z t5

Editorial

Postmodernism and the marketinglmaglnary

Alladi Venkatesh u, John F. Sherry, Jr. b

and A. Fuat Frrat "o Uniuersity of Califumia-Iruine, Iruine, CA 92717, USA andOdense Uniuersiu, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmarkb Northwestem Uniuenity, Euarcto4 IL ffi201, USA'Arizona State Uniuersity West, Phoenix, AZ 85069, USA

The year is 1961. Michel Foucault has justpublished what would later become one ofthe most influential books of the postwarera, Histoire de la folie a I'age classique(Madness and Ciuilization). Foucault was ac-companied by several contemporary thinkersmany of whom are now household names-Deleuze, Guattari, Derrida, Lyotard, Bau-drillard, Kristeva, Harraway, Debord, Jame-son and others. In their writings, we see thebeginnings of the postmodernist and post-structuralist revolution. The world .hasn'tbeen the same since then-except in fieldslike marketing and management which havebeen slow to awaken to this revolution.

Much can be said of a special issue onpostmodernism and marketing, but nothingstands out more fittingly than the fact thatthe lead has been taken by a scholarly jour-nal from Europe-fittingly because, Europe

Correspondence to: Alla(f Venkatesh, University of Califor-nia-Iwine, Irvine, CA 9271,7, USA, or Odense University,DK-5230 Odense M. Denmark.

Intern. J. of Research in Marketing 10 (1993) 215-223North-Holland

was, after all, the cradle of modernism, andis now of postmodernism. In desperation asmuch as in justifiable confusion, somebodyrecently remarked that we seem to be livingin an era of "post-everything," thereby im-plying that any attention paid to anythingthat has the prefix "post" should be viewedwith suspicion. Alas, this may be true ofmany "posts," but, certainly, not all of them,for some "posts" deserve to be taken seri-ously. As Featherstone (1991, Ch. 1) so elo-quently demonstrated, anyone who considerspostmodernism a passing fancy will do so atconsiderable peril to oneself and needs toexamine one's intellectual position before itis too late. This is particularly applicable tothose in the marketing profession, for isn't ita fact that the marketing discipline pridesitself in being the vanguard of change andnew ideas? We believe that the postmod-ernist discourse provides such an opportu-nity.

It is no mere coincidence that the three ofus, editors of this special issue, have joinedtogether in bringing out this issue. Our re-cent writings have delved into postmod-ernism and its relevance to marketing andconsumer behavior (Frrat, 1990, 1991, 1992;Frrat and Venkatesh, in press; Sherry, L990;Venkatesh, 1989, 1990, 1992). (See alsoMourrain, 1989; Ogilvy, 1990; and Scott,1992.) We have articulated its basic premises,concepts and applications, but these writingsare scattered throughout a variety of publica-

0167-8116/93/$06.00 O 1993 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved

A Venkatesh et al. / Postmodernism and the marketing imaginary

Table IRelative emphases in modernism and postmodernism

Modernist emphasis Postmodern emohasis

ObjectCartesian subjectCognitive subjectUni f ied subjectCentered subject

Signi f iedObjectificationRepresentationTruth (objective)

RealUniversalismSociety as a structure

l,ogocentric reasonKnowing

Economy

CapitalismEconomic systemsProduction

Shift from use value toexchange value

Science/TechnologyMechanical technology

SciencesEuro-American centrismPhallocentrism

Orientalism, colonialism

Image, symbolSymbolic subjectSemiotic subjectFragmented subjectDecentered subject

SignifierSymbolizationSignificationTruth (constructed)

Hyperreall-ocalism, particularism

Society as a spectacle

Hermeneutic reasonCommunicating

CultureLate capitalismSymbolic systemsConsumptionShift from exchange value

to sign value

Science/TechnologyDigital/Communicative

technologyHumanities

GlobalismFeminism/GenderismMulticulturalism, globalism

tion outlets. For reasons of space we areunable to repeat all the ideas discussed ear-lier, but urge interested readers to becomefamiliar with them for they provide the foun-dational ideas for the various articles in-cluded here. This does not mean that theuninitiated readers will get no help from thearticles included in the present issue which,of course, contain many of the central ideas.It is just that their understanding will bemade richer through a wider exposure. Foreasy reference, based on previous literatureand the articles included here, we have sum-marized some important distinctions be-tween modernism and postmodernism inTable 1. We have also included Exhibit 1 tofamiliarize the readers with some frequentlyused terminology within the postmodernist

discourse. Readers are further encouraged tomake note of the references under variousarticles included in this issue for additionalreading.

