Rojek, 1985). Contemporary research
sees in cultural consumption individuality, self-expression, and a stylistic self-
consciousness (Featherstone, 1991). Cultural artifacts and cultural resources
form around identity, taste, and consumption patterns (Pakulski and Waters,
1996; Storey, 1999). Lifestyle is a form of expression that can be observed and
measured as leisure activities, cultural consumption patterns, and cultural
tastes (Sobel, 1983; Bourdieu, 1984; DiMaggio, 1994; Bryson, 1997; Slater,
Cultural Consumption Research 13
1997). Common lifestyle indicators in the literature include leisure pastimes,

cultural consumption, and cultural tastes related to clothing, music, reading,
and choice of holidays (Sobel, 1983; Rojek, 1985; Featherstone, 1991).
Most cultural consumption research, when following Bourdieu’s work, has
used measures of participation in highbrow and lowbrow culture activities,
although the breadth of cultural consumption is much broader (DiMaggio,
1994). Other attempts to define diverse aspects of cultural consumption show
a wide range of indicators that are used to investigate the consolidation of
consumption patterns and tastes into manifold cultural profiles (Sobel, 1983;
De Graaf, 1991; Toivonen, 1992; Aschaffenburg, 1995; Katz-Gerro and Shavit,
1998; Katz-Gerro, 1999). The simple distinction between high culture and mass
culture or the measurement of degrees of participation in high culture is
insufficient (Ritzer, 1999). A more complex depiction of cultural consumption
emerges, which includes indoor and outdoor activities, individual and collec-
tive activities, and generational differences in cultural forms and activities. The
variety of consumption types and their careful definition and measurement is
particularly important for an understanding of the way the social field is
reflected in the cultural field. By the meticulous examination of a variety of
lifestyle types we can understand the way different groups appropriate
different cultural resources.
I would like to propose that the challenge before us is to approach cultural
consumption in inclusive and representative ways, in a variety of alternative
forms and styles that reflect different theoretical approaches and different
facets of the life-world. More specifically, measuring cultural consumption
involves the following aspects.
Variety of Cultural Consumption Indicators

The development of a range of cultural indicators has got underway in several
ongoing projects conducted by UNESCO; some of these indicators will be of
relevance for measuring various aspects of cultural consumption such as
cultural capital, status groups, and consumption clusters (Throsby, 1999). A
variety of preferences, tastes, and activities that are usually understudied ought
to be emphasized in research: amateur artistic activities, voluntary activities,
membership of associations and clubs, practicing hobbies, recycling, Internet
use, visiting and hosting, going to parties, conversing, eating out, and tastes in
reading, music, and fashion. Differentiating indicators dependent mainly on
financial means from others reflecting taste independently of one’s ability to
spend money on cultural activities is important for separating cultural
consumption from material consumption. This separation is also valuable for
analysis of the commodification of cultural tastes. For example, there is a
distinction between books one buys and books borrowed from a public library
and between music consumed through purchasing an expensive concert ticket
and music listened to on the radio.
While research mostly focuses on tastes and preferences associated with
highbrow culture, this choice neglects to modify and adjust the meaning of
highbrow tastes according to specific contexts of time and place; it also fails to
generate indicators that encapsulate a larger spectrum of contemporary life-
styles.1 A wider range of consumption clusters than what is currently employed
in research could capture various realms of cultural consumption, such as gay
14 T. Katz-Gerro
and lesbian lifestyles, omnivore and univore cultural consumption patterns,

