Multiple dimensions of mediation within transnational advertising production: cultural intermediaries as shapers of emerging cultural capital

Abstract

The paper re-conceptualizes cultural intermediaries as shapers of 'emerging cultural capital' (Prieur and Savage 2013; Savage et al. 2013) and re-frames their practice of signification and negotiation as informed by 'multiple dimensions of mediation'. Drawing on a case study of Nike's transnational advertising production and interviews with key actors within the context of production, the paper examines how the creative/cultural labour process cuts across global and national fields of cultural production and consumption through which popular culture and middle-brow tastes were mediated, signified and represented. In particular, a television campaign for the Japanese youth market was critically analyzed to reveal how specific new tastes, lifestyles and consumption practices were legitimized as emerging forms of cultural capital. Consequently, their taste-making practices are profoundly implicated in symbolic struggles and cultural changes emerging within/from the increasingly 'globalizing' field of cultural production.

Making pastel pop on dark skin: How fashion stylists dress Black NBA players

“…In keeping with Kobayashi et al’s, call for scholars to uncover the “legitimizing practices” (2018: 142) of cultural production, this paper demonstrates how fashion stylists both minimize and emphasize the racial difference of Black NBA clients. Stylists constrict the Black player, impress upon him the importance of choosing an aesthetic that is indexed to middle-class morality, and align the silhouette of his outfit with the sensibilities of consumer society.…”

“…The participants inveigh against anti-Black stereotypes, the muscularity of NBA bodies, and the inconvenience of making certain colors complement darker skin. The participants “leve[l] out” (Kobayashi et al, 2018: 142) the racial difference of clients when bedecking their bodies in haute couture. Coincidentally, the participants also emphasize the racial difference of clients as their repertoire plays into the hyper visibility of the Black athlete.…”

“…Now that it has been established as to what cultural intermediaries do and how they interface with fashion, the next part of this paper is to set the backdrop of how fashion stylists navigate the minefields of anti-Blackness in fashion and commodification in the NBA. Cultural intermediaries negotiate tensions between global and local (Kobayashi, 2012) and Oriental and Occident (Kobayashi et al, 2018). By both minimizing and emphasizing the racial difference of clients, fashion stylists reconcile the Black NBA body with the sartorial grammar and anti-Blackness in fashion.…”

The dark side of liquidity: shedding light on dark pools’ marketing and market-making

“…Let us now introduce our analytical tools that draw on Barthes and Greimas, two authoritative scholars who developed distinct approaches to semiotics (Cian 2012). 7 We use both Barthesian and Greimasian ways of analyzing and deciphering processes of signification in advertisements (Kobayashi et al 2017).…”

Globalization, creative alliance and self-Orientalism: Negotiating Japanese identity within Asics global advertising production

“…6 It is acknowledged that in order to reveal the full scale of 'day-to-day' negotiations in the campaign formulation, an ethnographic approach is more suited than post-production interviews (see Moeran, 1996aMoeran, , 2006. 7 In this sense, the creative workers for the Made of Japan campaign were considered as shapers of Japanese popular culture as emerging cultural capital (see Kobayashi et al, 2017 for reconceptualization of cultural intermediaries)…”