of intermediaries who know how to interpret and deploy it. The chapter traces these developments before focusing in particular on the use of consumer information in digital marketing and online pricing.
In chapter 5 I examine the role of narratives and storytelling in economic life. I do this in two main ways: first, I look at literary and filmic treatments of economic life, and show that, historically, creative writers have often seen their role as opposing the values of the market. I then explore how these ‘oppositional’ values play out, and how certain recurrent economic concerns have become fuel for literary or filmic exploration. This includes an assessment of some of the problems that film, in particular, has had in representing capitalism and economic life. The chapter then turns to look at the economy itself as a narrated phenomenon, showing that, historically, the distinction between fact and fiction in written accounts of economic life was less clear and pronounced than it is now. The chapter explores both economists’ and economic sociologists’ interest in the role of narrative in constructing economic actions, and also examines the growing commercial uses of narrative – as in the case of ‘brand storytelling’ – to imbue companies and brands with meaning in the eyes of consumers and other stakeholders. Finally, the chapter considers the challenges to narrative forms of economic communication.
In chapter 6 I consider practices of discussion and deliberation – forms of communication that are often held to be superior to the one-way messages of media and culture (even the ‘high culture’ of literary narrative). Beginning with an analysis of economic discussion on television news and current affairs programmes, the chapter shows that these are often very far from the Habermasian ideal of rational-critical discourse. The tendency to simply put two opposing political viewpoints together with little commentary or explanation seems especially appealing in economic coverage, since it is an area that broadcasters often assume viewers find dull. Their response to this may be to attempt to create lively and engaging content through staged confrontations between political opponents. The chapter then considers the examples of audience discussion shows and online discussion forums. These do not meet ideals of deliberative debate either, but they do involve a wider range of people, and often construct economic life and economic concerns in ways that are dramatically different to television news. They also show that ‘deliberation’ is often combined with many other kinds of discourse. In the final part of the chapter, I look at some instances of ‘everyday economics’ that emerge in the less mediated spaces of daily life. These show – as I noted at the start of this introduction – that even a concept so apparently obvious as ‘the economy’ differs wildly in the way that it is understood in everyday contexts than in the mass media. Deliberation or debate about economic issues, here as elsewhere, is not a discrete type of discourse but deeply interwoven with other forms of communication. ‘The economy’, if it is understood at all, is understood in Weberian or Polanyian terms as the process of making ends meet, or alternatively as a power relation in which certain actors occupy a more advantageous position than others.
In the final chapter I revisit the book’s main themes and propose some ways to develop the study of economic communication in the future. I re-evaluate the book’s pragmatic approach to communication, assess what it leaves out, and explore how it might be taken up in more empirical contexts. I also spell out in more detail what a new framework for the study of communication and economic life might look like, and give concrete examples of areas that are often ignored by media and communications scholars but that would be fruitful avenues of enquiry. At the heart of any future research agenda there would be a focus on economic action as meaningful, rather than ‘the economy’ as powerful actors have already defined it. This does not mean abandoning critical scrutiny of those actors or of large institutions, but rather, by starting from what is meaningful in everyday life, attempting to connect public and political questions about economic communication to what C. Wright Mills called ‘private troubles’. Doing this in turn allows us to think about the kinds of obligations that large and powerful institutions have to their audiences.
Notes
1 1 In addition to studies that focus on the reporting of the macro economy, finance, and so on, some scholars have considered the representation of business and entrepreneurship, particularly in ‘reality’ television formats. See, e.g., Couldry and Littler (2011) and Kelly and Boyle (2011).
2 2 Coyle is not the first economist to raise questions about the value of GDP, either as a measure of ‘the economy’, or for understanding economic wellbeing. See Stiglitz et al. (2009), or for a more recent example see Portes (2020).
3 3 David Graeber (2019) similarly describes the ‘near-theological hold’ that neoclassical economic thinking has over mass media and public institutions.
4 4 In Media, Culture and Society, for example, of the articles published between 2009 and 2019 more than 500 mentioned ‘finance’; only 11 mentioned ‘housework’.
5 5 Contrary to much work in consumer culture studies, Miller argues that the consumption of capitalist commodities is ‘hardly ever about individuals and subjectivities’ and is more usually motivated by ‘the construction of key relationships’ (Miller 1998: 194).
Part I Economic action is communicative
This first part of the book, comprising two chapters, explores the communicative constitution of economic life by focusing on the ways economic actions and practices can themselves be seen as communicative. Chapter 1 considers how this idea has been advanced – mostly implicitly – in economic theory, while chapter 2 uses sociological and anthropological perspectives to draw attention to the symbolic communication associated with money, payment and price.
The two chapters provide contrasting accounts of communication in economic life, highlighting how different this term can look, depending on one’s disciplinary perspective. Chapter 1 considers the way that market behaviours (typically, buying or not buying goods at particular price points) are construed as communicating information about consumers’ preferences. It also looks at the way communication itself has been understood as quantities of information that can be acquired or transferred. Chapter 2 shows that the symbolism of monetary media (such as coins and tokens, but also prices) has historically allowed them to communicate various affiliations and solidarities, and how these are being remade in the light of changes to the infrastructure of payments. But these two chapters also differ quite markedly from what one might term ‘mainstream’ accounts of economic communication offered by media and communication studies. Instead of focusing on media coverage of established economic topics, they offer a way of thinking about economic communication as something much more ubiquitous, embedded both in the organization of economic infrastructures and activities, and in the day-to-day practices of ordinary citizens.
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