Postmodernism, along with poststructural-ism, represents the most fundamental devel-opment in the history of ideas in the recentdecades. Although its origins can be tracedto the fields of architecture and art duringthe 1920s and 1930s, it is only in the lastdecade or two that it has gained a momen-tum of a revolutionary nature and made animpact on numerous disciplines. During thelate sixties and seventies, the explosion ofpostmodernist and poststructuralist ideas firstoccurred in areas such as literary theory,cultural studies and philosophy, and, conse-quently, the fields with which we are mostconcerned, the social sciences (economics,sociology etc.), management and marketinghave remained largely unaffected by theforces of postmodernism (for an exception,see Journal of Organizational Change Man-agement, vol. 5, no. 1). These fields can nolonger remain immune, and what is now per-ceived as inevitable can be explained by thefact that postmodernism deals both with thebasic philosophical and cultural premises thatunderlie social scientific assumptions andwith the foundational ideas surrounding ournotions of social and economic reality (ontol-ogy). It treats our knowledge structures (epi-stemology), as well as our conceptualizationsof the individual subjectivity (e.g., the con-sumer). It is also concerned with social for-mation (e.g., markets). Further, the interna-tional impact of the postmodern ethos growswith each passing year. On the free-floatinglevel of mass mediated global consumer cul-ture proper (Featherstone, 1991), on the lo-cally anchored dialectical extremes of suchhyperindustrial societies as Japan (Miyoshiand Harootunian, 1989), and on Islamiccountries in the throes of "development"

(Ahmed, 1992), postmodernity exercises itsinfluence. It is no longer, and may never

have been, strictly speaking, a principallyWestern phenomenon. The transmutationsthat it undergoes as it passes through cus-toms, reflecting and refracting off of the hallof mirrors that is intercultural communica-tion, pose a challenge to marketing research.

As it will become evident from the articlesincluded in this issue, postmodernism is nota synonym for postpositivism or interpre-tivism for these two concepts are very muchembedded within the discourse on mod-ernism. Postmodernism is not a methodologynor is it merely a set of techniques for re-search. It is a cultural and philosophical de-velopment that has far reaching implicationsfor our notions of ontology and epistemol-ogy. Naturally, we will be forced to developnew methods and tools based on new con-ceptions of reality. While the debates onpostpositivism and interpretivism are cer-tainly relevant, they fall within the generallyaccepted paradigms of modernism and theestablished canons of social sciences, andthus cannot be considered as offering funda-mental shifts in our visions or world view.Postmodernist debates, on the other hand,have originated outside the social sciences, inliterary theory, linguistics, feminist theory,art and architecture, cultural studies, intel-lectual history, continental philosophy andother sub-disciplines within humanities, andhence have largely been excluded from thepurview of our familiar boundaries of debatewithin marketing. Postmodernism is closelyrelated to poststructuralism and deconstruc-tionism. each of which form the basis forsome reigning contemporary positions in phi-losophy and cultural studies.

The implications of postmodernist devel-opments for marketing and marketing re-search are several and profound.

First, postmodernism is concerned withlived experiences and fragmented realities,spectacles and visualizations, non-linear con-tours in time and space, none of which canbe captured in the objectified formulations

217

of established research in the social sciences.Besides objects and objectifications, post-modernism recognizes the existence of sym-bols, images, myths, narratives, fantasies, andmicro-level practices-a world rich in possi-bilities, all of which are equally important inunderstanding our lifeworlds.

