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In the online environment, consumers increasingly feel vulnerable due to firms’ expanding capabilities of collecting and using their data in an unsanctioned manner. Drawing from gossip theory, this research focuses on two key suppressors of consumer vulnerability: transparency and control. Previous studies conceptualize transparency and control from rationalistic approaches that overlook individual experiences and present a unidimensional conceptualization. This research aims to understand how individuals interpret transparency and control concerning privacy vulnerability in the online environment. Additionally, it explores strategic approaches to communicating the value of transparency and control.

An interpretivism paradigm and phenomenology were adopted in the research design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 41 participants, including consumers and experts, and analyzed through thematic analysis.

The findings identify key conceptual dimensions of transparency and control by adapting justice theory. They also reveal that firms can communicate assurance, functional, technical and social values of transparency and control to address consumer vulnerability.

This research makes the following contributions to the data privacy literature. The findings exhibit multidimensional and comprehensive conceptualizations of transparency and control, including user, firm and information perspectives. Additionally, the conceptual framework combines empirical insights from both experiencers and observers to offer an understanding of how transparency and control serve as justice mechanisms to effectively tackle the issue of unsanctioned transmission of personal information and subsequently address vulnerability. Lastly, the findings provide strategic approaches to communicating the value of transparency and control.

The purpose of this study is to critically review consumer knowledge in marketing and propose a future research agenda. Despite the many works that have examined this variable, given its strong influence on behaviour, it has generally been studied in association with other constructs, and no studies have focused on it in a specific way. Its definition, measurement and approaches to its role and usefulness are superficial and underdeveloped. After structuring and analysing the existing literature, the authors establish, (I) which aspects are of little use to the discipline, and (II) which research lines have the most potential and should be developed and studied in greater depth, to advance and complete the existing consumer knowledge framework.

A search was undertaken for documents in the main databases in which the term “consumer knowledge” appears in a marketing or consumer context, and a critical and reflexive approach was taken to analyse the main contributions and to structure them by content blocks.

Five main content blocks were identified. A set of research gaps were detected, mainly related to the lax conceptualisation of the topic, measurement problems and the scarcity of more useful works connected with business management, and several research lines are proposed that complement the existing framework to make it more complete and operational.

This paper offers a critical review and proposes a research agenda for one of the most used but little studied variables in the field of marketing, which may help academics and professionals in the discipline to continue developing useful theories and models.

El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar críticamente el conocimiento del consumidor en marketing y proponer una agenda de investigación futura. A pesar de los numerosos trabajos que han examinado esta variable, dada su fuerte influencia en el comportamiento, generalmente se ha estudiado en asociación con otros constructos, y ningún estudio se ha centrado en ella de manera específica. Su definición, medición y aproximaciones sobre su papel y utilidad son superficiales y poco desarrollados. Después de estructurar y analizar la literatura existente, establecemos (I) qué aspectos tienen poco uso para la disciplina y (II) qué líneas de investigación tienen más potencial y deben ser desarrolladas y estudiadas con mayor profundidad; para avanzar y completar el marco existente sobre conocimiento del consumidor.

Se realizó una búsqueda de documentos en las principales bases de datos en las que aparece el término “conocimiento del consumidor” en un contexto de marketing o consumo, y se adoptó un enfoque crítico y reflexivo para analizar las principales contribuciones y estructurarlas por bloques de contenido.

Se identificaron cinco bloques principales de contenido. Se detectó un conjunto de huecos de investigación, principalmente relacionados con la laxa conceptualización del tema, problemas de medición y la escasez de trabajos más útiles conectados con la gestión empresarial; y se proponen varias líneas de investigación que complementan el marco existente para hacerlo más completo y operativo.

Este documento ofrece una revisión crítica y propone una agenda de investigación para una de las variables más utilizadas pero poco estudiadas en el campo del marketing, lo que puede ayudar a académicos y profesionales en la disciplina a continuar desarrollando teorías y modelos útiles.

