Mobile moralities: Ethical consumption in the digital realm

Abstract

Ethical consumption, as a realm of production and exchange, a framework for purchasing decisions and as political activism, is now well established in a range of nations. As a politics, it points to an interconnected but divergent set of concerns centred on issues of environmental sustainability, local and global economic and social justice, and community and individual wellbeing. While the subject of sustained critique, not least because of its apparent privileging of the 'consumer' as the locus of change, ethical consumption has garnered increasing attention. This is most recently evident in the development and widening use of 'ethical consumption apps' for mobile devices. These apps allow the user to both access ethical information on products and, potentially, to connect with a broader politics of consumption. However, in entering the digital realm, ethical consumption also becomes embroiled in the complexities of digital technocultures and their ability to allow users of apps to be connected to each other, potentially building communities of interest and/or activism. This article explores this emerging intersection of the ethical and the digital. It examines whether such digital affordances affect the way ethical consumption itself may be conceived and pursued. Does the ethical consumption app work to collectivise or individualise, help to focus or fragment, speak of timidity, or potential in relation to an oppositional politics of consumption? In confronting these issues, this article suggests that contemporary ethical consumption apps-while full of political potential-remain problematic in that the turn to the digital has tended, so far, to accentuate the already individualising tendencies within a politics of ethical consumption. This speaks also, however, to a similar problematic in the politics of digital technocultures; the use of the digital does not automatically enable-merely through greater connectivity and information availability-forms of radical politics.

Ethical consumption? There's an app for that. Digital technologies and everyday consumption practices

“…In many ways these reported changes in brands and shopping locations confirm the concern that app users will be more focused on following the advice of the app than on whether that advice is actually ethical (Eli et al 2016; Humphery and Jordan 2018). However, in focus group discussions we were able to see that participants were considering whether the advice from the app was actually based on ethical principles or whether they were falling prey to a design flaw (e.g., the app not including no‐name brands) or an assumption about some shopping locations being inherently ethical (e.g., the farmers’ market).…”

“…Additionally, it was important for this participant to learn the reasons that she should avoid or support a product. This contradicts the suggestions from some scholars that app users might blindly follow the advice of the app without considering why it is making certain recommendations (Eli et al 2016; Humphery and Jordan 2018).…”

“…Thus far, two academic studies have examined the Buycott app, along with other similar ethical consumption apps (Eli et al 2016; Humphery and Jordan 2018). Both studies focus on app content and design.…”

“…Existing studies of user engagement in online discussion forums found that consumers were more influenced by information from other consumers than from corporate web pages, suggesting that prosumption may lead to more ethical consumption (Bickart and Schindler 2001; Gummerus et al 2017). That said, many digital geography and related scholars caution against the assumption that just because digital technologies can allow for prosumption of crowd‐sourced information and more multi‐vocal communication, this does not necessarily mean that they will lead to communication that is more open or democratic (e.g., Graham and Haarstad 2011; Jackson and Valentine 2014; Leszczynski and Elwood 2015; Humphery and Jordan 2018). Important questions must be asked about how users actually engage with crowd‐sourced information on ethical consumption apps.…”

Smart consumers come undone: breakdowns in the process of digital agencing

“…Similarly, studies looking more closely at the digitalisation of ethical consumption have discussed the potential of digital technology in the creation of transparency (Graham & Haarstad, 2011), and the willingness of consumers to use digital devices when shopping green (Atkinson, 2013). Other studies have also explored they ways in which smartphone apps enable and shape consumers' ability to consume 'ethically' (Fuentes & Sörum, 2019), how digitalisation enables new forms of consumer activism (Odou, Roberts, & Roux, 2018), the emergence and workings of online communities devoted to promoting ethical consumption (Cooper, Green, Burningham, Evans, & Jackson, 2012;Rokka & Moisander, 2009;Svenson, 2018) and, more critically, they have analysed and discussed the limited consumer behaviour models inscribed into digital devices that are designed to promote ethical consumption (Humphery & Jordan, 2016).…”