1. Naive, connected, and counselor tween girl identity groups: Consumption practices and social identity constructions within consumer culture
- Author
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Eliane Cristine Francisco Maffezzolli and Tiziana Brenner Beauchamp Weber
- Subjects
Marketing ,Economics and Econometrics ,Sociology and Political Science ,Social Psychology ,Consumption practices ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Identity (social science) ,050801 communication & media studies ,Context (language use) ,Gender studies ,Consumer Culture ,0508 media and communications ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,0502 economics and business ,050211 marketing ,Sociology ,Girl ,Business and International Management ,Social identity theory ,Consumer culture theory ,Qualitative research ,media_common - Abstract
This research identifies the relationship between consumption practices and the construction of social identity among tweens in a Brazilian context. Using consumer culture theory and social identity theory, we employed 80 h of observation, 9 interviews, and projective techniques with fifteen girls. Three social identity groups were acknowledged: naive, connected, and counselors. These groups revealed different identity projects, such as the integration and maintenance within the social group of current belonging, the access to the social group with the greater distinctions, the generation of differentiable and positive distinctions (both intra- and intergroups), and the expression and consolidation of identity and its respective consumption practices. This research contributes to the consumption literature that relates to consumer identity projects. The findings reveal a current resignification of girlhood and exposes tweens’ consumption practices as a direct mechanism of the expression and construction of their social identities. These are mechanisms of social identity construction as mediated by group relations through the processes of access, maintenance, integration, differentiation, and distinction.
- Published
- 2021
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