This article analyzes the relationship between citizenship and consumption posited by the Decatur Study and developed in the influential book Personal Influence by Katz and Lazarsfeld. It shows that they understood a close relationship between the two. It also contrasts the Katz/Lazarsfeld understanding of the relationship between citizenship and consumption with that of contemporary consumer activists to show that, for scholars of “effects,” Katz and Lazarsfeld, who focused exclusively on the “inputs” of consumer choice, paid surprisingly little attention to the social impact of consumption.
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