Tag Archive

Results for: Semiotics

Shopping at the Strand

Essay, 2010

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This short memoir of graduate school book shopping describes the organic process through which a brand comes to life in shopping. It provides lessons for retail design and branding.

Tags: Design Anthropology, Retail Ethnography, Semiotics, Shopping

Researching Cultural Metaphors in Action: Metaphors of Computing Technology in Contemporary U.S. Life

Journal of Business Research 58(10), October 2005

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In this paper, prepared for a La Londe Seminar, we illustrate the utility of cultural metaphor as an analytic tool and theoretical construct in consumer research. We take as our prime example the ways that computer and internet metaphors have impacted U.S. consumers.

Tags: Computing Technology, Consumer Research, Cultural Metaphors, Semiotics

Connections among People, Things, Images, and Ideas: La Habana to Pina and Back

Consumption, Markets and Culture, September 2005.

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This publication includes a video and print version of a photo essay of images taken in the fall of 2003. Through an analysis of the photographs, we tackle issues of representation, meaning creation and understanding — of marketplaces, consumption, brands, and culture.

Tags: Branding, Cuba, Semiotics, Shopping

The Anthropology of Shopping

Society for Applied Anthropology, Annual Meetings 2004

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"Good" shopping environments (brick and mortar, paper, or electronic) provide the cues, symbols, and well-crafted spaces that engage the cultural imagination. This paper takes examples from recent fieldwork in consumer anthropology to examine how retail myths can come to life.

Tags: Design, Design Anthropology, Retail Ethnography, Semiotics, Shopping

What is Coffee in Bangkok?

Anthropology News, November, 2002

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These articles, drawing on a training exercise investigation of coffee in Bangkok, explore the uses of semiotic analysis in qualitative research and point to the necessity of cultural knowledge.

Tags: Coffee, Cultural Analysis, Semiotics

Strange Brew: How Semiotics Became Au Fait with Au Lait

Research Magazine, November, 2002

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These articles, drawing on a training exercise investigation of coffee in Bangkok, explore the uses of semiotic analysis in qualitative research and point to the necessity of cultural knowledge.

Tags: Business Anthropology, Coffee, Cultural Analysis, Semiotics