Bøger af George Rossolatos

Cultural studies constitutes one of the most multi-perspectival research fields. Amidst a polyvocal theoretical landscape that spans different disciplines semiotics is of foundational value. In an attempt to effectively address the conceptual richness of the semiotic discipline, a wide roster of perspectives is evoked in this book against the background of a diverse set of cultural phenomena, including structuralist and post-structuralist semiotics, semiotically informed psychoanalysis, cultural semiotics, film semiotics, sociosemiotics, but also, to a lesser extent, music semiotics and more niche, but certainly promising perspectives, such as postmodern semiotics, ethnosemiotics, phenomenological semiotics and rhetorical semiotics. The recruitment of semiotic frameworks and concepts is enacted against the background of advances in cultural studies (thus reinstating the dialogue with a discipline that took form by drawing on semiotics in the first place) and the various research streams that have become consolidated within the wider cultural studies territory, such as memory studies, celebrity studies, death studies, cultural geography, visual studies. At the same time, the offered readings engage dialogically with Consumer Culture Theory.

This book was put together over the course of the past three years and is the outcome of the author's publications in the multimodal advertising rhetoric research field and projects that were undertaken with the employment of the //rhetor.dixit//(c) model. It features four chapters that span different, yet interlocking aspects of ad texts' multimodal rhetorical configuration and culminates in a practical guide for the analysis of the verbo-visual rhetorical structure of TV ad texts, based on the unique methodology of the //rhetor.dixit//(c) model on offer by //disruptiVesemiOtics//. //rhetor.dixit//: Understanding ad texts' rhetorical structure for differential figurative advantage neither seeks to cover exhaustively issues in any of the traditional fields of concern to the discipline of rhetoric (an impossible endeavor, indeed, within the contours of a single book), nor to address all issues on top of the current agenda in multimodal advertising rhetoric. Its mission is to present key facets of current research in multimodal advertising discourse, largely dispersed and spread out in multiple disciplines, including semiotics, in such a manner as to enable the reader to get to grips with the benefits that stem from employing a content analytic approach for the ongoing management of the modes of rhetorical configuration of advertising texts. The combination of an interpretivist approach with the methodical outlook yielded by content analysis affords to transform multimodal rhetorical analysis of advertising texts from a theoretical enterprise geared towards making sense of how meaning emerges through the figurative language of advertising to a systematic method for managing advertising textuality, in such a manner as to enable practitioners in marketing related disciplines (e.g., account planning, marketing research, brand management) to actively manage how brand meaning is generated through distinctive modes of rhetorical configuration. The managerial orientation of the //rhetor.dixit//(c) model is intended to enhance understanding as to how a brand's intellectual capital is configured and, moreover, to point to directions whereby what I call a brand's figurative first mover advantage and differential figurative advantages may be furnished to a brand's discourse. The systematic understanding of a brand's distinctive modes of rhetorical configuration is not just a 'nice-to-have' add-on in a metrics dashboard, but a prerequisite for managing brands as constellations of figurative elements and modes of connectivity among figurative elements, which are part and parcel of a brand's textual essence.

Currently, 1 out of 10 US citizens lays claim to being targeted in a certain way. Do these allegations signal the onset of mass psychosis, a social epidemic of unheard of proportions or a ubiquitous lived reality that affects millions, yet without any obvious and self-explanatory reasons why? Targeting Culture: Making the Invisible Visible offers a comprehensive social theoretic framework for making sense of a largely invisible threat or for how the invisible may be made visible. By adopting as interpretive platform a critical discourse analytic approach, it dimensionalizes the culture of targeting on three levels, micro, meso and macro. At the same time, the analytic highlights salient legal facets, while suggesting that this complex, multi-act, multi-perpetrator crime of multiple composite causality involving interdiscursive chains between lay and institutional discourses may be effectively addressed on the grounds of a multi-dimensional legal model, such as that of indirect perpetration in organized power mechanisms. In order to facilitate the reader's understanding of the subtle nuances of this new cultural phenomenon, a lavish array of concepts is offered to the reader, spanning various perspectives from the humanities and the social sciences, such as psychoanalysis, microsociology, religious studies, social cybernetics, systems theory, multimodal rhetorical studies, philosophy, cultural studies, legal studies. About the authorGeorge Rossolatos (MSc, MBA, PhD) is an academic researcher, marketing practitioner, and the editor of the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics & Discourse Studies. Major publications include Targeting Culture: Making the Invisible Visible (2019), Interdiscursive Readings in Cultural Consumer Research (2018), Handbook of Brand Semiotics (2015; ed. and co-author), Semiotics of Popular Culture (2015), Brand Equity Planning with Structuralist Rhetorical Semiotics (2012, 2014), //rhetor.dixit//: Understanding Ad Texts' Rhetorical Structure for Differential Figurative Advantage (2013), Applying Structuralist Semiotics to Brand Image Research (2012), Interactive Advertising: Dynamic Communication in the Information Age (2002; ed. and co-author), plus numerous articles in academic and trade journals. His research interests focus on cultural consumer research/popular culture, branding/advertising, and digital marketing/new media.