From qualities to value: Demand shaping and market control in mass consumption markets

Where does convergence on value come from? How do certain products’ qualities acquire economic value? Drawing on some results coming from economic sociology that emphasize the role of marketing activities and collective framing processes, this chapter proposes to analyze the valuation process at stake in markets. In the case of mass consumption markets, marketing activities developed by incumbent companies shape consumer preferences through several discursive, technical, and organizational arrangements that aim to channel consumers’ voices and choices. A company leads the market when it succeeds in defining a demand that other companies find it less costly to take for granted, thus imposing which features in a product can have a high economic value. Controlling the way the demand is defined is thus a way of governing how market values are set and thereby an effective means of controlling a market