Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Cultural meaning: Cultural meaning is the significance that a culture attaches to a particular thing, such as an object, event, or idea. Cultural meaning can be found in all aspects of human life, from our language and customs to our art and religion._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Yochai Benkler on Cultural Meaning - Dictionary of Arguments
Benkler I 289 Meaning/cultural meaning/internet culture/advertisement/advertising/Benkler: Culture, symbolism, and meaning, as they are tied with market based goods, become a major focus of advertising and of demand management. No one who has been exposed to the advertising campaigns of Coca-Cola, Nike, or Apple Computers, as well as practically to any one of a broad range of advertising campaigns over the past few decades, can fail to see that these are not primarily a communication about the material characteristics or qualities of the products or services sold by the advertisers. I 290 They are about meaning. These campaigns try to invest the act of buying their products or services with a cultural meaning that they cultivate, manipulate, and try to generalize in the practices of the society in which they are advertising, precisely in order to shape taste. If there is business reason to do anything about culture, it is to try to shape the cultural meaning of an object or practice, in order to shape the demand for it, while keeping the role of culture hidden and assuring control over the careful cultural choreography of the symbols attached to the company. While there is some constitutional free-speech protection for criticism, there is also a basic change in the understanding of trademark law— from a consumer protection law intended to assure that consumers can rely on the consistency of goods marked in a certain way, to a property right in controlling the meaning of symbols a company has successfully cultivated so that they are, in fact, famous. This legal change marks a major shift in the understanding of the role of law in assigning control for cultural meaning generated by market actors. >Cultural Freedom/Benkler, >Cross-cultural communication/Benkler._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Benkler I Yochai Benkler The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom New Haven 2007 |
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