TY - BOOK
T1 - Reconceptualising Privacy in a Digital World
T2 - A sociomaterial perspective
AU - Horppu, Johanna
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Everyday life is mediated by technology and data, with nearly every
action tracked and leveraged by businesses to deliver targeted
advertising, products, and services. While consumers benefit from these
personalised offerings, concerns about privacy are mounting. Marketers,
therefore, face the challenge of balancing personalisation with privacy,
a tension that has made privacy a central focus in marketing and
consumer research. However, much of this research has approached privacy
as a psychological construct, assessing it through rational
cost-benefit analyses. This narrow perspective overlooks the
sociocultural and sociomaterial environment that surrounds consumers.
The purpose of this dissertation is to conceptualise privacy as a
sociomaterial construct. This purpose is achieved through two
sub-objectives. The first is to challenge the prevailing assumptions
related to privacy within consumer research. The second is to
reconfigure the view of privacy as a measurable, psychological construct
by introducing new theoretical and methodological approaches. The
dissertation comprises three articles, each fulfilling these
sub-objectives in distinct ways.
Article I is a conceptual paper that highlights some of the
underlying assumptions of the current privacy literature and suggests
new theoretical perspectives. Article II examines how privacy is given
meaning on the sociocultural level by analysing metaverse imaginaries
that unfold in media outlets. Article III introduces a novel creative
method – the imagination game – that is applied to uncover the
sociomaterial dimension of privacy.
Guided by an interpretative framework and drawing from feminist new
materialism as well as the study of sociotechnical imaginaries, this
dissertation builds a sociomaterial conceptualisation of privacy. This
conceptualisation frames privacy as a sense of privacy: a dynamic and
visceral construct that arises as consumers, data, and technologies
interact. A sense of privacy combines the meanings given to privacy
stemming from the sociocultural environment, and the experience of
privacy embedded in the sociomaterial environment. Three metaphors –
privacy as entangled roots, privacy as a magnetic field, and privacy as
an ocean wave – are used to illustrate the interwoven, fluctuating and
affective nature of the construct.
The dissertation contributes to the fields of privacy research and
Consumer Culture Theory (CCT). It extends the understanding of privacy
beyond individual decision-making processes to include the wider context
where these decisions unfold. Further, it introduces privacy as a
relevant topic within CCT, a field where it has been largely overlooked.
This research also provides methodological contribution by developing a
creative approach for privacy research that can be further applied
across varied contexts.
For marketing practitioners, this sociomaterial perspective offers a
foundation for privacy practices that consider contextual factors and
pay attention to the role of emotions in configuring a sense of privacy.
Policymakers, in turn, can draw on these insights to recognise the
deep-seated assumptions that underpin current privacy regulations. The
dissertation highlights the need for regulatory frameworks that address
the societal implications of privacy and its intrinsic connection to
autonomy. Overall, the sociomaterial conceptualisation opens new avenues
for exploring the multifaceted nature of privacy and the complex
human-data relations in the digital age.
AB - Everyday life is mediated by technology and data, with nearly every
action tracked and leveraged by businesses to deliver targeted
advertising, products, and services. While consumers benefit from these
personalised offerings, concerns about privacy are mounting. Marketers,
therefore, face the challenge of balancing personalisation with privacy,
a tension that has made privacy a central focus in marketing and
consumer research. However, much of this research has approached privacy
as a psychological construct, assessing it through rational
cost-benefit analyses. This narrow perspective overlooks the
sociocultural and sociomaterial environment that surrounds consumers.
The purpose of this dissertation is to conceptualise privacy as a
sociomaterial construct. This purpose is achieved through two
sub-objectives. The first is to challenge the prevailing assumptions
related to privacy within consumer research. The second is to
reconfigure the view of privacy as a measurable, psychological construct
by introducing new theoretical and methodological approaches. The
dissertation comprises three articles, each fulfilling these
sub-objectives in distinct ways.
Article I is a conceptual paper that highlights some of the
underlying assumptions of the current privacy literature and suggests
new theoretical perspectives. Article II examines how privacy is given
meaning on the sociocultural level by analysing metaverse imaginaries
that unfold in media outlets. Article III introduces a novel creative
method – the imagination game – that is applied to uncover the
sociomaterial dimension of privacy.
Guided by an interpretative framework and drawing from feminist new
materialism as well as the study of sociotechnical imaginaries, this
dissertation builds a sociomaterial conceptualisation of privacy. This
conceptualisation frames privacy as a sense of privacy: a dynamic and
visceral construct that arises as consumers, data, and technologies
interact. A sense of privacy combines the meanings given to privacy
stemming from the sociocultural environment, and the experience of
privacy embedded in the sociomaterial environment. Three metaphors –
privacy as entangled roots, privacy as a magnetic field, and privacy as
an ocean wave – are used to illustrate the interwoven, fluctuating and
affective nature of the construct.
The dissertation contributes to the fields of privacy research and
Consumer Culture Theory (CCT). It extends the understanding of privacy
beyond individual decision-making processes to include the wider context
where these decisions unfold. Further, it introduces privacy as a
relevant topic within CCT, a field where it has been largely overlooked.
This research also provides methodological contribution by developing a
creative approach for privacy research that can be further applied
across varied contexts.
For marketing practitioners, this sociomaterial perspective offers a
foundation for privacy practices that consider contextual factors and
pay attention to the role of emotions in configuring a sense of privacy.
Policymakers, in turn, can draw on these insights to recognise the
deep-seated assumptions that underpin current privacy regulations. The
dissertation highlights the need for regulatory frameworks that address
the societal implications of privacy and its intrinsic connection to
autonomy. Overall, the sociomaterial conceptualisation opens new avenues
for exploring the multifaceted nature of privacy and the complex
human-data relations in the digital age.
M3 - Doctoral thesis
SN - 978-952-03-3891-6
T3 - Tampere University Dissertations - Tampereen yliopiston väitöskirjat
BT - Reconceptualising Privacy in a Digital World
PB - Tampere University
ER -