Abstract

Digital media encourages the engagement of younger generations in civic life and increases their political consumption. Using a lifestyle politics perspective as a theoretical lens and situated in literature on political consumerism and consumer sustainable behaviour, this study demonstrates how digital media engagement drives the construction and mobilization of political consumerism among a Gen Z cohort in a developing country context. A qualitative analysis illustrates how digital media enables sustainability-driven political consumerism. Digital media and social media networks reinforce engagement in tourism-related boycotting and buycotting behaviors as expressions of political consumerism among Gen Z’ers. A novel framework indicating a spectrum of digital political consumerism that divides activism behaviors into spectator, transitional, and gladiatorial activities is developed. This study highlights that GenZ interest in political and ethical consumption is not just a Western practice although political consumerism varies between and across societies, cultures and polities. By applying the tenets of lifestyle politics theory, the study enriches the literature by providing a grounded generational understanding of tourists’ ethical consumption as a political practice. The study offers recommendations for understanding ethically and politically motivated consumption behaviours and practices of a young traveler cohort.