CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENTS - AN SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONIST APPROACH

• In this paper, our aim has been to draw from the literature on symbolic interactionism to work toward a more nuanced theoretical perspective on the power dynamics between consumers and companies in online environments, and how the legitimacy of organizations is negotiated in online communities in particular. We argue that Symbolic Interactionism and the particular theoretical perspective that we have set out to build offers a fruitful perspective, for exploring and analyzing various forms of consumer engagement in online environments and the complex and sometimes paradoxical relations of power it may involve. From this perspective social media, and other Internet-based platforms of consumer engagement, are not tools or technologies that contribute to either consumer of corporate power. They are rather new types of digitally mediated social sites where consumers and marketers interact and negotiate situational rules of interaction for both consumers and corporate actors. Power and legitimacy in social media interactions among companies and consumers are not settled, but always in contention and negotiable. The discourses determining the consequences in these media and platforms are, as Foucault (1979; 2008) has observed, always dynamic and in construction. Those who are able to get their definition of the situation accepted, as well as those who set the stage and provide the limits of the interaction through the design of the platforms, those who use discursive power and frame the interaction are the ones who use power. The situational view of legitimacy means, however, that legitimacy cannot be seen as a completely on-off characteristic, a “question of ‘satisficing’ to an acceptable level” (Deephouse and Suchman, 2008, p. 60), but instead, similarly to some other researchers (e.g. Boyd 2001; 2009) as a concept with various possible “degrees”, or the possibility to be legitimate in some context and not in another.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

consumer engagement

interactionist perspective

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)