Landscapes of Global Capital

(From the introduction)

This is a project about public, commercial representations of Global High-Tech Capital. We are interested in how space/time (speed), capital and globalization are represented in corporate television advertising.
We view television advertising as part of a larger "cultural economy of signs." By this we mean that advertising is dedicated to the cultivation and circulation of sign values. What we are calling sign values, the industry refers to as branding. In the global marketplace, goods and services that lack an identifiable brand value tend to lag behind, if they survive at all. This cultural economy of branding (circulating signs) seeks to produce values by rearranging and assembling cultural systems of Meaning.

We believe that this cultural economy of signs has become every bit as significant as the more traditional political economy of Capital which precedes it and underlies it (Goldman & Papson, 1996). We want to explore what we perceive to be a correspondence between advertising as an economy of signs and the logic of capital. When capital expands and speeds up (high tech global capitalism) does the cultural circulation process also expand and accelerate? How is this cultural economy of signs related to the most powerful forces within the larger global economy of capitalism?

Linear Version of Landscapes of Capital

Linked Mapping Version of Landscapes of Capital

Indexed Version of Landscapes of Capital

Searchable Database of Over 900 Annotated Global Ads

Semiotics of Advertising

Bibliography