| Stephen Papson Department of Sociology St. Lawrence University Canton, NY 13617 315-229-5389 spapson@stlawu.edu |
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| Landscapes of global capital Over the past decade the commercials of communication, information technology, and financial corporations have become pervasive. They have migrated from business and news channels to sports and entertainment channels. Unlike commodity advertising this form of discourse functions to legitimate both the practices and visions of these corporations. Pervaded by the ideology of universal humanism, corporate advertising discourse constructs narratives in which technological development mixed with both corporate and personal investment results not only in individual wealth and the fulfillment of personal dreams but also in new economic formations characterized by deterritorialization, instantaneity, global integration, and amoeba-like flexibility. Blending themes of multiculturalism, universal humanism, and personal empowerment, these commercials celebrate undaunted technological progress. For this project Robert Goldman, Noah Kersey, and I have assembled a data set of 1000 commercials that aired between 1995 and the present. Using this data set we are constructing a website that addresses how Capital constructs itself in advertising discourse. We hope to describe the relation between this system of commodity signs and the emerging global system of production and investment, known as post-Fordism, flexible accumulation, and transnationalism. The website is presently in a state of construction. We are still experimenting with its architecture, video delivery formats, and style; we are constantly expanding and revising the analyses; and our data set continues to grow. |
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