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Chapter 29 - Reconfiguring Visibility and Participation in a Digitalizing World

from Part VII - Future (Im)Perfect Markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2024

By
Amy Mathers ,
Johan Nilsson  and
Riikka Murto
Edited by
Susi Geiger ,
Katy Mason ,
Neil Pollock ,
Philip Roscoe ,
Annmarie Ryan ,
Stefan Schwarzkopf  and
Pascale Trompette
Susi Geiger
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
Katy Mason
Affiliation:
Lancaster University
Neil Pollock
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Philip Roscoe
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Annmarie Ryan
Affiliation:
University of Limerick
Stefan Schwarzkopf
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Pascale Trompette
Affiliation:
Université de Grenoble
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Summary

The proliferation of digital technologies is changing the face of markets and society. This on-going market digitalization represents an opportunity for Market Studies – a field that has long considered the role of technologies in markets. Careful inquiry into market digitalization allows for continued agnostic and descriptive research, but also prompts us to consider the human outcomes of market arrangements. This chapter explores how the digitalization of markets affects human relationships and experiences. Basing our argument on a review of contemporary scholarship on market digitalization, we suggest that digitalization reconfigures both visibility and participation in markets. This typology actualizes how everyday human market interaction is changing, exemplified through the figures of the consumer, the influencer, and the activist. We find that Market Studies is in a strong position to address technologies as it already considers several roles in markets: as market devices, objects of exchange, as well as market infrastructures. We propose that Market Studies should continue to explore differences in market arrangements, as well as the significant variability among the people interacting in digitalizing markets.

Type
Chapter
Information
Market Studies
Mapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action
 , pp. 473 - 484
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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