Metaphors of globalization

Lesson 5
• SIGN: something that stands for something else (De
Sassure, inventor of “semiologie”)

• Unity of signifier (word, object, image..) and signified

(cultural content or meaning)
•

• Denotation: literal meanings (front-stage)

• Connotation: cultural meanings (back-stage)

Signs
• Signs are embedded in social relations and in a natural world.

• Baudrillard: Real, Imaginary, Symbolic.

• Durkheim: “We all live in a state of hallucination” (collective
consciousness).

• C.S. Peirce (inventor of semiotics): sign-object relation

• Icons: resemblance (see)
• Indexes: connection with the real thing (figure out)
• Symbols: conventions and habits (learn)

Reality and Imagination

• Example: blondness
• In America: coldness, lack of emotion but also fun lovers.
• In Italy ?

• U.Eco: you can lie with signs (people who dye hair).
ambivalence

• Signifier/signified: arbitrary, conventional relation (lost in

translation)
• Symbols (sub-category of signs): tied to nature and experience

Symbols and fakes

• Power of metaphors:

• Gerard Zaltman (Harvard Businness School): marketers use

metaphors to discover what motivates people.

• Metaphors reflect unconscious beliefs and attitudes: when

consumers are invited to use metaphors as they talk about a
product, researchers can reveal hidden cognitive processes and
shed light on codes, rules and values.

• Advertisement can adapt to those rules and codes.

Power of metaphors
• What metaphors of Globalization are discussed in the
articles? (Favell, Urry & Sheller)

• What are the symbols of Globalization?

• What are the problems with these metaphors?

Metaphors of
Globalization