Abstract
As the neurosciences make their way beyond the laboratory, they become influential in a wide range of domains. How to understand this process? What are the prospects for, and dynamics of, influence, uptake and rejection? This article reports our attempts to track the emergence of neurosciences with particular reference to the emergence of the field of neuromarketing. Our key initial tasks included the identification and definition of the field, the negotiation of access, and establishing relations with participants and informants. These tasks gave rise to what are often construed as familiar ‘methodological difficulties’, such as how to define the field and what to make of the reactions and responses of those involved in neuromarketing. In this article we present some of our experiences of researching the empirical materials of neuromarketing to assess different responses to ‘methodological difficulties’ in studying science and technologies in the making. We draw on analytic resources provided by Science and Technology Studies to address the challenge of studying emerging fields of science, practices and technologies. In particular, we draw on the concepts of multiplicity, performativity and practical ontology to argue that a particular approach to ‘methodological difficulties’ can actually enrich our research objectives. We suggest that reflexivity be understood, not predominantly as a methodological corrective to the problems of detecting an antecedent object of research; but as revealing some of the ways in which neuromarketing is enacted.
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Notes
Among the wide variety of terms denoting processes whereby ’realities’ are brought into being, we prefer ‘enactment’ and ‘performance’, in line with a heightened attention to ontological rather than merely epistemological constitution (see Woolgar and Lezaun, 2013; Woolgar and Neyland, 2013). For purposes of this article we use the terms interchangeably (but see Mol, 2002).
It remains rather unclear what practical actions are connoted by terms like ‘interference’ and ‘intervention’ (see Woolgar and Lezaun, 2013; Zuiderent-Jerak, 2015).
Available at: http://www.neurosense.com/aboutus/ (accessed 16 June 2015).
Examples include, http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/ and http://neurorelay.com (both accessed 16 June 2015).
The Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (NL) offers a neuromarketing elective as part of their Master of Science in Marketing Management. Professor Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy, Head of the Center for Decision Neuroscience, Department of Marketing at Copenhagen Business School (DK), offers a free online course entitled An Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing via the online education platform Coursera.
Jensen describes any mode and method for knowing as ontological rather than epistemological as they are “shaping reality” (2010, p. 11). This includes ethnography which “… can itself be conceived as an ontological form. The kinds of topics we like to talk about as epistemological thus collapse into ontology, and fieldwork, writing, and argumentation begins to look like small machines for intervening in this or that part of the world, for performing the world in this or that marginally different or novel way (Jensen, 2012).” (Jensen, 2014).
It is unclear why this characterisation should apply only to a certain subset (“such peculiar objects”) of all objects.
In the meantime the industry association that John referred to has been founded and launched in January 2012 under the name Neuromarketing Science and Business Association (NMSBA). For more information: http://www.nmsba.com (accessed 16 June 2015).
The video clip as well as the lyrics are available to view on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M27e7i0VMBg (accessed 13 March 2015).
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2011/110605_1.html (accessed 8 February 2012). Unfortunately the link is no longer working.
For instance, see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110510155852.htm (accessed 16 June 2015).
Available at: http://www.research-live.com/news/study-to-look-at-the-uses-and-impact-ofneuromarketing/4005133.article (accessed 16 June 2015).
For instance, see: http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/oxford-neuromarketing.htm (accessed 16 June 2015).
Available at: http://www.jnpe.org/front_content.php (accessed 13 March 2015).
For conference programme and proceedings, see: http://www.jnpe.org/upload/pdf/2011_NeuroPsychoEconomics_Conference_Proceedings.pdf (accessed 16 January 2012).
See endnote 14 for a link to the article Lucy referred to.
On the difference between construction and enactment, see Woolgar and Lezaun (2015).
For example Eric Kandel, neuroscientist and Nobel prize winner, was a member of the advisory board of NeuroFocus before Neurofocus was bought by the global market research company Nielsen in 2011.
Although not by using words like ‘multiplicity’!
In addition, we have used provocation in one of our published papers (Schneider and Woolgar, 2012).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the individuals and organisations who generously shared their time, experience and materials for the purposes of our research project. An early version of this article was presented at the “Performing ANT: socio-material practices of organizing”-workshop at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. Subsequent versions of our article were presented at a “Horizon Human Behaviour” seminar, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, and as part of the “Public Sphere, Crowd Sentiments and the Brain” – public lecture series at the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Thanks to the organisers and participants at these events for their valuable observations and suggestions. Thanks also to the editors of BioSocieties and three anonymous reviewers for unusually constructive feedback and suggestions. We especially benefitted from a close reading of our argument by Jonna Brenninkmeijer. Finally, we acknowledge the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for their support of this study through an Open Research Area (ORA) grant (RES-360-25-0018).
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Schneider, T., Woolgar, S. Neuromarketing in the making: Enactment and reflexive entanglement in an emerging field. BioSocieties 10, 400–421 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2015.37
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2015.37