Second, postmodernism emphasizes cul-ture over economy, and consumption overproduction as the site of contemporary dis-course and human behavior. As a result ofthis emphasis, marketing has become a primetopic for social scientists and philosophers. Itis imperative that marketing and consumerresearch disciplines be reevaluated and re-constructed from within, by their principalpractitioners. As Featherstone (1991) ob-seryes in connection with his analysis of con-sumer culture and postmodernism, "[The

question is], how is it that the study of con-sumption and culture-both incidentally un-til recently previously designated as deriva-tive, peripheral and feminine, as against themore masculine sphere of production andthe economy-are granted a more importantplace in the analysis of social relations andcultural representations? ...This problem...is central to the understanding of postmod-ernism." (p. viii) That postmodernism pro-vides the framework for studying con-sumerism while at the same time con-sumerism becomes a metaphor for postmod-ern life is the intriguing idea raised in thesespecial issues.

Third, our basic assumptions of what aconsumer is and how he or she is constitutedrequire a radical modification. So do ournotions of "markets" and "products" andother basic categories that we deal with inour daily discourse. We have to begin toaddress the issue of consumers as culturaland historical products constituted by insti-tutional mechanisms and power relationshipsin which marketing actors and actions play avital role. These actors include practitionerswho are busy constructing and creating con-

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2 1 8 A. Venkatesh et al. / Postmodernism and the marketing imaginary

sumers and markets while proclaiming at thesame that they in no way shape or influenceconsumer wants and needs. Marketing schol-ars-many of whose intellectual positions areideologically motivated but are concealed be-hind the facades of disinterested pursuit ofknowledge-and marketing researchers-whose relentless pursuit involves the discov-ery of new methods and technologies to dis-assemble and transform the consumer whilethey are ostensibly engaged in objective anal-yses of "pure d2[n"-21s also includedamong the actors. Postmodernism gives all ofus an opportunity to be honest with our-selves, to discard our pretenses, to climbdown from our pedestals and be both self-critical and celebratory.

Fourth, we need also to examine the na-ture of marketing research itself, both as anactivity of information gathering and in itsrelationship to other institutional manifesta-tions of control, persuasion and marketingseduction. If we are (following Jameson,1991) to redeem the critiques of consump-tion and commodification from the realm ofthe merely moral and restore them to theproperly radical, and push beyond a nihilisticassault (Miller, 1987) on the globalization ofconsumption, we will require research intoall the processes and stakeholders that com-prise contemporary marketing.

Fifth, marketing research need no longerbe confined to the presentation of tables,equations and figures, or remain obsessiveabout reliabilities and validities. Its presenta-tional forms could range from poetry to sci-entific discourse, from narratives, descrip-tions, story-telling to visual and symbolic rep-resentations. We have only to take a momentto examine how imaginatively advertiserspromote their products, how packages arecreated and semiotically positioned, howconsumer images are fragmented and trans-ported the world over, and how shoppingenvironments are displayed and visuallytransformed (Wernick, 1991). No amount of

scientific training alone gives us the capacityto comprehensively analyze these rich andvaried marketing practices. We need to ex-ploit language more powerfully and trainourselves in symbolic forms of communica-tion to understand and represent the worldaround us. This may be the only availableavenue for exploring in any holistic fashionsuch issues as the phenomenology of retailspace (Jukes, 1990). No wonder researchersin the fields of mass communication, literarycriticism, and critical ethnography haveeclipsed the typical marketing researcher indepicting and describing the world of mar-keting. They not only seem to be saying moresignificant things but their writings are cer-tainly more interesting to read. The typicalmarketing researcher is in danger of becom-ing an agent of drudgery, a dry and anunimaginative analyst, wilfully fossilized by amisguided view of significant research. Hasn'tHolbrook (1990) asked us to be more lyrical?If we in marketing do not accept new chal-lenges, we risk stagnation, fragmentation, andabsorbtion into other disciplines. We cer-tainly relinquish our claims to relevance.

