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ProjectsChanges [May 08, 2008]
CULTURES OF CLIMATE...CONSUMER RESEARCH / PHILOSOPHY / VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Principal Investigators: Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder, Exeter University
In this project, we investigate marketing communication’s role in ‘the taken-for-granted political and ethical practices of envisioning others.’ We focus on theoretical and ethical issues pertaining to representations of identity, in that represented identities profess to express something true or essential about those represented. Just as personnel policies have had to accommodate changing norms about hiring and promotion when it comes to women and minorities, marketing managers must be aware of representational practices that may cause harm. Our analysis concerns not only the ethical implications or consequences of representational conventions – customary ways of depicting products, people, and identities – within marketing communications, but emphasizes the ethical context from which such representational conventions emerge. We introduce an ethics of visual representation that sheds light on the relationships between marketing, representation and identity, and provides a useful framework for research.
What theoretical tools are needed to accommodate the visual nature of marketing representation?
And how do these interact with models of consumer identity construction?
What kind of power does marketing have in the lives of consumers?
What is the relationship between marketing, consumption and identity?
Research presented at: ESRC Research Seminar Series on Identities and Consumption, December 2006 [link]
Reference: Borgerson, J. L. and Schroeder, J. E. (2005) “Identity in Marketing Communications: An Ethics of Visual Representation,” in Marketing Communication: New Approaches, Technologies, and Styles, Allan J. Kimmel, (ed), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 256-277 @ [link]
Principal Investigator: Jonathan Schroeder, Exeter University
Funded by the Jan Wallanders and Tom Hedelius Foundation (grant J02-32, 2002-2007)
The snapshot, a straightforward, generally unposed photograph of everyday life, has emerged as an important style in contemporary marketing communication. This project investigates what I call snapshot aesthetics and the growing use of snapshot-like imagery in marketing and online communication. Many contemporary ads consist of photographic images with little or no ad copy, few verbal or text-based brand claims, and minimal product information of the traditional sort – technical specifications, performance claims or text-based arguments. Recent ads often portray models in classic snapshot poses – out of focus, eyes closed, poorly framed – in contrast to more traditional and historical patterns of formal studio shots or highly posed tableaus. With the rise of Websites that allow users to post their own photographs and videos, such as Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube, the snapshot enjoys higher circulation than ever, and the aesthetic regime of the snapshot plays important roles in strategic brand communication.
Questions addressed in the project include: What associations do snapshot aesthetics help consumers build? What products and brands are appropriate for this style of promotion? Should companies utilize consumer-generated imagery that draws upon snapshot aesthetics? – And will this transform the advertising industry? What are the cultural connections of the snapshot, and how might these work within visual communication? What is the visual genealogy of snapshot aesthetics? Is it a fad that may fade soon away?
He will present this project at the Imagining Business conference at Oxford University, June 2008
http://www.eiasm.org/frontoffice/event_announcement.asp?event_id=555
Reference
Schroeder , J. E. (2008), “Visual Analysis of Images in Brand Culture,” in Go Figure: New Directions in Advertising Rhetoric, Barbara J. Phillips and Edward McQuarrie, eds. Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe, 277-296.
link: [link]
Typical “snapshot” – brothers on a tour boat (digital photograph by Jane Blackwell, used by permission)
The IPerG project investigates the design of pervasive games as well as concepts for their marketing and commercial exploitation. It builds IT platforms for pervasive gaming and tools to create and evaluate such games. Using the jointly developed platforms and methodology, the project will showcase different genres of games.
'Participate explores convergence in pervasive, online and broadcast media to create new kinds of mass-participatory events in which a broad cross-section of the public contributes to, as well as accesses, contextual content - on the move, in public places, at school and at home. The consortium is working together to develop scalable solutions for managed events and campaigns which engage and motivate participants over sustained periods of time. We are developing tools for the public to author, share and discuss content using their own devices, and for professionals and experts to collate and edit contributions for publication over broadcast and interactive channels. We are working with a range of partners to develop pervasive experiences based on the theme of “the environment”. In a series of trials and events, coordinated by experts in education, broadcast and online services, the general public and a network of schools will be invited to capture and contribute information about their local environment. This can then be used to augment professionally created media, building a national picture of environmental situations across the UK.' (from the Participate website [link])
Steve Benford is PI in the EPSRC funded project Participate in collaboration with Blast Theory, BBC, Microsoft Research, BT, University of Bath, University of Nottingham's Mixed Reality Lab, DTI, Science Scope
Debates over the nature of the actor's presence have been at the heart of key aspects of theatre practice and theory since the late 1950s. More recently, 'performance' and 'presence' have become key concepts in other academic disciplines. This project will bring together leading researchers from Theatr Studies, Computer Science and Archaeology, in collaboration with internationally known performers and artists, to advance an understanding of the performer's presence in live, electronically mediated and simulated performance.
