Discourses of Technology: Consumer Imagination and the Rejection of Google Glass

In this poster we address consumption of technology from the perspective of failure. A large body of studies of consumption of technology have focused on consumer acceptance (Kozinets, 2008). These studies have identified particular narratives about social and economic progress, and pleasure (Kozinets, 2008) as drivers of consumer acceptance of new technology. Similarly, Giesler (2008) has conceptualized consumer acceptance of technology as a form of marketplace drama, in which market ideologies are negotiated between consumers and media discourses. We suggest to study discourses around failed technology products to explore the negotiation of the familiar and alien that makes consumers reject or embrace a new technology. Thus, this particular project sets out to analyze consumer discourses surrounding the Google Glass video “How it Feels [through Google Glass]” on YouTube, because we want to understand how rejection and resistance build in the imagined use of technology. The study extends research on consumption of technology by demonstrating the importance of emergent discourses of new technology. We argue that the success of a particular new technology partly depends on the imagined consumption set up in marketing texts and negotiated by consumers.