simple living, green lifestyle, gendered cultural tastes, life-cycle patterns of
consumption, and children’s cultural consumption.
For example, the development of a gay subculture in many Western metro-
politan areas involves distinct cultural consumption patterns (Bocock, 1993;
Wardlow, 1996; Chasin, 2001). Lesbians and male homosexuals have been
targeted as a separate consumer group through advertising and media repre-
sentations when, as a social group, they have become economically powerful.
Gay consumption preferences include gay bars and clubs, gay magazines and
books, holiday resorts developed for gays, and gay clothing fashion. Gay
construction of identity is realized through style of dress, body care, leisure-
time pursuits, media products, and other consumption preferences (Bocock,
1993; Faderman, 2000).
The emphasis on a multiplicity of consumption clusters goes back to the
debate between mass culture and taste cultures (Gans, 1974). By acknowl-
edging taste cultures, Gans goes beyond a simple distinction between high and
low culture. He identifies tastes that are clusters of cultural forms, which
encompass values and aesthetic standards. Analysis of cultural consumption
should consider all cultural forms as potential cultural resources exchangeable
in different markets. Nevertheless, appreciation of cultural forms is unevenly
distributed and may reflect and reinforce domination and exclusion. For
example, Meyer (2000) distinguishes the rhetoric of authenticity and the
rhetoric of refinement as two types of taste formation. The rhetoric of refine-
ment alludes to symbolic meanings that are the result of an aristocratic config-
uration of power. The rhetoric of authenticity refers to taste formed in the
context of sweeping challenges to aristocratic privilege and symbolic practice.
Therefore, research on cultural capital must consider dynamic and volatile
forms of taste production. Hierarchies of taste are ever changing and the
meanings of highbrow, lowbrow, elite taste, popular taste, etc., are changing as
well.2
Integration of Indicators
A comprehensive examination of cultural consumption entails an integration
of different aspects of consumption. Researchers usually focus on one type or
a limited group of indicators in a single analysis and not on the interaction
between types of indicators. For example, instead of analyzing a set of leisure
activities as an independent aspect of consumption, we could look at models
that combine leisure-time preferences with tastes in reading or with taste in art
or music to produce multi-faceted portraits of consumers (Katz-Gerro, 1999,
2002). This integrative research strategy is useful in estimating competing
aspects of consumption. For example, De Graaf et al. (2000) asked which
aspects of parental cultural resources affect educational attainment, and found
that parental reading behavior—not parental beaux-arts participation—affected
children’s educational attainment. Integration of a variety of cultural consump-
tion indicators is supported by Meyer’s (2000) discussion of taste formation in
pluralistic societies. The prevailing direction of taste formation is that a
standard is defined at the top of the social hierarchy and diffuses downward.
The reverse pattern is also a possibility, in which there is a diffusion of a
standard among members of the lower classes, which then infiltrates upward.
It is only through an integration of indicators that such dynamics of taste

formation are identified.
Consumption within Cultural Frameworks

Comparative studies of consumption are often based on the transposition of
existing measures and concepts in foreign contexts. These concepts and
methods of data collection do not always have similar validity and reliability
across the units studied. A possible solution would be to design a new instru-
ment on a cross-national basis. However, culture-specific indicators are no less
important than standardized universal indicators. Whereas identifying similar-
ities in the organization of cultural fields and their consumers by using compa-
rable measures such as European classical music is important, acknowledging
differences by looking at country-specific preferences such as schlager music or
reggae is equally valuable. Cross-national or cross-cultural variation in method
and data can be treated as useful information rather than as a disturbing
feature.
Relatively too few survey data or ethnographic data are available on life-
styles and cultural consumption to allow cross-national, cross-cultural, or
longitudinal analysis.3 Examples of comparative data on cultural consump-
tion are the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) [http://
www.iser.essex.ac.uk/mtus/index.php], Cultural Policies in Europe: A
Compendium of Basic Facts and Trends (within the UNESCO framework for
cultural statistics) [http://www.culturalpolicies.net/], the American Survey
of Public participation in the Arts (SPPA) [http://arts.endow.gov/pub/
Survey/SurveyPDF.html], and Eurobarometer 2001 [http://www.gesis.org/
en/data_service/eurobarometer/]. New research possibilities open up with
access to such data. Longitudinal data allow tracing of changes over time in
cultural consumption such as shifting meanings in highbrow, lowbrow, and
middlebrow tastes, the changing significance of structural factors such as
occupational class in affecting cultural consumption, and the emergence of
novel tastes that operate in processes of distinction.
A cross-national comparison can establish whether our theorizing and
understanding of the relationship of lifestyles, leisure, consumption, culture,
and the social matrix are contextual to a satisfying degree. To achieve these
goals it is necessary to explore the validity and reliability of the measurement
tools, namely the extent to which cultural indicators measure the same or
different things in different countries in the West as well as in other parts of
the world.4 Cultural categories are embedded in particularistic sociocultural
circumstances. Therefore, research must consider the acceptance, use, and
meaning attachment patterns of cultural products (Applbaum and Jordt,
1996). If meaning constitutes the unity of the cultural order (Sahlins, 1978),
we need to know whether the cultural scheme produces similar meaning
systems in different case studies. Thus, consumer goods, activities, and prefer-
ences carry different meanings in different places. This is particularly complex
with diffused products that combine with and integrate themselves into the
host society that accepts them. Diffusion does not necessarily result in all
aspects of the product or activity being embraced by the recipient culture. As
artifacts mesh with the recipient culture in unique and meaningful ways, only
some aspects tend to be borrowed (Walle, 1997; Chick, 2000). Taste is
16 T. Katz-Gerro
negotiated in a local process, heavily influenced by the operating institutional

context and the available rhetoric and classifications (Meyer, 2000).
Theoretical Issues in Cultural Consumption Research

Several theoretical concerns can significantly benefit from empirical
grounding in the alternative measures of consumption discussed above and
from comparative methods and analysis. I elaborate on five specific examples.
From Production to Consumption

