Holy Subculture of Consumption Batman! Investigating The Impact of Core Members on The ACBSC

Mufti, N (2025) Holy Subculture of Consumption Batman! Investigating The Impact of Core Members on The ACBSC. Doctoral thesis, Liverpool John Moores University.

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Abstract

American Comic Book Subculture of Consumption are not only made of passive consumers because they engage in activities that relate to the given comic books such as role-playing costumes, drawing fans, theories and criticisms of the books. All these are aspects of fun, and at the same time, they are the exercise of the ongoing creation of the subculture. Therefore, subcultural identity is found to be one of the main determinants of constructing and creating consumption patterns within the context of the ACBSC. There are growing new perspectives for understanding consumption, which is why subcultures became important for deconstructing the described phenomenon as consumer behaviour shifts in the intricate context of modern societies. As a market defines its subcultures, it contains its behavioural patterns and thus provides a rich opportunity to drill down and eventually understand how customers treat the goods, brands, and media. This research aims to examine the relations between different social interactions, ethos and consuming behaviour within the consumption culture of the ACBSC. The study attempts to understand how these aspects contribute to the constitutions of the subculture’s unique ethos and where and how this ethos influences new consumption activities that are congruent with the collective ethos. This study advances the knowledge of subcultures, and the insights achieved from this research will be greatly helpful to marketers, cultural analysts, and academics. The research helped to establish where the ACBSC sits with regard to a larger field of cultural studies. Therefore, the analysis of socialisation processes and the members’ consumption of comic books in terms of ideologies and practices is of paramount importance.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Subculture; Subculture of Consumption; Marketing; Comic Books; Batman; Superman; American Comic Books; Consumer Behaviour; DC Comics; Geek; Comic Book; Superhero; Social Networking theory; Ethos; Hierarchy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5001 Business > HF5410 Marketing. Distribution of Products P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Divisions:	Doctoral Management Studies (from Sep 19)
Date of acceptance:	1 November 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	2 December 2025
Date Deposited:	02 Dec 2025 10:24
Last Modified:	02 Dec 2025 10:24
DOI or ID number:	10.24377/LJMU.t.00027515
Supervisors:	Tassiello, V and Kostopoulos, I
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27515

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