Finally, in our modest effort to bring outthis issue, we want to open up the possibili-ties for marketing writers to think of alterna-tive forms of representation, to explore theiravenues fully and without fear. We hope toencourage marketers to adopt the multidi-mensional, multiperspectival approach totheory and practice that the lifeworlds of ourpostmodern condition demand (Best andKellner, 1991; Sherry, 1990). Some of us arebetter with mathematical equations, othersare better at narratives. and still othersamong us are painters and poets. Quite a fewof us are effective critics. Why should notmarketing research explore these alternateforms of depiction? After all, isn't that whatthe practice of marketing is all about? Col-ors, fictitious imaginaries, impossible dreamsand pure fantasies? Let us remember thatconsumers are much more varied in the tools

A. Venkatesh et al. / Postmodernism and the marketing imaginary 219

that they employ to understand the worldaround them, and there is no reason why weas researchers should limit our tools. Re-searchers should not be restricted by frame-works, but liberated by frames of mind. Weshould not be merely writing research pro-posals, reports, and findings. We should em-body our varied understandings of market-place phenomena in as plastic an array ofmedia as our talents permit. We must learnto hallow alterity (Harvey, 1989; Taussig,1993), not merely manage diversity. Let usexplode the modernist myth and celebratewhat we find meaningful in postmodernism.

As in the case of any discourse, however,one may find it necessary to tread the spacecautiously and critically, yet, as postmod-ernism invites us to do, wittily and playfully.The work we have chosen for this and theupcoming special issue on Postmodernism,Marketing and the Consumer represents across-section of these orientations. We hopethat this collection will contribute to the re-thinking of marketing that momentous cul-tural transformations demand. The two spe-cial issues primarily represent a collaborationacross the Atlantic, between North Ameri-can and European colleagues. Even so, apictorial contribution from a colleague inSoutheast Asia appears in the upcoming spe-cial issue. Clearly, other vehicles must besought to throw open the discourse to con-versation among colleagues from all aroundthe world. Somewhat paradoxically, new in-tegrative technologies of simulated presenceand image construction that are currentlyunder control of "advanced technology" cen-ters may also present the potential of cul-tural appropriation by many "capillaries" tobe resignified in the use of exactly such con-versation. In fact, future "conversations" maytake place on line and on screen, as well asin virtual shared space, rather than in print.

In this issue we present three poems andsix papers. The first poem by Sherry exploresthe cultural commingling of sacred and pro-

fane dimensions of consumer experience. Thepaper by Frrat and Venkatesh and the paperby Scott both explore the conceptual issuesrelated to postmodern culture with specificimplications regarding marketing and mar-keting language. The paper by Belk and Bryceis another conceptual piece that investigatesmodern and postmodern consumption ten-dencies using two movies as mirrors for soci-ety. The contribution by Cova and Svanfeldtpresents two case studies which illuminatethe potentials for postmodern marketingmanagement, while the paper by Elliott, Ec-cles and Hodgson is an empirical investiga-tion of the reflections of feminist deconstruc-tion of gender in advertising in the UK. Thepaper by Thompson addresses the philoso-phy of science debates currently taking placein consumer research and marketing from ahermeneutic deconstruction perspective toexplore some postmodern implications. Theissue ends with trwo poems by Schouten andSherry. The former poem invites an intenselypersonal accounting of the impact of goodsupon our sensibilities, while the latter pro-vides a meditation on the role of commercein the transformation of cultural geography.

A collection such as this is not possiblewithout contributions from some of the mostchallenging minds in our community. We aregreatly indebted to those colleagues who haveagreed to have their work published in thespecial issues. We wish to thank many au-thors who submitted work, but whose papersdid not get selected for the special issues.The great response made the selection pro-cess most demanding. Our gratitude also goesout to our reviewers who spent much timeand energy in providing us and the authorswith insightful and substantive reviews andguidance. Again, without their help the spe-cial issues would not have been possible.

Finally, we wish to extend our gratefulthanks to Dr. Giiliz Ger, member of theeditorial board, who first suggested the pos-sibility of a special issue to us, to the editor

A. Venkatesh et al. / Postmodernism and the marketing imaginary

of IJRM, Dr. Piet Vanden Abeele, and tothe rest of the editorial board who encour-aged and accepted the topic we selected.Our thanks also go to the publishing staff atElsevier/North-Holland who have madeguest editorship a pleasant experience for us.