Claims for the growing importance of cultural consumption and lifestyle in
everyday life emphasize a transition from society organized around production
to society organized around consumption (Otnes, 1988; Lury, 1996; Slater,
1997; Schor, 1999; Edwards, 2000). Consumption has superseded production
as the dominant organizing principle of consumer society; consumption offers
a generalized explanation of everyday life, which accounts for the impact of
expanded cultural production on social group formation. Individual or group
styles of life or their consumption practices increasingly shape economic
relations (Warde, 2002). The link between production and consumption
exemplifies the complex way that the economic is embedded within the social.
This is also the result of the way economic categories and social categories
intertwine within the structures of market relations and micro-economic
action (Slater, 2001). Nonetheless, a clear explanation of the meaning and
consequences of the transition from production to consumption is not readily
available. What accurately depicts the shift from production to consumption
irrespective of the distribution of capital? Is it really a shift or a new balance of
coexistence? Are social factors and determinants no longer located in the
production process?
The transition from production to consumption receives several theoretical
interpretations. First, scholars have proposed that conflict between producers
and consumers is more important than conflict between classes that are differ-
entially related to the means of production (Saunders, 1990). Support for this
comes, for example, from the argument that in modern capitalism the binary
relation of production and consumption was quite strongly gendered: produc-
tion for men, consumption for women. Production was active, led to men
earning money, and provided them with some form of power. Consumption
was more passive, involved spending money, and did not lead to any publicly
recognizable forms of power (Bocock, 1993). Second, mass consumption has
a significant impact on homogenization of lifestyles and changing mass orien-
tations (Pakulski, 1993, p. 285). This leads to a separation of people’s interests
as consumers from their interests as producers, or to the detachment of
socioeconomic location from consumption and lifestyles. Third, individuals
and groups express themselves and their values through their consumption
acts (Miller, 1995a, b). Individuals regard themselves as members of commu-
nities with shared concerns, habits, and tastes, and such ‘imagined communi-
ties’ provide identities and encourage a sense of solidarity (Anderson, 1991;
Schouten and McAlexander, 1995; Muniz and O’guinn, 2001). The main
question is whether such communities also reflect social proximity or shared
economic or political position. If, indeed, individuals increasingly tend to
represent themselves and to act according to what they consume rather than
what they produce, through their lifestyle rather than their occupation, it
becomes paramount to perfect measures of ‘consumption communities’.
Multiple Consumer Identities

Cultural tastes are contextual and complex, therefore consideration of combi-
nations of cultural fields of consumption is highly important. Conceptualizing
a framework that incorporates combinations or clusters of cultural consump-
tion components lies at the heart of a multidimensional understanding of
individuals and their position in society in terms of identity and resources.
Boundaries between social spheres are no longer given—they are pluralized
and discretionary because of the multiple ways they can be drawn and
contested (Slater and Ritzer, 2001). Research tends to locate the position of
individuals on one-dimensional axes of cultural consumption; the ubiquitous
example is the highbrow–lowbrow distinction. This empirical bias toward one-
dimensional measures such as highbrow, lowbrow, gay, or youth cultural
consumption does not square with the idea that individuals employ a reper-
toire of cultural resources and interests (Swidler, 1986). By depicting multiple
consumption profiles we can map consumption categories: passive individuals
who exhibit a low level of cultural consumption; active consumers of many
types of cultural consumption; or active consumers of a particular type of
cultural consumption. This resonates with the ‘omnivore thesis’ arguing that
a useful cultural resource is mastery of various kinds of cultural and artistic
genres coupled with a sense of which culture to use in which context (Erickson,
1996; Peterson and Kern, 1996; Holt, 1997a). Peterson and Kern (1996) have
shown evidence of a shift from ‘snob’ to ‘omnivore’ in musical tastes. Such
trends can also be found in other arenas of cultural consumption, suggesting
a breakdown of the traditional divide between high and popular culture both
in terms of the desired omnivorous taste profile and in terms of the composi-
tion of omnivore consumers. For example, Sintas and Álvarez (2002) study the
segmentation of cultural consumers in Spain and show that the omnivore class
is associated with the highest social class indicator and level of education but
it is also younger than the highbrow class and it is comprised of an equal
proportion of men and women.
Another manifestation of multiple consumer identities is the global
consumer market that has brought about changes in consumption and has
created global elites or global consumption classes that follow the same
consumption styles in the world, showing preferences for global brands
(Robinson and Goodman, 1995).
Cultural Consumption and the Social Matrix

