In response to Jurgen's query (and perhaps those of others. I post here
a short two page summary I give students which connects the circuit of
culture, designer as cultural intermediary, and discourse analysis as
frameworks and tools for design work (it's very pithy but maybe helps)

THE CIRCUIT OF CULTURE, DESIGNER AS CULTURAL INTERMEDIARY AND DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS FOR DESIGN 

SIGNIFICANCE OF CIRCUIT OF CULTURE AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS FOR DESIGN
WORK
The meanings of any cultural artifact can be examined from five
different angles: identity, production, consumption, regulation, and
representation. This circuit of culture is a useful metaphor and
heuristic for understanding the multiple values and meanings of any
object. Designers have a key role in articulating the meanings of new
objects as they are cultural intermediaries who attempt to encode
objects with meanings so that individuals choose such objects as
emblematic of lifestyles People use material objects (clothes, watches,
cars) together with what they say and do to project certain identities
they want others to recognize they have (i.e. to be in the Discourse).
Discourse analysis allows designers to examine the present and
articulate the future according to their particular purposes.

CIRCUIT OF CULTURE (adapted from wikipedia)
The Circuit of Culture is a theory or framework that suggests that in
studying a cultural text or artifact you must look at its
representation, identity, production, consumption and regulation. Du gay
et al. (1997) suggest that taken together (these 5 points) complete a
sort of circuit… through which any analysis of a cultural text… must
pass if it is to be adequately studied (p.3). The framework has been
applied and extended to examining Napster (Taylor, Demont-Heinrich,
Broadfoot, Dodge, & Jian, 2002). Gerard Goggin (2006) uses this
framework in his book ‘Cell Phone Culture: Mobile technology in
everyday life’ in order to fully understand the cell phone as a
cultural artefact. His book is split into four parts—production,
consumption, regulation and representation and identity (through looking
at mobile convergences). The framework is not without its critics and
has been called ‘little more than metaphor’ (Fine, 2002, p.106) but
continues to be very productive.

DESIGNER AS CULTURAL INTERMEDIARY (DU GAY ET AL., 1997, PP. 62-64)
One of the most common assumptions is that the designer is some sort of
artist. Nearly all the literature on design is concerned with
aesthetics; it uses much the same language as is used in discussing art.
But designers are different from artists because their main purpose is
to make artifacts attractive s that they sell. To make artifacts sell …
designers have to embody culture in the things they design. Designed
artifacts are certainly there to do something, they are often functional
(for playing tapes for instance); but more than this, they are inscribed
with meanings as well as uses. So, in addition to creating artifacts
with a specific function, designers are also in the game of making those
artifacts meaningful. In other words, design proiduces meaning through
encoding artifacts with symbolic significance; it gives functional
artifacts a symbolic form. Designers are key cultural intermediaries, to
use the terminology of cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu (1984). By the
term ‘cultural intermediaries’ Bourdieu is referring to that
increasingly important group of workers who play an active role in
promoting consumption through attaching to products and services
particular meanings and lifestyles with which consumers will identify.
Put simply, they can be defined as people involved in the provision of
symbolic goods and services. They are most frequently found in the
media, fashion, advertising and design industries. In their symbolic
work of making products ‘meaningful’, designers are a key link in
our cultural circuit; for amongst many other things, they articulate
production and the world of engineers with the market and coDISCOURSE ANALYSIS, MEANING AND IDENTITY (GEE 2005)
Seven building tasks
Whenever we speak or write we always simultaneously build six things or
six areas of reality
1.	Significance – How is this language being used to make certain
things significant or not and in what ways
2.	Activities – What activity or activities is language being
used to enact
3.	Identities – What identities is this language enacting
4.	Relationships – What sort of relationships are being
(re)produced here
5.	Politics – What is being communicated about what is good,
right, valued etc., here 
6.	Connections – How am I connecting this to what was said and
done previously
7.	Semiotics – I can talk and act to make certain symbol systems,
eg. legal language, more important than everyday language in out
disucssions

Four tools of inquiry
1.	Situated meanings (Meanings in context and in relation to
cultural models)
2.	Cultural models (Socioculturally differentiated approaches to
life, e.g. parenting)
3.	Social languages (distinctive choices of grammar and vocabulary
that identify you)
4.	Discourses (The material addition to discourses which produce
identities and the world)
5.	Conversations (Historically significant debates about
Discourses)

References
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction : a social critique of the judgement
of taste. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H., & Negus, K. (1997). Doing
cultural studies : the story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage
Publications in association with the Open University.
Fine, B. (2002). World of Consumption : The Material and Cultural
Revisited (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Gee, J. (2005). Introduction to Discourse Analysis. New York:
Routledge.
Goggin, G. (2006). Cell phone culture : mobile technology in everyday
life. New York, NY: Routledge.
Taylor, B. C., Demont-Heinrich, C., Broadfoot, K. J., Dodge, J., &
Jian, C. (2002). New Media and the Circuit of Cyber-Culture:
Conceptualizing Napster. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media,
46(4), 607-629.




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