Exhibit 1: Some basic terminolory

At the risk of simplification, the followingdefinitions and descriptions are offered as aready guide to postmodernist and poststruc-turalist terminology. (See Rosenau, 1992, forexample, for an additional glossary of rele-vant terms.)

Modernity: Generally refers to the periodin Western history starting from the latesixteenth or early seventeenth century till thepresent.

Modernism: While modernity refers to theperiod, modernism refers to the social-cult-ural-economic idea systems and institutions.It signifies, among other things, the develop-ment of science as the basis of universalknowledge, secularism in human thought, thepreeminence of individual reason, and theemergence of rational structures in the socialand economic order. Modernism is cotermi-nous with the rise of capitalism and liberaldemocracy (and Communism), the rise of thebourgeois subject, the separation of mindand body and the premise of superiority ofmind over body in human affairs, the separa-tion of subject from object. All these devel-opments have a unifuing principle of ratio-nal, technical system of beliefs and are con-sidered the metanarratives of modernism.The logic of modernism is that it l iberatesthe individual from superstitious beliefs andreligious excesses.

Metanarratiues / Grand Narratiues.' Theseare the universal concepts designed to ex-

plain the social, cultural and economic as-pects of modernity. Metanarratives are prin-ciples that attempt to explain particulars ofhuman experience in terms of grand themessuch os, capitalism, Marxism, rationality,truth, unified science, harmony, orientalism,and the like.

Postmodernity: Generully refers to the cur-rent period in world history signiffing thechange of course of modernity if not its end.

Postmodernism: A cultural condition andphilosophical position that questions the fun-damental assumptions of modernism whileexposing modernist tendencies as social con-structions which are arbitrary and self-serv-ing. It critiques modernism as an oppressivedevelopment in Western history and arguesthat instead of truly liberating the individualas modernism claims, it has, in fact, turnedout to be as oppressive as the system it hasdisplaced. The central ideas of postmod-ernism can be found in related themes bear-ing labels such as deconstructionism, post-structuralism, feminism, orientalism.

Structuraliy .' Structuralism is the practiceof studying phenomena as different as soci-eties, minds, languages, literatures, andmythologies as systems or connected wholes-that is, structures-and in terms of theirinternal patterns of connection, rather thantheir historical sequence or development. Itis an offshoot of Sausserian theory of lan-guage, later elaborated and adopted byLevi-Strauss. Although structuralism refersto any phenomenology that views society interms of structures, structuralism in this con-text refers to the semiological structuralism,a model of language which rejects its histori-cal development (diachrony) and establishesits synchronism. This particular view of lan-guage (and reality) was later adopted byLevi-Strauss as a universalistic basis of cul-ture. To the extent structuralism represents a

A. Venkatesh et al. / Postmodernism and the marketing imaginary 221

diachronous development of language andtherefore, history, and looks for universalprinciples, structuralism embodies modernistmetanarratives. Social and literary theoristsassociated with structuralism of relevance topostmodernist discourse are Marx (analysisof social structures), Levi-Strauss (analysis ofcultures), Saussure (linguistics), and Freud(the structure of the unconscious).

Poststructuralism: Stands in opposition tostructuralism, denies the universality ofstructures and the transcendental nature ofsign. Poststructuralism tries to underminelarge-scale formal systems in the human sci-ences, structural tendencies in literary for-mulations and philosophic discourse. Der-rida questions the notion of sign as a tran-scendental category, attacks modern meta-physics as grounded in a system of signs, andrational processes. Poststructuralism takesdifferent forms:o the deconstruction of Western logocentric

principle in the work of Derrida,o the deconstruction of the Cartesian subject

in the work of Foucault,o the emergence of the schizophrenic subject

in the works of Deleuze and Guattari,o the extension of these principles to the

gendered subject, in the works of femi-nists, Kristeva, Butler, Harraway, etc.

Feminism: Is a reaction against the mod-ernist notions of the "subject" which is inter-preted to be a "gendered" subject, repre-senting a cultural construction based on maleideology. Feminism articulates the conditionof the '"other" (the most problemized aspectof the modernist thought) through its dis-course on gender. Several forms of feminismexist, Liberal Feminism, Radical Feminism,Marxist Feminism, Poststructuralist Femi-nism etc.