The link between the individual and culture is an important element in the
definition of social structures. The principal question is whether individuals
from different social locations (according to class, race, age, gender, etc.) have
similar patterns of cultural consumption, and how strong is the association
between these parameters and differences in consumption.5 This question
elaborates the idea of social stratification as more than just social inequality. It
examines the way in which structures of social inequalities—socioeconomic as
18 T. Katz-Gerro
well as cultural—are systematically interrelated hierarchically (Scott, 1996). We

find two opposing views on the relationship between culture and the social
matrix. One argues that particular constellations of taste and consumption
preferences are associated with specific occupation and class fractions and with
the distinctions that operate within a particular society at a particular point in
history (Bourdieu, 1984). The other view maintains that consumer culture that
results in a proliferation of images and identities cannot be hierarchized into
a system that correlates with certain social divisions (Pakulski and Waters,
1996), and that styles and genres are weakening as indicators of class or
socioeconomic position because individuals in pluralistic societies are no
longer prisoners of tastes (Meyer, 2000).
The literature on the correlates of cultural consumption exhibits incon-
sistent findings regarding the strength of the associations, their stability over
time, and their comparability across countries. We have reports that occupa-
tion has no direct effect on cultural consumption (De Graaf, 1991) and that it
does (Sobel, 1983; Peterson and Simkus, 1992; Prieto-Rodriguez and Fern-
ández-Blanco, 2000); that there are no significant gender differences (De
Graaf, 1991; Prieto-Rodriguez and Fernández-Blanco, 2000) and that there are
(Kelly, 1983; Bihagen and Katz-Gerro, 2000; Wilska, 2002); that education and
age are important factors in explaining cultural consumption (Sobel, 1983;
Katz, 1992; van de Werfhorst and Kraaykamp, 2001); and that religiosity affects
cultural consumption (Katz, 1992; Katz-Gerro and Shavit, 1998). But overall
this question is understudied and the evidence is equivocal.
Consumption patterns that stem from cultural bases may cut across relation-
ships generated in the labor market, so they do not necessarily correspond to
class positions. Although classes and lifestyle groups often tend to be closely
linked, through property and economic means (Giddens, 1973), there is
evidence that class hierarchies are decomposing and that class position is less
able to explain social dynamics and cultural identities because of the fragmen-
tation of stratification processes (Nisbet, 1959; Clark and Lipset, 1991; Beck,
1992).6 From empirical explorations of the overlap between economic and
cultural boundaries we learn that important differences exist between socioe-
conomic boundaries and symbolic boundaries (Lamont, 1992), that lifestyle
differences exist within classes (Blasius and Winkler, 1989), and that the
association between class and lifestyle is diminishing (Munters, 1977; Halle,
1992; Spellerberg, 1995), as it is between occupation and lifestyle (De Graaf,
1991; Aschaffenburg, 1995).
Cultural Consumption and tastes become important sources of social differ-
entiation, so it is important to recognize the way different stratifying factors, such
as education, age, and race, are linked to the group boundaries that cultural
consumption patterns draw. This alludes, for example, to the manner in which
individuals and groups objectify themselves and their values through their
consumption acts (Miller, 1995a, b; Lamont and Molnár, 2001; Wilska, 2002).
Cultural preferences generate quasi-communities that form around identity
and taste and are increasingly independent of economic determinants (Maffe-
soli, 1996; Pakulski and Waters, 1996). Several theoretical approaches prob-
lematize the relationships between consumption lifestyles, identity, and group
formation. Ideas generated by these approaches are a major source of inspira-
tion for research on cultural consumption. These approaches have several
emphases, which I outline in the following paragraphs.
The first emphasis draws attention to the New Middle Class, which becomes
quite significant in post-industrial societies in the sense that more individuals
share a common standard of living, and lifestyle disparities between classes are
small. The growing level of affluence means a reduction in working time and
an increase in time spent consuming. It also spreads conspicuous consumption
across the socioeconomic hierarchy. Diminishing lifestyle disparities in
Western societies and the expansion of capitalist commodity production have
made leisure and consumption activities more salient in everyday life (Saun-
ders, 1986; Featherstone, 1991; Bonner and du Gay, 1992; Crompton, 1992).
Social groupings no longer correspond to material distribution. Instead, they
form around distinct cultural lifestyles that cut across occupational classes
(Munters, 1977; Wilson, 1980; Sobel, 1983; Barbalet, 1986; Blasius and
Winkler, 1989; Neveu, 1990; Schor, 1998). Under conditions of advanced
affluence, consumption styles—as opposed to occupational classes—become
social markers (Pakulski and Waters, 1996). Subcultural class identities are
disappearing, class distinctions based on status are losing their traditional
support, and lifestyles are diversifying and becoming more individualistic
(Beck, 1992). Thus, this approach attributes an increasing role to consumption
as a status and lifestyle generator independent of class. Moreover, classifica-
tions that encode behavior and form matrices of group formation are
becoming ever more detached from production relations and material needs
and interests.
The second emphasis is being placed on New Conflicts and new social move-
ments that diverge from the older types of class struggle centered upon
production relationships and the welfare state. Such conflicts no longer prima-
rily concern the distribution of material goods, but cultural reproduction and
cultural competence. New conflicts and associated social movements derive
from problems related to cultural identities, environmental concerns, taste
orientations, and consumption strategies. Taste and lifestyle become impor-
tant sources of social differentiation; they displace or supplement other bases
of differentiation such as gender or race (Baudrillard, 1988).
As the complexity of societies intensifies, New Identities become fragile and
unstable in the context of the postmodern interplay between growing massifi-
cation and the development of micro-groups (Kellner, 1992). Communities
defend their existence by affirming their ethnic, gender-based, religious,
national, or territorial identities (Castells, 1996) and they use consumption to
express and transform their collective identity (Hall, 1992; Maffesoli, 1993;
Lamont and Molnár, 2001). Lifestyle ‘tribes’ emerge and crystallize within mass
society in a variety of domains (Bauman, 1990; Maffesoli, 1996). Postmodernity
distinguishes people on the basis of their highly differentiated fragmentary
lifestyles, and produces a kaleidoscopic differentiation of social groups rather
than rigid and bounded social strata (Baudrillard, 1988; Featherstone, 1991).
Multiple boundaries emerge, many of them based on crosscutting axes of
difference. Although cultural genres have strong roots in social cleavages and
socially constructed boundaries, such as those of age, ethnicity, gender, and
geographic locale, these are not simply alternative axes of objective stratifica-
tion; rather, they are interwoven aspects of status situations (Gans, 1974, p. 70;
Hall, 1992, p. 266).
A serious discussion of cultural consumption cannot ignore the role of
Informational Society and the effects of the technological revolution on the
20 T. Katz-Gerro
consequences of consumption. Since information and knowledge are deeply

