Power to the People? The myth of television consumer sovereignty revisited

Abstract

This article attempts to nuance the argument of consumer sovereignty put forward by both liberal thinkers and cultural studies. Although recognising the importance (hence existence) of consumer sovereignty, the article goes against the stream of cultural audience studies and liberal accounts that have studied the benefits, pleasure and empowerment associated with watching TV. Instead it focuses on the other side of TV experience, the losses, displeasures and disempowerment of TV viewers. Through a deconstruction of audience agency, the public's power, freedom of choice and consumption as pleasure -four notions on which the myth of consumer sovereignty is based -this article wishes to challenge the myth of TV consumer sovereignty from both a theoretical and empirical standpoint.

Media and Participation: A site of ideological-democratic struggle

“…35. Both concepts, in turn, are also related to the argument of consumer sovereignty (see Pauwels and Bauwens, 2007). 36.…”

Lights, Action, Naughty Bits: A Thematic Analysis of New Zealanders’ Attitudes to Naked Attraction

“…According to Sunstein (2006, p. 203), the objective is that people should be permitted "unrestricted consumer choices," with intervention considered authoritarian and opposed to democratic ideals. As Pauwels and Bauwens (2007) assert, people, want to be able to have power over the content they choose to consume even if they are looking to fulfil personal rather than societal needs.…”