The Authority of the Consumer explores the implications of consumer society - charting its meanings in particular contexts and debating the merits or drawbacks of this way of understanding the relationship between providers and recipients. Some have seen this development as involving a radical shift of authority - away from the provider/producer and towards the recipient/consumer. But they have differed in their responses to this shift, either welcoming it in terms of democratization, anti-elitism or empowerment, or decrying it as commercialization, populism or loss of integrity. Others have...

The Authority of the Consumer explores the implications of consumer society' - charting its meanings in particular circumstances and analysing this way of understanding the relationships between providers' and