The Social Construction Of Consumer Sovereignty

This paper intends to analyze the reason of achievement and the process mechanism of "Consumer Sovereignty". Accompanied by a shift of the seller’s market to a buyer’s market, in contrast to the situation that producers and sellers mastered the initiative before, consumers begin to master an increasingly apparent initiative in today’s market. Moreover, the emergence of network virtual market makes people’s shopping surmount the limits of space and time. The low-cost circulation of information in the network space further enhances consumers’ability. In the whole market, a general trend of consumer-centric becomes stronger than before. In response to the arrival of the "Era of Consumer Sovereignty", part of the enterprises are actively seeking to interact and cooperate with consumers, thus to strengthen the connection with consumers and to maximize their own interests. This paper is based on the theory of "Social Construction of Economic System" in Economic Sociology. On the basis of the dialogue with Consumer Economics and Sociology of Consumption, this paper take the interaction between producers and consumers, which is guided by the producer, as the research object, and focus to investigate the possibility of the achievement and process mechanism of "Consumer Sovereignty".This paper proposes a new concept called "Consumer Sovereignty" in the weak sense. It is converse to "Consumer Sovereignty" in the strong sense in traditional economics, which means a kind of power that excludes producers’authority."Consumer Sovereignty" in the weak sense refers to the influence on producers in decision making trough the direct or indirect interaction between consumers and producers. The low-cost virtual community interaction in network era breeds a mode of democratic "Participatory Production", so as to the achievement of "Consumer Sovereignty" in the weak sense.This article attempts to analyze and interpret the typical case of "Xiaomi Online Community ", thus to objectively present the reason of achievement and the process mechanism of "Consumer Sovereignty" in the weak sense, including the discussions on the structural causes of the establishment of community interaction under the guiding of the producer, the specific process of the interaction between producers and consumers in the community, the results of interaction and the shaping of a new mode of democratic production. In this paper, assumptions and research conclusions contain:1. Assumption about Market Position:If producers locate themselves in imitational production, they are more likely to construct direct interaction with consumers thus to search for their information.2. Assumption about the Reproduction of Interaction:The interaction between producers and consumers is a process of reproduction; and3. Assumption about Participatory Production:By means of the transmission and collection of information,"long-term relationships and interests" and "strong expectations of trust", there comes a new mode of participatory production, which is also means the achievement of "Consumer Sovereignty" in the weak sense.The theoretical significance of this study is:It analyzes the relationship between producers and consumers from the perspective of Economic Sociology, and it breaks the limitations of traditional "Consumer Sovereignty" theory which lacks analysis on the interaction between producers and consumers. Also, it attempt to correct the research practice of Sociology of Consumption that only focuses on goods and consumer status but ignores producers’behaviors. From the perspective of bilateral cooperation, this study takes the producers into consideration. It analyzes the interaction between producers and consumers, and also interprets the possibility of the achievement and process mechanism of "Consumer Sovereignty". The purpose is to explore some guidance, theoretically and practically, for the shift from traditional production mode to participatory production mode. This paper is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is Introduction. I start my research from the description of current economic system, market category and the use of internet technology in the field of consumption. Then, I put forward the questions. After that, I show my standpoint through reviewing those existing research results. In the meanwhile, I put forward the research framework and assumptions. I introduce my research method as well as the case called "Xiaomi Online Community". In addition of those, I also explain the structure of my research.Chapter Two takes the method of "structural analysis" and discusses the question that what exactly makes the interaction between producers and consumers possible. Xiaomi’s behavior of establishing community interaction stems from its position in the whole market and its core consumer group. Accompanied with the development and upgrade of internet technology, it is possible that community interaction can operate at a low cost.Chapter Three takes the way of "procedural analysis" and discusses how the interaction between producers and consumers in the community operates. From two aspects of structure and the content embedded in the interactive process, I analyze the developing history of "Xiaomi Online Community", thus to elaborate the specific reproduction process of the interaction between producers and consumers.Chapter Four sets a perspective of "functional analysis", and it investigates the specific outcomes of community interaction. Information transformation,"long-term relationships and interests" and "strong expectations of trust" derived from interaction promote the molding of a new mode of participatory production, scilicet,"Consumer Sovereignty" in the weak sense has achieved.Finally, Chapter Five summarizes fundamental conclusions of this study. I give a further elaboration on the significance of participatory production ("Consumer Sovereignty" in the weak sense), whose spread is very important to the transformation of production mode of enterprises.