AMTP Proceedings 2026

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

April 2026

Abstract

Consumer protest in various forms—boycotts, negative word-of-mouth, brand sabotage—has largely been theorized within an “old” broadcast model of marketing, where firms spoke one-to-many and controlled most brand-related discourse. In contrast, today’s “hyperconnected” model embeds brands in dense human–technology networks, where social media, microtargeting, and always-on feeds shape how brands enter people’s lives and how protest unfolds. This paper argues that the informational substrate shift from broadcast to hyperconnectivity requires a fundamental rethinking of consumer protest. We first contrast the broadcast and hyperconnected models, then outline hyperconnectivity’s implications at the firm, consumer, and societal levels. We then revisit canonical constructs (e.g., negative word-of-mouth, sabotage, boycotts, product-harm crises) and specify what breaks, what remains, and how each should be operationalized in a hyperconnected environment. We conclude by positioning cancel culture as the characteristic protest form of this new ecology and by outlining implications for theory and practice.

DOI

10.20429/amtp.2026.84

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