Cybermarketscapes and consumer freedoms and identities

When examining the issue of consumers in cyberspace, there appear to be two recurring narratives. One refers to the unidimensional perspective of marketing and how marketing tries to annex the cyberspace and regards the consumer as fair game in its profit‐seeking enterprise. The second narrative views consumers as trying to use cyberspace as a place to exercise their freedoms, establish their identities and use the cyberspace as a lifeworld in a Habermasian sense. This paper is an attempt to explicate this tension.