embedded in the culture of societies, culture and symbol processing become
direct productive forces that blur the traditional distinction between produc-
tion and consumption. Symbol manipulation becomes the fundamental source
of productivity and competitiveness, and in an open, complex society it
depends on a variety of cultural and institutional conditions, among them
leisure, cultural recreation, and consumption (Castells, 1996). Cultural
consumption research ought to address the features of digital inequality as
Internet penetration continues to increase. Internet-related consumption
engenders inequality by mediating the relationship between individuals’ iden-
tities and their use of technologies (Hargittai, 2000; Miller and Slater, 2000).
According to the Welfare State and Inequality approach, post-industrial society
creates new scarcities, not of goods but of information and time. The economic
policies of the industrialized states affect inequalities in cultural consumption
in two possible ways. One approach maintains that the welfare state creates a
stronger link between class and lifestyle; members of the elite who find it
increasingly hard to distinguish themselves according to material consumption
may respond by participating to a greater extent in cultural activities (Sobel,
1983), in this way increasing the capacity for ideological manipulation (Feath-
erstone, 1991). A different stream argues that welfare policy provides more
individual freedom and helps weaken collective expressions of lifestyle based
solely on economic class. In this latter argument the welfare state can be a
decisive productive and equalizing force (Warde, 1994; Castells, 1996), aimed
at decomposing class divisions (Clark et al., 1993).
The emphases outlined above provide coordinates for a discussion of the
way consumption is shaped by the social matrix. In addition to articulating the
link between cultural consumption and bases of inequality, it is paramount to
think of cultural consumption as creating its own social categories, or as
generating axes of meaning.
Cultural Consumption as a Generative Concept

Cultural consumption is currently viewed mainly as a dependent variable,
whose variation we seek to explain. However, analysis of cultural consumption
must recognize lifestyles and tastes as new dimensions of stratification, conflict,
and identification, and explore the role of cultural consumption in defining
social structures, positions, and relations. Consequently, research should look
for indicators for the social effects of consumption. Consumption cultures are
not merely reflections of class, regional, ethnic, and gender identities but the
emergence of new dimensions of stratification. Lifestyles can be theorized as the
representation of groupings or ‘tribes’ that emerge through the medium of
shared symbolic codes of stylized behavior, taste, and habitus. Such ‘consump-
tion communities’ are often regarded as irrelevant in sociological and political
studies of power. This is unfortunate because cultural consumption and cultural
participation both make consumers think and reinforce social cohesion. Style
and taste transform into a construct of the social world and are defined, first and
foremost, by difference (Bögenhold, 2001).
Gender apart, relationships other than socioeconomic are seldom consid-
ered viable competitors for a status of key ‘generative structures’ of inequality
and matrices of social formation (Pakulski and Waters, 1996). Giddens
proposes a differentiation between distributive groupings and status groups.

