Discourses of Technology Consumption: Ambivalence, Fear, and Liminality

Abstract

Why are consumer narratives of technology consumption fraught with ambivalence (Mick and Fournier 1998), identity tensions (Schau and Gilly 2003), anxiety (Meuter et al. 2003; Mick and Fournier 1998), and even fear (Clarke 2002; Helman 1988; Virilio 1997)? What is it about technology consumption, an arguably everyday experience in the context of increasingly ubiquitous digital, biomedical, information and communication technologies in today’s “technology-intensive” markets (John, Weiss, and Dutta 1999, 78), that evokes such primal reactions in consumers? In the seemingly banal act of consuming technology, what exactly comes under threat?