[Newspoetry] Postacademicism

[William Gillespie]

(article pointed out to me by Carl Estabrook)

From
<http://www.salon.com/media/col/shal/1999/09/27/persuaders/index3.html

 Today's consciousness wranglers, in contrast, are a far more upbeat
 lot. Weaned on the latest cultural-studies theory, which holds that
 Disneyland is a text, and which refuses to privilege Graham Greene
 over the Jolly Green Giant, they hardly feel they are slumming when
 they make the jump to the dark side. After all, if you're going to
 write a dissertation on the semiotics of Playtex, you might as well
 get paid for it -- by Playtex.

 "Once clients look at things in a semiotic way, they never go back,"
 says Virginia Valentine, president of Semiotic Solutions, whose
 clients include Coca-Cola, Mazda, Safeway, and SmithKline
Beecham. "My
 own degree is in critical theory and literature. The theory base we
 use comes from the French, from Saussure and Levi-Strauss, with a
 healthy dose of Levinson, British cultural studies, and Russian
 formalists, who were of course the great theorists of carnival ..."
 Her voice drifts off knowingly. "We're very proud of what we've
been
 able to do here. We have, I believe, taken the whole body of
semiotic
 theory and adapted it to consumer brands. We've fit the semiotic
 project within the commercial process without losing the rigor,
 without losing the systematic approach, and still staying true to the
 theoretical principles."

 Valentine explains how this works in practice. "It's all about how
 brands make meaning," she says. "And how meaning is literally
 deconstructed and reconstructed. It's quite fascinating, actually.
 We've worked on a number of retail projects. And what we've
found is
 that everything signifies. Everything. Whether it's sanitary
 protection or the interior design of a supermarket or the viscosity of
 a product, it will all signify. And advertising is only going to work
 if it taps into a ready-made coding system in the consumer's head."

 I ask Valentine if she is troubled by the fact that many of her
 favorite theorists developed their theories as a weapon against
 capitalism; that the interpretive tools on which she relies were
 originally intended to expose the structure of advertising as a system
 of power and oppression. "It's an interesting point," she says. "It's
 certainly true that my understanding of brands is essentially a
 Marxist understanding. It has angered some academics that this
theory,
 which was originally presented as revealing the strategies behind
 advertising and marketing, is now being used in the service of
 advertising and marketing."