Big Retail Constrains Consumer Choice

The aim of TMA 03 is for you to prepare an essay plan and then write an essay which clearly links to this essay plan. The essay should draw on material from at least two chapters to describe an argument.
Part 1: Essay plan
Part 1 is not awarded separate marks but non-submission means Part 2 of the assignment can gain no more than a bare pass mark.
Part 2: Essay
(90% of the mark for this assignment)
Describe the argument that big retail constrains consumer choice.
Word limit: 1250 words
"Student notes for Part 1
Part 1 of TMA 03 will help you to organise your notes and ideas prior to writing the essay for Part 2 of TMA 03. In essence, an essay plan helps you to work out what you want to say and what order to say it in so that a reader can clearly see how you have addressed the question. An essay plan also helps you to see if you are addressing the question before beginning to write the essay.
Information sources
The main sources of information for the essay are summarised in the table below:
Information source Summary
Week 11, Section 3 ‘Outlining a social science argument’ in Week 11, Section 3. This provides you with a variety of tips on outlining a social science argument and developing an essay plan.
Writing tips
Planning an essay involves a number of stages, and although people have different ways of working, we suggest that you work through the following stages systematically.
Read the essay question several times, so that you are sure of what you are being asked to write about. Remember, if you are not sure, you can always contact your tutor to help you work through the requirements of the essay question.
Identify the material you need to use, including page numbers or web links for any study materials that you will need to reference.
Identify the arguments that relate to the TMA question and the different elements that comprise them.
Organise the material into a logical order to answer the question. For this essay, this will mean outlining the different elements of the arguments presented – questions, claims, evidence – in turn, after having first defined big retail and what is meant by consumer choice. Chapter 6 of Understanding Social Lives, Part 1 introduces big retail and Chapter 5 discusses a consumer society that are useful for this essay.
Create your plan with an introduction, a main body consisting of a number of paragraphs (each paragraph relating to an aspect of the topic) and a conclusion.
You may need to repeat this process several times before you are satisfied that you have produced an effective plan, but it’s likely to be time well spent and will make writing the actual essay that much easier. The plan itself can be produced in any form that will be clear to your tutor, and may well be best in note format (but not so condensed that it is difficult to follow). Tables, flow charts, spider diagrams and concept maps are also ways of presenting an essay plan and, although diagrammatic forms are often very useful for helping you to generate ideas, you will probably find that you need a second stage in which to organise this material. While there is no set word limit for this first part of the TMA, we would suggest that a plan of a single page in length would be a useful target.
It is a requirement of this TMA that you submit an essay plan, otherwise you will be penalised and be unable to achieve higher than a bare pass grade. Also, please note that, as the plan forms part of the assessment, your tutor cannot comment on drafts of your plan prior to its submission.
In Part 1 of TMA 03, your tutor will be looking for you to:
present a coherent essay plan which is reflected in the essay
choose a format to set out the key elements of the arguments outlined as part of this plan."
"Student notes for Part 2
Part 2 of TMA 03 gives you the opportunity to demonstrate the skill of outlining a social science argument and the ability to write an academic essay, as well as plan its various stages. TMA 03 builds on earlier skills that you have acquired in defining concepts as an integral part of constructing a social science argument.
The aim for this TMA question is to draw on material from at least two chapters and for you to describe an argument, with the emphasis on a ‘one sided’ argument. The priority is for you to use claims to describe the argument.
The essay asks you to describe the argument that big retail constrains consumer choice and consider the evidence that supports this claim. You may find it useful to break the question up into its main parts. The main parts of the question focus on big retail, consumer choice and the link between big retail and consumer choice. It is useful to start by outlining what these different terms mean in the essay. This means that your essay should define what is meant by both big retail and consumer choice. Having a clear understanding of both big retail and consumer choice is a prelude for describing how big retail constrains consumer choice. Having defined the terms big retail and consumer choice, your essay should describe the ways in which big retail constrains consumer choice. It is also useful for you to think about the different ways that constraint may be applied. Just as there may be different strands to both big retail and consumer choice, there may be different facets to constraint. It is not necessary to outline all the different ways that big retail constrains consumer choice, but the essay should describe what you consider the important ways that big retail constrains consumer choice.
