CALL FOR PAPERS: Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference, London, 27th-29th August 2014
Imagining advertising, doing communication and making citizens
Session Conveners
Dr Jessica Pykett (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham) and Dr Hannah Jones (Department of Sociology, University of Warwick)
Session Overview
Geographers have long been concerned with understanding the cultural politics of advertising, particularly in the rhetoric, imagery and visual iconography of adverts themselves as important aspects of popular culture and consumption practice (Jackson, 1996). Research on advertising has focussed on place-based branding (Pike, 2011), including the use of places in the advertising of various products, and the commodification of cities, regions and even nations as ‘brand identities’ in themselves (Kavartzis and Ashworth, 2005). Other work has analysed advertising as a globalized/globalizing industry which plays an active role in shaping world cities, producing spatial divisions of labour, and the restructuring of the creative industries and knowledge economy (Faulconbridge et al, 2011). The role of commercial outdoor advertising in the reproduction of city spaces, rhythms and forms of public address has also proved fertile grounds for geographical discussion on the relationships between advertising and urban space (Cronin, 2010; Iveson, 2012). These authors demonstrate how such advertising is associated with new practices of governance, consumer citizenship and publicness which can inform our analyses of urban change, mediation, the knowledge industry, and the orchestration of images and signs across space and in particular places.
From the perspective of political geography, the significance of advertising has been highlighted in work which examines how specific practices of marketing, public opinion polling, consumer segmentation, geo-informatics (and now ‘social data’) have long been used within governmental and non-governmental campaigns aimed at behaviour change, public action and various forms of ‘public good’ (Goss; 1995; Barnett and Mahony, 2011; Moor, 2011; Pykett et al, in press). Such work has raised questions relating to the marketization of public action, the explicitly behaviourist tools and techniques used within social marketing and the attenuated vision of citizen capability sometimes posited particularly by government-led communications campaigns.
There are several fascinating histories of government communications and propaganda available. This session, by contrast, focuses on geographical and sociological approaches to such specific forms of citizen-targeted advertising and communications, by examining not only how, for instance, social marketing might ‘work’ but also by paying attention to the way in which such practices might constitute new (sometimes non-) citizen-subjectivities and new forms of governance and have unintended consequences in terms of mediating public debate. To what extent do tools of social media, online interaction and digital ‘big data’ constitute a new realm both for attempts to modify the behaviour of citizens, and to monitor the effects of these attempts? How do new technologies in this field interact with older tools of influence, such as speeches, newspapers and opinion polls?
We invite abstracts for papers which investigate the relationship between advertising, communications and governance/citizenship, whether in relation to economic geographies of the creative industries, urban space and consumer citizenship, mediation and public action, or the constitution of advertising subjectivities. We equally welcome papers which engage in semiotic analysis of visual culture, the social construction of citizen identities within the context of advertising/marketing/communications, and those which might address the affective dimensions of the ‘persuasive’ industries.
Submissions
Please send abstracts of up to 250 words to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> and [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> by 10th February.
Conference information can be found at: http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Annual+international+conference.htm
References
Barnett, C. and Mahony, N. (2011) Segmenting Publics. Report commissioned by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/how-we-help/our-publications/segmenting-publics
Cronin, A.M. (2010) Advertising, Commercial Spaces and the Urban. Consumption and Public Life. PalgraveMacmillan, Basingstoke.
Faulconbridge, J.R., Taylor, P. J., Beaverstock, J.V. and Nativel, C. (2011) The Globalization of Advertising: Agencies, Cities and Spaces of Creativity. Routledge, London.
Goss, J. (1995) “ ‘We know who you are and we know where you live’: the instrumental rationality of geodemographics systems” Economic Geography 71 (2): 171-198.
Iveson, K. (2012) “Branded cities: outdoor advertising, urban governance, and the outdoor media landscape” Antipode 44 (1) 151–174.
Jackson, P. (1996) “Geography and the cultural politics of advertising” Progress in Human Geography 20, 356-371.
Kavaratzis, M. and Ashworth, G.J. (2005) “City Branding: an effective assertion of identity or a transitory marketing trick” Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 96 (5), 506–514.
Moor, L. (2011) “Neoliberal Experiments: social marketing and the governance of populations”, in D. Zwick and J. Cayla, eds. Inside Marketing, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pike, A. (2011) “Placing brands and branding: a socio-spatial biography of Newcastle Brown Ale” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 36 (2), 206–222.
Pykett, J., Jones, R., Welsh, M. and Whitehead, M. (in press) “The Art of Choosing and the Politics of Social Marketing” Policy Studies
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Dr Jessica Pykett
Lecturer in Human Geography (Urban Living and Behaviour Change)
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
Tel: 01214158133
Leverhulme Research on Behaviour Change: http://governingtemptation.wordpress.com/
ESRC Seminar Series on Psychological Governance: http://psychologicalgovernance.wordpress.com/
ESRC Research on Negotiating Neuroliberalism: http://changingbehaviours.wordpress.com/
Affiliate member of the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance, The Open University
Affiliate member of OpenSpace research centre, The Open University
New titles:
2013 Changing Behaviours. On the Rise of the Psychological State, with Rhys Jones and Mark Whitehead (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham)
http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?currency=UK&id=14572
2012 Governing Through Pedagogy. Re-educating Citizens (Routledge, London)
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415696210/
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