本文旨在对市场营销中的消费者知识进行批判性审视, 并提出未来的研究议程。虽然已有许多研究检验了该变量, 但由于其对行为产生强大影响, 通常会与其他结构变量一起研究, 而没有以特定方式专注于该变量。对其定义、测量以及其作用和用途的方法仍旧存在研究空白。通过对现有文献进行结构化分析后, 确定了以下两个方面：（I）哪些方面对该学科意义不大, （II）哪些研究方向最具研究潜力, 并且应该进一步深入发展和研究, 以推进和完善现有的消费者知识框架。

通过主要数据库检索市场营销或消费者背景下涉及“消费者知识”一词的文献, 采取批判性和反思性方法来分析其主要贡献, 并通过内容块对其进行结构化。

识别了五个主要内容块, 并发现存在一定程度的研究空白, 主要涉及该主题的概念松散化、测量问题以及与商业管理相关的有效研究的稀缺性。此外, 本文提出了几个研究线索, 这些线索为现有框架补充了信息, 使其更加完整且具备更强的操作性。

本文对市场营销领域中广泛使用但研究较少的变量进行了批判性评述, 并提出了相关研究议程。这一工作有助于学术界和专业人士继续发展实用的理论和模型。

The purpose of this paper is to explore teacher candidates’ response to young adult literature (prose and comics) featuring fat identified protagonists. The paper considers the textual and embodied resources readers use and reject when imagining and interpreting a character’s body. This paper explores how readers’ meaning making was influenced when reading prose versus comics. This paper adds to a corpus of scholarship about the relationships between young adult literature, comics, bodies and reader response theory.

At the time of the study, participants were enrolled in a teacher education program at a Midwestern University, meeting monthly for a voluntary book club dedicated to reading and discussing young adult literature. To examine readers’ responses to comics and prose featuring fat-identified protagonists, the author used descriptive qualitative methodologies to conduct a thematic analysis of meeting transcripts, written participant reflections and researcher memos. Analysis was grounded in theories of reader response, critical fat studies and multimodality.

Analyses indicated many readers reject textual clues indicating a character’s body size and weight were different from their own. Readers read their bodies into the stories, regarding them as self-help narratives instead of radical counternarratives. Some readers were not able to read against their assumptions of thinness (and whiteness) until prompted by the researcher and other participants.

Although many reader response scholars have demonstrated readers’ tendencies toward personal identification in the face of racial and class differences, there is less research regarding classroom practices around the entanglement of physical bodies, body image and texts. Analyzing reader’s responses to the constructions of fat bodies in prose versus comics may help English Language Arts (ELA) educators and students identify and deconstruct ideologies of thin-thinking and fatphobia. This study, which demonstrates thin readers’ tendencies to overidentify with protagonists, suggests ELA classrooms might encourage readers to engage in critical literacies that support them in reading both with and against their identities.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to science communication literature by further highlighting the underexplored role of organizational and corporate perspectives in science communication.

The paper takes the form of a conceptual article that uses two illustrative vignettes to highlight the power of corporate science communication.

The key argument is that corporate science communication is a compound ideology that results from merging the hegemonic corporate voice with the ultimate/god-term science (see the work of Kenneth Burke) to form a mega-ideological construct and discourse. Such communication can be so powerful that vulnerable publics and powerful advocates speaking on their behalf have little to no recourse to effectively challenge such discourse. While critiques of corporate science communication in practice are not new, what the authors offer is a possible explanation as to why such discourse is so powerful and hard to combat.

The value of this paper is in the degree to which it both sets an important applied research agenda for the field and fills a critical void in the science communication literature. This conceptual article, in the form of a critical analysis, fills the void by advocating for the inclusion of organizational perspectives in science communication research because of the great potential that organizations have, via science communication, to shape societal behavior and outcomes both positively and negatively. It also coins the terms “compound ideology” and “mega-ideology” to denote that while all ideologies are powerful, ideologies can operate in concert (compound) to change their meaning and effectiveness. By exposing the hegemonic power of corporate science communication, future researchers and practitioners can use these findings as a foundation to combat misinformation and disinformation campaigns wielded by big corporate science entities and the public relations firms often hired to carry out these campaigns.

This study aims to contribute to discussions on peace between hostile nonmajor powers by focusing on the behavior of major powers. Specifically, alliances between nonmajor and major powers are explored to determine whether such ties contribute to transitions to higher levels of peace. Moreover, systemic factors involving power dynamics and relationships between major powers are also evaluated.

Multiple data sets which altogether covered the era from 1816 to 2010 were analyzed. All pairs of countries that were former foes were considered. Cox hazard regression was conducted.

Systemic instability is influential at transitions from lowest levels of peace for nonmajor power dyads. Eras where major powers are operating multilaterally appear to play a highly limited role in nonmajor powers attaining stable peace. However, alliances with major powers are relatively more crucial in these discussions for nonmajor powers and contribute to higher levels of peace being attained by nonmajor powers.

Further research in particular with case studies can help to elucidate and extend the statistical findings.

Based on the findings, the design and operations of alliances can create more space to hear a wider range of issues that allies can be facing.

While major powers clearly have considerable capacity and global outreach, there has been little attention to whether and how they contribute to former foes attaining higher quality of peace.