By Patrick Persaud
One would think that professional wrestling, virtual reality, female cyborgs and Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie (a poem published in 1847, by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), would have nothing to do with each other, however that assumption would be false. Professor Leighann Neilson of the Sprott School of Business, is using these cultural phenomena to further our understanding of marketing and the way it influences and is influenced by culture.
“Traditionally our understanding of marketing is summarized by the 4 ‘P’s: price, product, place, and promotion. But by looking beyond the 4 Ps, we begin to understand how popular culture can affect everything from conceptions of gender and cultural identity, to buying habits and adoption of new technologies”, says Neilson about her work.
Neilson’s research is primarily concerned with cultural influences on consumption. An ongoing research study concerns the post-human and the influence of the cyborg in the collective imaginary, especially as it relates to technology consumption and notions of human ontology. Her paper, “Female Cyborgs in Film: Heeding the Siren Call”, examined the differences between portrayals of male and female cyborgs in film and how these representations both reflect and shape possibilities at the gender/technology intersection.
“Typically, female cyborgs in both film and television meet a nasty end. Female cyborgs represent a very potent combination of our conceptions of technology or culture and nature. Think of the Borg Queen (from the film Star Trek: First Contact). She commands the most powerful force in the universe and yet she is destroyed – by a ‘pure’, ‘cultured’ man, represented by Captain Jean Luc Picard, and a ‘pure’ machine in the form of the android Data.
What is that trying to tell us about women in powerful positions in our society? What influence does that have on women or young girls and their conceptualizations of themselves and technology?” According to Neilson, these movies reinforce myths about appropriate roles for women in society and of women’s capabilities vis-à-vis technology.
Another of Neilson’s research studies has shown how marketers and consumers, responding to cultural influences, collaborate to create new markets. Her studies dealing with Longfellow’s poem, Evangeline, have been tremendously important in understanding this concept. Evangeline is the tale of a young Acadian woman who is separated from her fiancé during the “Great Expulsion”, only to trek across America to find him again just before he succumbs to illness.
The poem proved to have immense cultural impact, generating a new form of tourism in Atlantic Canada, as people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and even today, retrace Evangeline’s journey, identifying with a fictional character to the point that they attempt to walk in her steps. This Evangeline-inspired tourism, and its modern-day roots-tourism equivalent, represents a tremendous financial investment in terms of travel, accommodations, food, and events.
Neilson’s work on professional wrestling examines how membership in a fan subculture can influence individuals’ moral decision making. “Wrestling fans don’t think of wrestling as being violent, sexist or racist although the general public, and certainly the reports you see in the newspapers, describe wrestling in these terms. It’s not that wrestling fans are immoral or amoral. They don’t condone violence against women in everyday life, for example.
But within the culture of the pro-wrestling community, actions that might otherwise be considered as violent, racist or sexist are conceived of in different ways.” Neilson’s work highlighted how fans employ a wide range of ethical frameworks to explain these actions. “What was particularly interesting to me was to examine how the marketer, in this case Vince McMahon, owner of the WWE, was seen as a legitimate and full member of the community, and how loyalty to the marketer influenced consumers’ decision making, in this case their moral judgments about the product.
No matter the questions asked or the concepts approached, Leighann Neilson represents a dynamic shift in the world of business, how it is understood, taught and researched.