Remember that you are being asked only to outline how big retail constrains consumer choice and you should not consider for this essay an opposite claim that big retail does not constrain consumer choice.
Information sources
The main sources of information for the essay are summarised in the table below.
Information source Summary
Chapter 5, ‘Consumer society? Identity and lifestyle’, sections 1, 1.1 and 2, Understanding Social Lives, Part 1
Section 1 discusses what is meant by consumption and this will be useful for defining what is meant by consumer choice.
Section 2 extends this discussion and looks directly at the idea of a consumer society. Zygmunt Bauman’s notions of the seduced and repressed will be useful for considering the nature of consumer choice.
Section 2.2. provides a critical appraisal of Bauman’s ideas and helps you think about how big retail might constrain consumer choices.
Chapter 6 ‘Big retail and the rest: winners and losers’, Understanding Social Lives, Part 1
This chapter is useful for defining big retail and outlining the ways that they might impact on consumer choices. The introduction discusses big retail, both supermarkets in the UK and online marketing platforms. It also highlights a distinction between online shopping and high street shopping, which may be useful for thinking about how different big retailers might constrain consumer choice. Section 1 considers big retail power, and this will be helpful for understanding how big retailers can constrain consumer choice. Section 2 extends the discussion of big retail power by looking at the monopoly of big retailers. Sections 2.1. and 2.2 consider power in the store and Section 2.3 considers online platform power. Section 3 looks at the domination of big retail across the globe and is useful for thinking about how big retail might constrain choices across the globe.
Chapter 7, ‘Advertising and consumer choice: the powers of persuasion’, Understanding Social Lives, Part 1
Section 1 considers advertising and persuasion, and this is helpful for thinking about consumer choices. Section 1.1 considers internet advertising and is useful for consumer choices and online shopping. Section 1.2 examines the seduction of advertising and is helpful for considering how big retail might constrain consumer choices. Section 2 considers how shops might try to create an ambient atmosphere and so direct consumer choices in particular ways. Section 2.1 extends the discussion of ambience. Section 3 examines whether shopping prompts creative or controlled behaviour, and this is useful for thinking about how big retail might constrain consumer choices.
Audio ‘Shopping and consumption’ (Week 9, Section 4) This audio considers the defining parts of a consumer society and the idea that shopping is both creative and controlled behaviour. This is useful for thinking about the nature of consumer choices.
Video ‘The power of advertising’ (Week 9, Section 6) This video discusses the range of techniques that advertisers use to try to shape consumer behaviour.
Sample essay (Week 10, Section 5) Week 10, Section 5 contains a sample essay that is helpful in seeing what an essay looks like.
Skills Activity 11.1 (Week 11, Section 3) This activity looks at the skill of outlining a social science argument and planning your work. It contains a useful sample essay plan.
Writing tips
The question invites you to outline a social science argument around big retail and consumer choice.
You should ensure that you have worked through the Skills Activities in Week 11, Section 3 which look at the different elements involved in outlining a social science argument and how to plan your work.
The distinction between questions, claims and evidence are not always obvious in social science arguments, so there are a number of points you might like to bear in mind:
As noted above, the aim of this TMA question is for you to draw on material from at least two chapters (and drawing only on two chapters is acceptable for this TMA).
The emphasis is on you to describe and develop one side of an argument. This means you should not consider an opposite argument to the one you outline. That is, you are just asked to describe the argument that big retail constrains consumer choice and not the argument that big retail does not constrain consumer choice. If you do develop a counter-argument then please note that this will lead to a waste in word count and therefore is likely to lead to a much lower mark because the word count could have been used for more points towards supporting the argument. When outlining the argument, you will need to set out the claims of the ways in which big retail constrains consumer choice and then what evidence exists to support these claims.
