#501 Ethan Porter: The Consumer Citizen
RECORDED ON APRIL 15th 2021.
Dr. Ethan Porter is an assistant professor at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. His research has appeared or is forthcoming in Political Communication, Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Politics, Groups and Identities and Journal of Experimental Political Science. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and other popular publications. His research interests include public opinion, political communication, political psychology and experimental design. He is the author of False Alarm: The Truth About Political Mistruths in the Trump Era, and The Consumer Citizen, which investigates the ways in which everyday consumer decision-making affects political attitudes and behavior.
In this episode, we focus on The Consumer Citizen. We discuss how consumer behavior influences political behavior, how people think about politics, and the phenomenon of conspicuous consumption. We cover some of the concepts presented in the book, like alignability, consumer fairness, operational transparency, and taxpayer receipts. And we talk about to what extent do people’s behaving as consumers help them make wiser political decisions.
Time Links:
Intro
Citizens as consumers
Conspicuous consumption
What about politically knowledgeable people?
Do governments spend taxes wisely?
Is behaving like a consumer a threat to democracy?
Alignability
Taxpayer receipts
Consumer fairness, and operational transparency
The goals of the book
Follow Dr. Porter’s work!
Follow Dr. Porter’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/2KXX5t9
Website: https://bit.ly/3r3gHvy
Works on ResearchGate: https://bit.ly/2RD4d1d
The Consumer Citizen: https://amzn.to/3a91ouk
Twitter handle: @EthanVPorter