Distributive groupings are groupings in consumption that denote common
patterns of consumption regardless of any conscious evaluation of their pres-
tige. Status groups have to do with social differentiation, and they are sets of
social relationships that derive their coherence from evaluations of prestige
attached to distributive groupings (Giddens, 1973). Insofar as cultural
consumption patterns are socially structured, a common awareness and accept-
ance of similar attitudes and beliefs will tend to exist, linked to a common style
of life. Status group consciousness, however, also involves recognition that
behavior and attitudes signify a particular group affiliation, and the recogni-
tion that other groups exist as well. Therefore, the first step in a systematic
analysis of cultural consumption is to discover how cultural tastes are distrib-
uted and how they correlate. The second step is to see whether the groupings
are associated with specific social categories in terms of gender, race/ethnicity,
religiosity, religion, age, and class. And lastly, we can ask whether these group-
ings are expressed in identities, actions, and values.
The generative role of cultural consumption is relevant to lifestyle tribes,
taste publics, or style communities in political–economic accounts of power
(Featherstone, 1991; Maffesoli, 1996; Pakulski and Waters, 1996). Several
works have demonstrated the way cultural consumption shapes inequality in
processes of group closure and exclusion (Parkin, 1979) and affects school
grades (DiMaggio, 1982), educational aspirations and attainment (DiMaggio
and Mohr, 1985; Lamb, 1989; Aschaffenburg and Maas, 1997; De Graaf et al.,
2000), income (Borocz and Southworth, 1996), and marital selection
(DiMaggio and Mohr, 1985).
This is one place where comparative cultural consumption research is partic-
ularly relevant. A comparative perspective is essential for conceptualizing
consumption patterns as an independent variable, and hence for under-
standing and investigating its role in shaping attitudes and behavior. Cross-
national differences in consumer movements, consumption-based institutions,
and consumption-based politics are important for understanding the diversity
of relationships between individuals, markets, states, and cultures. For
example, the generative role of consumption can be explored in the context
of inquiries into political inclination, attitudes to abortion, or environmentally
conscious behavior. Consumption communities become social entities if they
articulate in the social arena. If we find that certain consumption profiles have
a significant relative effect on attitudes, this would mean that the study of
processes of stratification should take into consideration the extent to which
consumption preferences operate independently of other bases of inequality.
Cultural Consumption and Cultural Policy

Cultural policy conditions availability and influences accessibility of different
cultural forms and activities. This affects the extent to which distinction by
consumption may be established as a significant factor in social relations. The
role of the state in shaping consumption is crucial through advancing certain
forms of cultural consumption (e.g. nationalistic culture), through subsidies
(e.g. museums and stadiums), through employment (e.g. cultural workers
employed by the public sector), and through regulated commodification (e.g.
national parks, historical sites, recreational and sports facilities). Variation in
22 T. Katz-Gerro
the distribution of resources directed at supporting certain types of cultural

consumption—differentiated by genre, the audience each attracts, and social
standing—affects variation in the social distribution of cultural consumption
profiles. Further, cultural policy is intertwined with a politicization of
consumers and with regulating consumption sensitivities of the public.
Cross-national differences in the allocation of public and private funds for the
promotion of various cultural activities are substantial (Rásky and Perez, 1996;
Zimmer and Toepler, 1999). This cross-national variation stems from different
causes such as market failure and manipulation of public goods (Boorsma et al.,
1998; Rushton, 1999). In some countries, like Italy and Germany, cultural policy
consistently focuses on high culture. The larger part of public funds is spent on
preserving the cultural heritage of the country, and state interventions for the
promotion of contemporary art are practically nil. This is true for cultural
agencies on the national, regional, provincial, and municipal levels. 7 In
France, most museums and art galleries are directly run by state authorities
and are highly dependent on its directives. Private patronage and sponsoring
by the business community were actively discouraged until the 1980s, and are
therefore still almost nonexistent (Zimmer and Toepler, 1999).
While France has a public policy approach that is dominated by the state
bureaucracy, in the USA the private nonprofit sector is dominant in both the
delivery and the financing of arts and culture (Zimmer and Toepler, 1999). In
the USA, cultural policy and spending are highly diffused, public funds are
decreasing (for example, recent cuts in the budget of the national endowment
for the arts in the USA), and public expenditure is mainly directed to popular
culture and diversity in culture (Rásky and Perez, 1996).
British cultural policy is characterized by a complex system of quasi-
nongovernmental organizations, but also by government agencies. In recent
years the attention to arts provision for all social groups has become increas-
ingly important. An example is the cultural debate of Great Britain and the
attempt to serve all the post-colonial communities in the country (Rásky and
Perez, 1996).
Cultural policy affects the extent to which lifestyle practices are dependent
on socioeconomic conditions of the individual. To ascertain the effects of
cultural policy on cultural consumption, research on cross-national differences
in cultural policy is needed. Data should include elements such as: structure of
cultural administration at the national, regional, and local levels; emphases in
cultural content; cultural budget and funding areas; guidelines of cultural
policy; private funding of culture; proportions of professions in the arts and
culture sectors; and institutions of higher education.
Conclusions
Cultural consumption occupies an important place in the study of consump-
tion, culture, and lifestyle, but one that is not clearly articulated. In this paper
I pointed to several issues of methodology and theory that can contribute to a
discussion of the contours of cultural consumption. A summary of the main
parameters discussed in the paper is presented in Figure 1 under the catego-
ries of methodology, theory, and consequence. The components of method-
ology and theory are specified in the text. All the components of methodology
impact all the components of theory. The components of consequences are
Figure 1. Components of research.
articulated in the table as extensions of the components of theory. A theoret-

