Troubling Equivalence Of Consumer Analysis

What is the difference between citizens and consumers? The answer to this question may seem apparent upon first glance but with some thought, many parallels can be drawn between the two. The authors, Michael Schudson and Cass Sunstein, have both pondered citizens versus consumers through their writing. While Schudson simply compares the two in, “The Troubling Equivalence of Citizen and Consumer,” Sunstein brings the influence of social media into his chapter, “Citizens”. The internet has diminished the differences between citizens and consumers. How does social media shape the environment for citizens versus consumers? Social media influences the manner in which people make their decisions, turning citizens and consumers into essentially the …show more content…
Public figures and politicians have social media accounts that citizens can turn to in order to develop an opinion of that person.. These judgements of social media profiles are similar to a review of a product by a consumer. Schudson states that voters look at a candidate’s policies to determine what the effects of the policies will be on their family, similar to “price comparison shopping” by consumers. In addition, he writes that, “voters are also very much influenced by past experience with a candidate, as they are with past experience with a product” (199). This review of a person and all aspects of that person by a voting citizen is a decent parallel to the review of a product by a consumer looking to purchase a product. Social media can be a dangerous threat to governments. Sunstein explains the Chinese government’s attempt to shut down the influence of social media by paying individuals fifty cents to counteract a bad comment about the government on social media. Once an idea begins to gain popularity and go viral on social media, citizens begin to boycott or rebel against the government and it is hard for a government to stop the actions being taken. Social media has a strong influence on citizens and their decisions end up being similar to a consumer who does or does not like a certain …show more content…
Sunstein states that consumers follow the “‘consumption treadmill,’ in which [they] buy more and better goods… because they help [consumers] keep up with others” (158). He then goes on to mention citizens in this light, writing that they “seek to slow down this treadmill, so as to ensure that social resources are devoted… to goods and services that really improve [their] lives” (158). In this one example, consumers can be seen as competitors that are always trying to keep up with the changing industry while citizens can be seen as practical, only buying the necessities to improve their lives. This can be true in some aspects, however, as a result of political and celebrity public figures posting on social media in the same manner, citizens tend to make decisions more as a consumer, following the influence of their political figures’ posts. Schudson attempts to find a clear separation between citizens and consumers, but he cannot. In the end he concludes, “Just what the most salient differences are between the world of politics and the world of consumption seems to me far from obvious… in the age of environmentalism, consumer boycotts, and political regulation of the safety of cars and toys and pajamas” (203). Through these examples, Schudson concludes that politics are regulating the consumer market, and consumers are politically boycotting. The two aspects of consumers and citizens overlap in many