Fakes and Forgeries in Consumer Research: “Coping with the Past” between Material Culture, Digital Artefacts, and “Cultural Analytics”

This work introduces a “semiotics of fakes” (à la Eco) to suggest alternative conceptualizations of the role of the materiality of digital objects in marketing studies and on consumer processes. The concept of cultural analytics, expression of the materiality of digital media, emerges from the theme of authenticity around: (i) a pragmatics of forgery as “a process of False Identification” (involving three actors: Judge, Claimant, and Authors); (ii) four criteria for the recognition of authenticity (material support, linear text manifestation, content, external evidences). Marketing studies on materiality “reflect” these processes by confronting different research traditions (ANT, Assemblage Theory, Theories of Practice) that “model/problematize” the role of digital artefacts in consumer processes.