ical focus on the transition from production to consumption leads to a redef-
inition of the locus of power and interests; discussion of multiple consumer
identities elaborates the powerful conceptual tool of repertoires of consump-
tion; analysis of the effect of the social matrix on cultural consumption elabo-
rates the definition of cleavages of consumption; thinking about the generative
power of cultural consumption takes account of its social effects; and the
association between cultural consumption and cultural policy paves the way to
a reexamination of the politics of consumption.
Further, I discussed topics of sociological inquiry that provide a context for
this discussion: cultures of consumption and the social distribution of
consumption; research in social stratification that links inequality and class
dynamics to culture and consumption; competing effects of race/ethnicity,
gender, and other factors on cultural consumption; the explanatory power of
cultural consumption; the way cultural consumption figures into differences
in cultural policy; and the comparative perspective, which highlights patterns
of convergence and divergence in cultural consumption. Rethinking the
generation and transformation of cultural consumption as a basis of exclusion
and identity is especially important in the context of the changes taking place
in many parts of the world: the expansion of informational technologies and
the knowledge gap, globalization processes of cultural products and commu-
nication, new social movements, and the redefinition of communities and
their role in people’s lives.
A major concern of current research rests in producing data that would be
appropriate for testing the claims of recent theories, especially ones that
discuss the increasing importance of consumption in defining social positions,
social relations, and social conflicts. I reviewed propositions that social stratifi-
cation in post-industrial society is moving into a culturalist phase based on
subscription to distinctive lifestyles and tribe-like configurations built on
cultural consumption. In the past two decades, research has demonstrated the
growing importance of cultural competencies for problems of inequality.
24 T. Katz-Gerro
Familiarity with different lifestyles and the cultural capital that is attached to
them affects a variety of life outcomes. The types of lifestyles in which social
groups engage can be linked to theories of closure, specifically to elucidate
concepts such as exclusionary versus usurpationary closure and formal versus
informal closure processes.8 Analysis of consumption practices may prove
useful in the study of these kinds of closure complexities because a variety of
cultural clusters constitute a source of fragmentation between and within
classes, races, genders, and other groups, which makes possible the exercise of
closure. Cultural exclusion and inclusion also occurs along spatial lines and
that calls for an elaboration of research into the production and consumption
of spaces.
The issues discussed in this paper are also relevant to the general problem
of distinguishing objective and subjective bases of groups. Here I refer to the
opposition between a structuralist approach, which aims at grasping objective
relations, and an interactionist procedure, which aims at grasping what agents
actually experience of interactions and social contacts (Bourdieu, 1990).
Bourdieu identifies a problem in research that treats social groups on paper
as real social groups, and that from the objective homogeneity of conditions
draws conclusions on the identity of position in the social space. Thus, it is
important to examine the formation or expression of a certain identity
through consumption both by identifying its socioeconomic correlates and by
articulating its consequences.
This paper focused on understanding social patterns of consumption as
‘taste publics’ (Gans, 1974), ‘consumption constellations’ (Solomon and
Assael, 1987), or ‘Diderot unities’ (McCracken, 1990) in which members of a
collectivity are assumed to consume an ideal-typical assortment of objects and
symbols that express their identity (Holt, 1997a). Postmodern consumers are
not only influenced by the psychology of advertising and the family or house-
hold unit; they are also part of a social group or a cultural tribe, and their
consumption habits are influenced by motivations relating to these associa-
tions (Therborn, 1995). The larger question at hand is whether distinct
cultural boundaries do exist: how strongly, in each society, has the ‘cultural
consumption principle’ become established as a mode of structuration and
mobilization. If consumption preferences form social realities, this must be
manifest in the formation of identifiable groups that exhibit preference for
specific consumption profiles and that articulate values based on their
consumptive affiliation. Yet another important element in the distribution of
cultural resources is the distinction between what individuals consume and how
they consume: in private or in public, alone or with others, openly or secretly.
The emphasis here is on the meanings that individuals attach to their
consumptive acts, whether they are normative, fulfilling, self-actualizing, or
critical (Holt, 1997b). This calls for research that is qualitative, detailed, and
ethnographic to provide interpretations of the meaning of consumption.
These stimulating ideas call for both extensive empirical grounding and a
clear theoretical articulation of the new consumption-oriented paradigm. This
can be achieved through comparative research, which may elucidate the way
macro processes shape configurations of lifestyles and the link between
cultural consumption and social location in different social and cultural
contexts. In recent years more cross-cultural and cross-subcultural research on
consumption has emerged, although the number of such studies is still quite
small (Belk, 1995). In a recent article Valentine et al. (1999) reported their
search in three leading journals on leisure for cross-national comparative
research. The total of such investigations in the last three decades reached only
1.5%. Why is cross-national consumption research scarce? Embarking on such
projects poses logistic, methodological, linguistic, and conceptual challenges.
Valentine et al. (1999) suggest that the constraints of comparative analysis deter
editors and reviewers, and that graduate programs in sociology advance intra-
national issues rather than cross-national questions. The advantages of
comparative research are numerous: it provides opportunities to generalize
consumption phenomena; it allows the testing of theoretical assertions and
strengthens causal and explanatory capabilities; it promotes consideration of
ethnographic record and survey research and the shaping of new methodolo-
gies; and it highlights processes of convergence and divergence and the role
of economic and social currents in shaping consumption. Cultural consump-
tion concerns exist within nations and, increasingly, at the transnational level.
Cosmopolitan culture is integrated in the national culture as a response to
globalized cycles of production and consumption (Slater and Ritzer, 2001). We
see this not only in international and multilingual cultural consumption in
numerous realms such as children’s TV and toys, newspapers and books,
music, and Internet information, but also in consumption practices of immi-
grants, transnational workers, and commuters. I have tried to demonstrate that
comparative research is necessary for the advancement of cultural consump-
tion research, both for perfecting data collection and for refining theoretical
arguments.
Notes
1. For example, Peterson (1997) describes the dynamics of change in highbrow culture as a
status marker.
2. See Levine (1988) on elite culture and popular culture and Lieberson (2000) on changing
tastes for first names.
3. For exceptions see De Graaf (1991), Miller (1995a, b), Howes (1996), Samuel (1996),
Kraaykamp and Nieuwbeerta (2000), and Katz-Gerro (2002).
4. An example of such comparative work on cultural practices is Lamont and Thévenot (2000).
5. It should be pointed out that education is by far the most important predictor of cultural
consumption patterns (Bryson, 1997; Katz-Gerro, 1999).
6. The term class, as I use it here, denotes an aggregation of occupational categories into a set
of class categories. For example, classes may include professionals, managers, white-collar
service workers, self-employed, skilled manual workers, semi/unskilled workers, and not
employed.
7. In general, local authorities mostly fund already existing institutions and thereby strengthen
the traditional sectors of culture.
8. Closure theories explain the operation of exclusionary processes by which a group limits
access to rewards and opportunities. Closure processes may be based on ownership of
property, educational credentials, ethnic identity, and other attributes (for more on social
closure see Parkin, 1979; Murphy, 1988).
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Cultural Consumption Research: Review of Methodology, Theory, and Consequence