Work in progress is recorded at Performing the Archive: the future of the past
Arnolfini Gallery, Department of Drama, Theatre, Film, Television (Bristol University) and Centre for Intermedia, Drama Department (Exeter University)
Performing the Archive is a three-year project starting 2007 researching documentation of live performance by investigating the Live Art Archives
As part of her research into art | science Gabriella Giannachi responds to Deborah Robinson's pinhole camera work on science labs (work in progress) Molecular Laboratory: Representations of Time. D. Robinson's work was exhibited in March at the ICIA [link]. A further exhibition will follow in August 2007 at the Exeter Phoenix [link]. Documentation of work in progress will appear on the AiR Egenis Online Dairy. [link]
For more information follow this link Documentation | Molecular Laboratory: Representations of Time
The INTUNE project, led by the University of Siena (2005-2008), is a study in European citizenship resulting from the deepening and enlargement of the European Union. It is a part of the European Commission's Framework 6 programme, specifically Priority 7, Par C, 7.1.1. which deals with European Citizenship and multiple identities. Within this framework, INTUNE's focus is on identity, representation and scope and standards of good governance. Alison Harcourt is a member of a subgroup of scholars focusing on policy experts (which includes Ken Dyson, Lucia Quaglia, Jolyon Howarth and Claudio Radaelli). Specifically, Alison Harcourt will look at EU “information society policy”, addressing the role of expertise particularly under the Council's OMC framework and the European Commission's new regulatory framework for communications. Alison Harcourt's study looks at the role of expertise and committee governance in policy formation and implementation within EU information society policy.
Intune is based on four systematic and inter-connecting surveys covering citizens, members of parliament, policy experts involved in EU committee governance, and the press. Intune examines the changes in the scope, nature and characteristics of citizenship that result from the process of the deepening and enlargement of the European Union. Its focus is on how integration and disintegration processes at both the national and European level affect three major dimensions of citizenship: identity, representation and scope and standards of good governance. These dimensions of citizenship derive from normative principles of democratic government, which ground the legitimacy and democratic quality of government at any level. We address the problems of citizenship by looking at the interactions between elites and public opinion, that traditionally nurture the dynamics of collective political identity, political legitimacy and representation, and standards of performance. Within Intune, a team led by Prof. Claudio Radaelli looks at how communities of experts active in the European Union policy process 'imagine' European identity, representation, and governance. The project will provide the first-ever survey of technical policy elites in several policy areas, including information society, regulation, and taxation. European Commission. Professor Claudio Radaelli is on the steering committee of the project.
Funding body Economic and Social Research Council (178,000 GBP), [link]. Professor Claudio Radaelli is the principal investigator, with the assistance of Fabrizio De Francesco. (2006-2008)
In its early stage (Spring 2006) the project has produced a PSA paper by Fabrizio De Francesco on 'Towards an impact assessment state in Europe?', a paper by Claudio Radaelli on the linkages between better regulation and the Lisbon strategy of the EU, a co-authored paper reviewing measures of regulatory quality and a literature review paper.
In July 2006, the Centre for Regulatory Governance organized the first pan-European training event on multi-level regulatory impact assessment with the sponsorship of the Directors of Better Regulation, information on this event is available at: [link]
Briefing meetings took place at the Cabinet Office, the OECD, and the European Commission in April and May 2006
Output
Specifically, EVIA will a) develop a framework to assess the quality of impact assessment; b) study different approaches in different countries regarding their institutional, procedural and substantial requirements; c) conduct a survey of policy-makers and regulatory stakeholders and d) assess a large number of regulatory impact assessments for an empirical validation of the case study results.
Funding body European Commission, Strep. EVIA (Evaluating Impact Assessment) is led by Klaus Jacob at the Environmental Policy Research Centre of the Free University of Berlin. It is a two-year research project funded by the European Commission. The partners are Exeter, ZEW (Mannheim), Free University of Amsterdam, Avanzi in Milan, Erasmus University in Rotterdam and the IEEP in London. (2006-2007)
Output
