TY - JOUR
T1 - Witness and Silence in Neuromarketing
T2 - Managing the Gap between Science and Its Application
AU - Brenninkmeijer, Jonna
AU - Schneider, Tanja
AU - Woolgar, Steve
N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge the Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] for their support of this study through and Open Research Area [ORA] Grant RES-360-25-0018 and would like to thank the reviewers and editors of this paper. The authors are grateful for the opportunities to present versions of this paper at a number of workshops, seminars, and conferences and for the valuable suggestions we received on these occasions. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: ESRC Open Research Area (ORA), Project Reference: ES/I013458/1. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Over the past decades commercial and academic market(ing) researchers have studied consumers through a range of different methods including surveys, focus groups, or interviews. More recently, some have turned to the growing field of neuroscience to understand consumers. Neuromarketing employs brain imaging, scanning, or other brain measurement technologies to capture consumers’ (brain) responses to marketing stimuli and to circumvent the “problem” of relying on consumers’ self-reports. This paper presents findings of an ethnographic study of neuromarketing research practices in one neuromarketing consultancy. Our access to the minutiae of commercial neuromarketing research provides important insights into how neuromarketers silence the neuromarketing test subject in their experiments and presentations and how they introduce the brain as an unimpeachable witness. This enables us conceptually to reconsider the role of witnesses in the achievement of scientific credibility, as prominently discussed in science and technology studies (STS). Specifically, we probe the role witnesses and silences play in establishing and maintaining credibility in and for “commercial research laboratories.” We propose three themes that have wider relevance for STS researchers and require further attention when studying newly emerging research fields and practices that straddle science and its commercial application.
AB - Over the past decades commercial and academic market(ing) researchers have studied consumers through a range of different methods including surveys, focus groups, or interviews. More recently, some have turned to the growing field of neuroscience to understand consumers. Neuromarketing employs brain imaging, scanning, or other brain measurement technologies to capture consumers’ (brain) responses to marketing stimuli and to circumvent the “problem” of relying on consumers’ self-reports. This paper presents findings of an ethnographic study of neuromarketing research practices in one neuromarketing consultancy. Our access to the minutiae of commercial neuromarketing research provides important insights into how neuromarketers silence the neuromarketing test subject in their experiments and presentations and how they introduce the brain as an unimpeachable witness. This enables us conceptually to reconsider the role of witnesses in the achievement of scientific credibility, as prominently discussed in science and technology studies (STS). Specifically, we probe the role witnesses and silences play in establishing and maintaining credibility in and for “commercial research laboratories.” We propose three themes that have wider relevance for STS researchers and require further attention when studying newly emerging research fields and practices that straddle science and its commercial application.
KW - academic disciplines and traditions
KW - markets/economies
KW - methodologies
KW - methods
KW - neuromarketing
KW - neuroscience
KW - witness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85061599293&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243919829222
DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243919829222
M3 - Article
SN - 0162-2439
VL - 45
SP - 62
EP - 86
JO - Science Technology and Human Values
JF - Science Technology and Human Values
IS - 1
ER -