You may find it useful to start by outlining what is meant by consumer choice. Consumer choice might be understood in various ways and so your essay should outline what is meant by this term. Then outline what is meant by big retail.
Once you have defined your terms, your essay should outline the ways in which big retail constrains consumer choice. You should sift through the various claims about how big retail constrains consumer choice and set out what you think are the most important factors.
Claims themselves, however, will remain plain assertions unless they are supported by some kind of evidence. An outline of a social science argument is not complete unless you have considered the various pieces of evidence put forward in support of a particular claim – in this case about the argument that big retail constrains consumer choice. You are not being asked to evaluate such evidence, but rather to identify it in relation to the claims set out.
Good answers will identify and outline each of the different elements of a social science argument. It’s important to remember that you do not have to agree or disagree with the overall lines of argument described. You may have reservations about particular claims, but you do not have to make judgements at this particular stage of the module.
What is important here is that you have developed the skills of how a social science argument is built and put together through its different elements.
Good answers will also be clearly structured and address the question in a direct and focused manner.
Finally, remember to reference the sources that you are drawing upon, both in the body of your essay and in a reference list at the end of your essay, and to include a word count. The reference list at the end of your essay is not included in the word count, although in-text references are part of your word count.
In Part 2 of TMA 03, your tutor will be looking for you to:
outline a social science argument
identify questions, claims and evidence, and the role of concepts in shaping an argument
present a structured and coherent outline in essay format, keep to the word limit and reference appropriately.
Sample references for Part 2
The Open University uses the ‘Cite Them Right’ version of Harvard. You can find advice on the ‘Referencing and Plagiarism’ page of the Library website, which provides access to the Cite Them Right website, a practical guide to referencing commonly used by UK universities.
In-text citations, which you might include in your essay, should look like this:
For book chapters:
(Havard, Revill and Staples, 2022, p. 191)
For module videos: (The Open University, Year of module start)
For module online activities: (The Open University, Year of module start)
Note: Year of module start refers to the year in which you begin the module so if you begin in 2022, this is the year you would insert into the reference, e.g. (The Open University, 2022).
Full references which you might include in the reference list at the end of your assignment, should look like this:
(Note that the sample references provided here are to show you how your references should look – i.e. the format and structure they should take. The ‘Available at’ URLs shown are not for the current presentation – you should include the current URL for the item you are referencing.)
Hetherington, K., Havard, C. and Staples, M. (2022) ‘Consumer society? Identity and lifestyle’, in Allen, J., Blakeley, G. and Staples, M. (eds) Understanding social lives, part 1. 2nd edn. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 119–151.
Prabhakar, R. (2022) ‘Throwaway society? Waste and recycling’, in Allen, J., Blakeley, G. and Staples, S. (eds) Understanding social lives, part 1. 2nd edn. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 227–267.
The Open University (Year of module start) ‘Tesco on selling wonky produce’ DD102 Introducing the Social Sciences. Available at: https://learn2(dot)open(dot)ac(dot)uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=796323§ion=6 (Accessed: date).
The Open University (Year of module start) ‘Outlining a social science argument’, DD102 Introducing the Social Sciences. Available at: https://learn2(dot)open(dot)ac(dot)uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=453663§ion=3.1 (Accessed: date).
If you cite a source that is mentioned in the module materials but that you haven’t actually read yourself, this should be presented as a secondary reference. An example of an in-text citation for a secondary reference is:
Defra (2012) cited in Prabhakar (2022, p. 236) noted …
For the full reference, you simply show the publication details of the source that you have read:
Prabhakar, R. (2022) ‘Throwaway society? Waste and recycling’, in Allen, J., Blakeley, G. and Staples, S. (eds) Understanding social lives, part 1. 2nd edn. Milton Keynes: The Open University, p. 236."