Considering resistance and incorporation

For a century, commercialism and commodification have been criticized for controlling the minds and behavior of the mass of people through leisure, consumption and popular culture. The criticism presumes great power on the part of commercial institutions. Early cultural studies offered a more complex model that allowed for resistance to such domination, but also for co-optation (i.e., incorporation) of such resistance. For more than a decade however scholars pursued research on resistance, and neglected to examine incorporation. This article argues for a differentiated concept of resistance, for reintroducing the concept of incorporation in resistance studies and, most important, focusing research on the relationship between resistance and incorporation, to understand how they operate in tandem in today's consumer society.