The Construction and exclusion of the Symbolic Meanings of Consumption: A case study of the President Starbucks Coffee Corporation in Taiwan
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Yu-Hui, Kao
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
The thesis aims to observe the symbolic meanings that the President Starbucks has constructed and excluded through the positions of business, consumers and the researcher. This study wants to understand how some meanings of Starbucks consumption are possibly excluded and thus become specific connections of meanings.
From the viewpoint of business, Starbucks not only brings coffee to everywhere in the world but forms all kinds of discussions about the culture of coffee consumption. In other words, Starbucks stands in a position of discourse creation and production. Through the meaning construction of coffee consumption, the arrangements and definition of consumption spaces, and the marketing of coffee consumption, Starbucks has turned the meanings of coffee consumption from pure material ones to those with experiences of spaces, feelings of symbols and imaginations of meanings.
From the position of Starbucks comsumers, the consumers, being consumption subjectivities, often interact with others through the production of written words and participate in the production process of Starbucks consumption discourse. The consumers become a reflexive subject when they retrospect the connections of their actions. Besides, it is found that specific topics and meaning connections are often repeated in in the discussions of consumers. It means Starbucks consumers can clearly recognize the meaning of their consumption processes from the specific meaning contexts. The s consumers are shaped as consumption subjects with peculiar appetites and values.
Finally, by comparing the old coffee shops, characteristic coffee shops and chain coffee shops the researcher finds out some meanings are excluded by President Starbucks in the process of creating commodity symbols, and the construction and exclusion of meanings are the two sides of the same logic of commodity symbols. No matter what the meanings Starbucks has excluded or the meanings the characteristic coffee shops have included, they are contrasting but also complementary to some degree.
Subjects
星巴克咖啡
符號消費
意義建構
差異體驗
意義排除
Starbucks coffee
symbolic consumption
construction of meanings
divergent experiences
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-96-R94341011-1.pdf
Size
23.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):84a646b3c2fadc5b5b894757b956ae8c