The role of Consumer Information in Public Policy

1805 Words4 Pages

Consumers today operate in increasingly complex markets, challenged by growing amounts of information and an expanding choice of products. Making sound choices and protecting consumer interests require a wide range of skills and knowledge. Consumer information is critical in this regard, it can be termed as the process by which we develop and enhance skills and knowledge to make well informed and reasonable choices that take societal values and objectives into account. This can help develop critical thinking and raise awareness, thereby enabling consumers to become more pro-active. It is also an important vehicle for building the confidence that consumers need to operate in increasingly complex markets. This helps to encourage the concept of consumer sovereignty whereby individuals and households are able to decide for themselves what they want to buy and consume. To add onto, this consumer information in the twenty first century covers more diverse areas than it has in the past. It now covers, for example consumer rights and obligations and sustainable consumption among others in order to enable them develop better decision making skills throughout consumer lives.
Information is the transmission of message from a sender to a receiver via a medium or channel of transmission. In general, information in a company is designed to make consumers aware of the product. Communication and information is the unique tool that marketers use to persuade consumers to act in a desired way. Communication takes many forms: it can be verbal, visual, or a combination of both in a desired way. Communication can invoke emotions that put consumers in a more receptive mind frame, and it can also be symbolic. It can influence purchases that help consu...

... middle of paper ...

... ignore but furnish them with all the information deemed necessary. Just as a servant would be submissive to his master.

Works Cited

OECD (2008), OECD Policy on Online Identity Theft, OECD, Paris. www.oecd.org/dataoecd/49/39/40879136.pdf OECD (2008), Policy Guidance for Addressing Emerging Consumer Protection and Empowerment Issues in Mobile Commerce, OECD, and Paris.www.oecd.org/dataoecd/50/15/40879177.pdf

Consumers’ Health Forum of Australia. Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Community Inquiry: National Health Amendment (Prostheses) Bill 2004. Canberra, 2005.

Whyte, J.1990. Success semantics. Analysis 50, pp.149-157

Papineau, D.1987. Reality and Representation. Oxford, Blackwell.

Childers, T.L., & Rao, A.R.(1992). The influence of familial and peer-based reference groups on consumer decisions. Journal of Consumer Research, 19, 198-211

More about The role of Consumer Information in Public Policy

Open Document