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Cultural Consumption Research: Review of Methodology, Theory, and

Article in International Review of Sociology · March 2004

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International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2004

Cultural Consumption Research: Review of Methodology,

ISSN 0390-6701 print/1489-9273 online/04/01011-19 © 2004 University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’

The distribution of cultural consumption practices is sociologically inter-

Measuring Cultural Consumption

Cultural Consumption Research 13

1997). Common lifestyle indicators in the literature include leisure pastimes,

Variety of Cultural Consumption Indicators

and lesbian lifestyles, omnivore and univore cultural consumption patterns,

Cultural Consumption Research 15

It is only through an integration of indicators that such dynamics of taste

Consumption within Cultural Frameworks

negotiated in a local process, heavily influenced by the operating institutional

Theoretical Issues in Cultural Consumption Research

From Production to Consumption

Cultural Consumption Research 17

Multiple Consumer Identities

Cultural Consumption and the Social Matrix

well as cultural—are systematically interrelated hierarchically (Scott, 1996). We

Cultural Consumption Research 19

consequences of consumption. Since information and knowledge are deeply

Cultural Consumption as a Generative Concept

Cultural Consumption Research 21

proposes a differentiation between distributive groupings and status groups.

Cultural Consumption and Cultural Policy

the distribution of resources directed at supporting certain types of cultural

Cultural Consumption Research 23

Figure 1. Components of research.

articulated in the table as extensions of the components of theory. A theoret-

Cultural Consumption Research 25

Cultural Consumption Research 27

Cultural Consumption Research 29

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