Orientalism; The argument that the"oriental" is the construction of the Western

discourse and practices and its reference tothe ascendance of Western-modernist cul-ture through the creation of the "other."

Deconstructionism: There is more than onemeaning to the term, "deconstruction." To"deconstruct" a text means to draw out con-flicting logics of sense and implication, withthe object of showing that the text neverexactly means what it says or says what itmeans. To deconstruct also means to rear-range structure and its foundations using ascaffolding, as it were, without destroying theoriginal structure, but altering it so it hasnew foundations and a new superstructure.Deconstruction is a term associated withJacques Derrida who first used it to examinethe foundations of Western philosophy whichhe considered to be rooted in a logocentricview of the world. In the last few years, it hascrept into literary theory, cultural criticism,social theory, and feminist theory and hasnow become one of the most powerful andcontroversial developments in contemporarysocial thought. Deconstructionism, in thehands of its proponents, is an attack onCartesianism, logocentrism, phallocentrismand other ideological positions that have beenlong considered hallmarks of modernism. Inthis sense deconstructionism is a postmodernand poststructuralist movement.

Hyperreality: The idea that reality is con-structed, and therefore it is possible to con-struct things that are more real than real.What is real is purely contextual, cultural,historical and timebound. Hyperreal ques-tions the myth of the real in modernism.

Fragmentation: That there is no unifiedsubject, that there is no need to converge toa unified truth (for none exists). and thathuman condition, physical, mental, or social,is fragmented, reassembled, and recon-structed without our looking for grand mean-ings and themes.

222

Decentering: That there is no reason tobelieve that the "individual" is the center ofthe universe, that it is purely an inventionexploited maximally under modernism to re-ject competing entities. Feminists have par-ticularly attacked the centered nature of themodern subject which has tended to mean inpractice the male subject. Decentering meansthe unseating of the subject as it is presentlyconstituted.

Floating Signifier: That there is no fixedobject (signified) to which all signifiers even-tually refer to, that the signified is itself asignifier, and the world is semiotically con-structed in a chain of signifiers.

Cartesianism; Generally attributed to theprinciples enunciated by Descartes, which in-clude the method of doubt, reality as com-prehensible only through deductive mentalis-tic processes (rational knowledge), thesupremacy of human reason, and the separa-tion of mind (reasoning element) and body(experiential element). In some circles Carte-sianism also represents the logic and philo-sophical basis of modernism.

Kantianism; Refers to the philosophy ofKant. Combines Cartesian principles of aprior knowledge (knowledge by reasoning)and synthetic knowledge (knowledge gainedby senses and experience) to form the basisof modernist epistemology.

Interpretiuism; Refers to the notion thatunderstanding is as important if not moreimportant than (scientific) explanation in hu-man and social sciences, and acknowledgesthe subjective positions of authors and re-searchers as a legitimate basis of knowledgeproduction. Interpretivism is part of themodernist discourse and its implications haverelevance to postmodernism.

A. Venkatesh et al. / Postmodernism and the marketing imaginary

Logical Positiuism: A particular epistemo-logical position that advocates certain proce-dures for pursuing "scientific work." Its basicassumptions are the possibility of a unifiedscience, correspondence theory of truth, gen-eralizability of knowledge, the possibility ofobjectivity through inter-subjective verifica-tion. This is only a small aspect of modernity.

Postpositiuism; A reaction against posi-tivism and its stringent epistemological re-quirements and the scientific basis of knowl-edge. Postpositivism advocates other formsof obtaining usable knowledge. Postpositivistdiscourse is part of modernist discourse andhas no particular significance to postmod-ernism.

Imaginary: Literally, imaginary means theopposite of real, therefore, something whichis fictitious or a fantasy. In a rhetorical sense,it means that what is real is imaginary andwhat is imaginary is real. In this sense, onedoes not worry whether the real exists or notas long as one is able to imagine the real andrealize the imaginary. From a sociopoliticalperspective, the imaginary is the vision thatcaptures the meanings of a lifeworld for asocial/political group.

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