Watching People Work: On the Consumer Experience of Conspicuous Production

Abstract

This dissertation explicates conspicuous production as a corporate communicative strategy through rhetorical criticism. To that end, this dissertation argues that conspicuous production provides illusory fantasies that quell consumers’ anxieties about the conditions of production while simultaneously delivering gratifying, brand-elevating performances. Such performances of production, I argue, do not require any necessary relation to actual conditions of production, but primarily serve to provide affectations of authenticity, local culture, and transparency. This dissertation contains five chapters: in the first, I review history and literature of conspicuous production. Chapters two, three, and four include case studies of conspicuous production sites in the city of Seattle: Starbucks’s Seattle Reserve Roastery, Pike Place Market, and the Burke Museum. Chapter five offers concluding remarks on the value and efficacy of conspicuous production practices in twenty-first century public life.