In the context of discussions about public policy, I prefer being referred to as a "citizen" rather than a "consumer." To me, the word "citizen" connotes an agent who acts and makes decisions within a matrix of rights, responsibilities and ethical values that's greater in scope than the economic decision matrix implied by the word "consumer." This is not to claim that people make consumer choices based on economic calculus alone, but rather to suggest that deviations from this calculus tend to be seen as just that -- deviations -- when the agents making choices are thought of as "consumers" rather than as "citizens."
However, the nuanced meaning of words and the cloud of associations they evoke change over time. In her book A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Lizbeth Cohen discusses how the identification of American citizens as "consumers" shifted during the 20th century from a grounding in ideas of civic responsibility and democratic values to an insular emphasis on personal benefit. Such shifts in meaning can not only reflect change but also create it, as words have the ability to shape perceptions. (Cohen also has written a short article summarizing the main points of her book.)
In their book Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation, Justin Lewis, Sanna Inthorn and Karin Walh-Jorgenson describe the results of their research based on empirical data from 5,658 news stories that were published in Britain and in the United States. Stuart Allen, series editor, describes the book as follows:
"This book enters squarely into the current controversy about the declining number of people engaged in the conventional political process. Based on the first comprehensive study of the way citizens are represented in the news, it provides powerful evidence that while the news media may not be responsible for this decline, they are doing little to help remedy it. Although many people do have clear ideas about politics and matters of public policy, the authors argue, the news media are much more likely to present citizens as passive, incoherent or or disengaged. Their research into news reporting suggests that the idea of the citizen has been more or less eclipsed by the figure of the consumer. So while we hear a great deal about the 'consumer confidence' on which economies depend, we hear very little about the 'citizen confidence' on which democracies depend."
Perhaps it's time to reverse the trend and bring the word "citizen" back into our daily discourse.
