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Semiotic Analysis (semiotic + analysis)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting83%

Selected Abstracts

Organizational Differentiation through Badging: Investors in People and the Value of the Sign

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 8 2002
Emma Bell
This paper explores the meaning of the state,sponsored initiative for people management, Investors in People (IiP), through deconstruction of the signifiers that represent its articulation. Semiotic analysis is employed in order to consider the sign,value that is associated with IiP and to explore the symbolic meaning of cultural artefacts, such as ,the badge' and ,the flag', which feature in the experience of managers and employees in six case study organizations. This post,structuralist approach enables us to focus on the discursive construction of textual meaning surrounding IiP as a ,readerly' as well as a writerly project. It is suggested that organizations are subject to a process of image production and consumption. This process requires them to seek differentiation from other organizations by acquiring quality initiatives that constitute a system of objects. In particular, the meaning of IiP signifiers as emblems of achievement is explored and the extent to which these become simulacra is considered. It is argued that there is a significant gap between writerly intentions as to what quality initiatives ought to signify and their organizational, context,bound, indeterminate meanings. By elucidating the conditions of IiP's signification it is shown that this discourse has the potential to undermine the very philosophy it asserts. Finally, drawing on this analysis, we outline the way that badge acquisition develops over time through processes of accumulation and adaptation. [source]

Towards a Semiology of the Periodic Review of UK Regulated Utilities

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY & MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001
Stuart Cooper
This note explores the regulatory process of UK privatised utilities through the periodic review of prices. It provides a brief history of the privatisation programme in the UK and the theoretical arguments for the price-cap regulation that has been used. It argues that regulatory process appears to involve a covert dialogue and exchange of information between the regulator and regulated and also a second separate review process that consists of an overt dialogue. Using a semiotic analysis the authors suggest that the unfolding of each of these overt reviews follows a very similar pattern that is constantly being re-enacted. It is concluded that further research is required into the relative importance of the two separate review processes in the setting of the price-cap. [source]

Tribespotting: a semiotic analysis of the role of consumption in the tribes of Trainspotting

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 5 2006
Conor Ryan
The postmodern self is so engaged with the symbolic aspects of consumption that many authors have argued that consumption defines the self. Drawing upon the literature in this area, with a particular stress on the symbolic interactionist school of thought, it is the thesis of the authors that many acts of consumption are tribal and role supporting. From this we develop a model: the rubix cube of postmodern consumption. This model places the power of self-definition squarely on the psychic powers of the individual and not in the realms of consumption. Consumption does not define the self. Evidence, to support this view and model, is garnered from a semiotic analysis of consumption in the motion picture Trainspotting. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Individual and neo-tribal consumption: Tales from the Simpsons of Springfield

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 5 2005
Steve Cooper
Abstract The change from modernity to postmodernity has seen a dramatic increase in the use of goods and consumption both to gain and display meaning. Similarly, through the change towards the postmodern consumers are forever trying to balance the differentiating and integrating aspects of their behaviour in order to achieve a relationship with the society within which they exist. It is the authors' theory that much of this expression of differentiation and integration is achieved through consumption. Briefly, this paper puts forward a model for the analysis of consumption as an expression of the self (individualistic consumption) and as a system of meaning enabling linkage to social tribes (tribalistic consumption). Furthermore, the authors apply this framework in a semiotic analysis of The Simpsons. By examining the consumption and meaning of goods in a popular television show, an indirect reflection of modern society and the centrality of goods to meaning are highlighted. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Sweet nationalism in bitter days: a commercial representation of Zionism

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 3 2009
ANAT FIRST
ABSTRACT. This article identifies several theoretical approaches to the role of culture in the construction of national identity. Embedded in the presently emerging approach, which emphasises the relations between popular culture/consumerism and national identity, this study focuses on a specific consumer good manufactured in Israel in the early 2000s, the height of the second Palestinian Intifada (uprising): small sugar packets bearing portraits of the patriarchs of Zionism. The analysis of this product, employing semiotic analysis, interviews and focus groups, locates it in the five ,moments' of du Gay's ,circuit of culture' (i.e. identity, representation, production, consumption and regulation). Three main general arguments were stated, empirically examined and largely sustained: (1) Consumer goods are used not only for constructing national identity but also as a means for ,healing' it; (2) in their ,healing' capacity, representations of nationalism on consumer goods do not add new elements to representations offered by the ,high' official version of nationalism but replicate them in a simplified way; (3) while trivialising the insights and concepts that originated in ,high' culture, consumer goods expose the prejudices, stereotypes and rules of inclusion and exclusion that in ,high' culture are often hidden in a sophisticated manner. [source]