The article highlights the specifics of consumer behavior transformation in the context of the information-network economy. It is argued that the new type of economy shifts the emphasis from production to the spheres of service, education, and culture, while increasing the role of human intelligence and information, thereby fostering the emergence of new forms of activity, management, labor, and consumption. These shifts are traced within the evolution of consumption subjects: from the era of mass consumption to the rising role of a new type of consumer in the market ‒ the prosumer. It is shown that in the post-industrial economy, there is a transition from social consumption as the main factor of the production process toward the individual consumer, their needs, and priorities. This transition is embodied in two types of consumers: the consumer and the prosumer. While the «consumer» represents the culture of mass society and mass consumption, the «prosumer» acquires particular significance within the post-industrial economy at its highest informational level of development. The article explicates the phenomenon of consumerism within the scope of views, values, and beliefs of consumers as economic agents for whom consumer interests dominate their behavior in the context of mass society. In contrast, prosumerism emerges as a complex combination of producer and consumer in one person, involving people who consume what they produce ‒ «producer-consumers». Consequently, individualization is a priority feature of prosumerism, serving as an alternative to mass consumption. This provides a significant opportunity for the realization of an individual’s unique traits, skills, and abilities through the lens of creating a product (material or informational) or modifying a purchased one. It is established that the information sector of the economy determines the need for the formation of «information man» (homo informaticus) and their active inclusion in the processes of transforming and processing information and knowledge, creating innovative technologies through the realization of personal creativity, individual tastes, abilities, and a constant search for the new.
Author Biography
Antonii Zaluzhnyi, National University of Water and Environmental Engineering, Rivne
