Political Consumption as Supplement to Conventional Political Participation in Promoting Social Change

摘要

Research indicates that individual consumers with food safety, environmental and ethical concerns regarding the provisioning of food may be motivated to use the marketplace as a site for political action to promote social change-a phenomenon known as political consumption (PC). Using data from Ohio 2007 Survey of Food, Farming and Environment, this research examined individual level attributes shaping engagement in PC and conventional political action. Findings based on logistic regression analyses, reveal that engagement in conventional political behavior is positively related to the likelihood of engagement in political consumption. This suggests that engagement in conventional political action and political consumption are not mutually exclusive. The main factors associated with engagement in political consumption are: knowledge about food production, environmental and food safety concerns. These findings suggest that consumers with concerns about the organization and character of food production believe they can create social changes via their consumptive decisions.