Consumer‐Interest Study in Higher Education: A Conceptual Analysis of an Emerging Discipline

Abstract

The study of the consumer interest in higher education is currently represented by departments, program areas, and curricula with a wide variety of titles (e.g., “consumer economics” and “consumer affairs”) and emphases (e.g., consumer purchase decisions and public policy formulation. This diversity of titles and emphases is indicative of the current lack of agreement concerning the focus, scope and direction of the field as a whole. The authors propose a disciplinary rationale which integrates the many approaches to consumer‐interest study while distinguishing it from the traditional disciplines to which it is most closely related: economics, home economics, and marketing. It is argued that consumer‐interest study has a distinct content focus and distinct dimensional properties which qualify it for separate disciplinary status. The authors further propose that the emerging discipline be known as “consumer science” since that title appropriately encompasses both the field's current characteristics and its anticipated development.

Developing more effective social marketing strategies

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Determining the Consumer Information Content of Newspapers: A Proposed Analytical Framework and Illustrative Application

“…Because the concern of this research is measurement of the consumer information content of news, an extensive search of the literature for existing categorical configurations was undertaken. Included were Shepard's (1 978) framework for investigating consumer issues, Kroll and Hunt's (1980) conceptual analysis of consumer science, Herrmann's (1982) classification of the coverage of consumer education topics, Goebel and Miller's (1983) appendix of concepts in consumer science, Way's (1984) instrument to analyze the consumer related content of prime time television programs, Haefner and Permut's (1975) categories of major consumer issues, and the indexes for The Journal of Consumer Affairs, The Journal of Consumer Research, and Advances in Consumer Research.…”

Consumer Protection Programs in Food Cooperatives

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