Stephanie Gerson

The Emergence of Peer Consumption
MS  Environmental Science, Policy, and Management  University of California, Berkeley, 2008
BA  Science, Technology, and Society  Stanford University, 2002
Berkeley, California, United States
misstephanie.gerson@gmail.com
  
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My research proposes the emergence of social media-enabled collectively intelligent consumer behavior. Lemme make that more palatable: collective action on behalf of consumers, as enabled by social media. And now lemme make it downright tasty: what I refer to as “peer consumption.” I look at emerging examples of peer consumption, such as Carrotmobs (Carrotmob.org) and the work of UC Berkeley’s Consumer Information Lab (GoodGuide.com). Essentially, this is about consumers using social media to coordinate their consumer behavior for purposes of governing the environmental, health, and social implications of global production systems. Which is where Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (look up) comes in. And which is where the distinction between producer and consumer begins to dissolve, leaving instead consumers who participate in the production of what they consumer; more easily referred to as prosumers.

Gerson, Stephanie (2007), "Possibilities for market-based environmental governance via Second Life," Serious Games Initiative, Foresignt and Governance Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center, August 2007. (PDF: epa.gov/osp/futures/SGerson_SLexperiments090407.pdf)

Gerson, Stephanie and Charles Lawrence (2008), "Eco Tour of Second Life," Serious Games Initiative, Foresignt and Governance Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center, January 2008. (Machinima: wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item&news_id=393493).