Waves of Virtual Consumption among Contemporary Iranians: A Critical Cultural Analysis within the Context of Consumption Studies Paradigms

As a cultural phenomenon, consumption is one of the key concepts forunderstanding modern societies, because modern man’s lifestyle, aesthetic tasteand desires are strongly dependent on his/her cultural consumption. A literaturereview in the tradition of consumption studies demonstrates that at least threeparadigm shifts in consumption theories have taken place: Consumption as apassive act, consumption as a communicative act, and consumption as an act ofresistance. As a consequence of these paradigm shifts, the practice of consumingcultural commodities has become the focus of attention in Cultural Studies withan emphasis on the discussion of this practice. With this epistemology at hand, thepresent paper situated itself within the context of consumption studies paradigmsto explain contemporary Iranians’ consumption behavior within the cyberspaceknown as “virtual consumption”, which is of cultural and ideological significancefor cultural analysts. Accordingly, the three waves of virtual consumption theorizedby Lehdonvirta (2009) were reframed into the Iranian context to see if and to whatextent there exists a correspondence between them.