Consuming Ourselves to Dearth

This article proposes an agenda for research on the relation of structural inequality to the study of politics and consumption in the field of communication. The authors review evidence for increasing inequality in the United States and argue that (1) consumption choices and desires are strongly constrained by structural location; (2) political beliefs and attitudes are shaped by location in the income or class structure; and (3) consumption as a form of political self-expression or civic identity, for example, boycotting or “buycotting,” is also constrained by economic structural location. Given these propositions, it becomes critical to analytically situate notions of personalization of politics within the context of increasing economic inequality.