"Authenticity in the era of mechanical reproduction": A sociological explanation of virtual branding process of modern handicrafts in Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran

10.22059/gmj.2023.346323.1270

Abstract

In the era of global markets, what "authenticity" means? This is a question that has occupied the minds of some contemporary economic sociologists. Mechanical reproductions have intensified the crisis of authenticity of cultural products. In fact, digital media and social networks marketing have resulted in the emergence of virtual branding and restoring the sense of authenticity. In this new market place, the challenge of creating a reputation or the issue of branding still remain to address. In line with the global trend of virtual branding, in Iran, creators use the concept of brand to describe their business in the field of handicrafts. The question that arises here is why these creators name their business "brand"? The representative of the brand does not match. From this point of view, the many meanings that activists attribute to their actions and the mutual influence of their understanding of their actions are important, so the present article addressing the process of virtual branding based on an exploratory/qualitative study. Using a virtual ethnographic method the author attempts to understand the process of virtual branding realized in the field of modern Iranian handicrafts, its experimental characteristics, and its connection to the concept of authenticity.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

اینگلیس، دیوید (1394). فرهنگ و زندگی روزمره. ترجمه نازنین میرزابیگی. گمان.
بوردیو، پیر (1395). مسائل جامعه‌شناسی. ترجمه پیروز ایزدی. نسل آفتاب.
تیموتی، دالن‌جی (1388). جامعه‌شناسی مصرف (گردشگری و خرید). ترجمه علی‌اصغر سعیدی و مهدی حسین‌آبادی. تهران: جامعه‌شناسان.
راغفر، حسین و شفیعی، زینب (۱۳۹۹). خانواده، دوستان، غریبه‌ها: مطالعه کیفی شبکه‌سازی زنان در حوزه صنایع‌دستی مدرن. فصلنامه تحقیقات فرهنگی ایران، 13(1).
شریعتی، سارا و شفیعی، زینب (1397). تولدی دیگر: مطالعه کیفی پدیده نوظهور صنایع‌دستی مدرن در عصر شبکه‌ها. جامعه‌شناسی هنر و ادبیات، 10(1).
کلمن، جیمز (1390). بنیادهای نظریه اجتماعی. ترجمه منوچهر صبوری. تهران: نی.
گرونو، یوکا (1392). جامعه‌شناسی سلیقه. ترجمه مسعود کیانپور. تهران: مرکز.
لاکمن، سوزان (1396). صنایع ‌دستی و اقتصاد خلاق. ترجمه شهاب طلایی شکری. تهران: پژوهشگاه فرهنگ، هنر و ارتباطات.
مانهایم، کارل (1386). دموکراتیک ‌شدن فرهنگ. ترجمه پرویز اجلالی. تهران: نی.
هورکهایمر، ماکس و آدورنو، تئودور (1380). صنعت فرهنگ‌سازی روشنگری به مثابه فریب توده‌ای. ترجمه مراد فرهادپور. تهران: ارغنون.
Aaker, D. A. (1991). Managing brand equity: Capitalizing on the value of a brand name. New York: The Free Press.
Anderson, C. (2007). The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand. London: Random House.
Appadurai, A. (1986). Introduction: Commodities and the politics of value. In. A. Appadurai (Ed.) The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective, pp. 3-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barker, C. (2012). Cultural studies: Theory and practice (4th ed). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Bartl, M., Kumar Kannan, V. & Stockinger, H. (2016). A review and analysis of literature on netnography research. International Journal of Technology Marketing, 11(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJTMKT.2016.075687.
Benjamin, W. (1969). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Trans. by Harry Zohn. In H. Arendt (Ed.) Illuminations, pp. 217–51. New York: Schocken Books.
Bennett, Andy (2001b). Cultures of Popular Music. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bowen, D. (2009). e-Criture Feminine: Women’s Online Diaries and the New Female Discourse in Blair, K., R. Gajjala & C. Tulley (eds.) Webbing Cyberfeminist Practice: Communities, Pedagogies and Social Action. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press Inc. pp:309-326.
Brown, S. (2001). Marketing - The Retro Revolution. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Budgeon, S. (2003). Choosing A Self: Young Women and the Individualisation of Identity. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Chao, Biming (2015). Relevance and Adoption of Netnography in Determining Consumer Behavior Patterns on the Web. The Scholedge International Journal of Business Policy & Governance, 2 (6), 12-17.
Cohen, Erik (1988). Authenticity and Commoditization in Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 15(3): 371–86.
Crawford, M. (2009) Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. New York: Penguin.
Dawkins, N. (2011). Do-It-Yourself: The Precarious Work and Postfeminist Politics of Handmaking (in) Detroit, Utopian Studies, 22(2): 261–84.
Easton, L. D., & Guddat, K. H. (1967). Writings of the young Marx on philosophy and society. Garden City. New York: Anchor.
Esslinger, H. (2009). A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Featherstone, M. (2011). Foreword’ in Ethical Consumption: A Critical Introduction, ed. Tania Lewis and Emily Potter. London and New York: Routledge, xvii–xxviii.
Felker, F. M., Hammond, J. D., Schaaf, G., & Stevenson, J. C. (2014). Existential and object authenticity in Southwestern pottery: Intertwined and complementary. Journal of Material Culture, 19, pp. 93-110. doi:10.1177/1359183513503255
Fetterman, D. (1989). Ethnography: Step by Step. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Fornoni, Mariel., Arribas, Ivan. Vila, Jose E. (2011). Measurement of an Individual Entrepreneur’s Social Capital: A Multidimensional Model. National University of Mar del Plata.
Foucault, M. (1977). What is an Author? In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Trans. Bouchard, D.F. and Simon, S. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Geertz, C. A. (1973). The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books.
Gertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.
Gill, J. and Johnson, P. (1997). Research Methods for Managers. 2nd edition. London: Paul Chapman Publishing Limited.
Grayson, K., & Martinec, R. (2004). Consumer perceptions of iconicity and indexicality and their influence on assessments of authentic market offerings. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 296-312. Retrieved from http://www.kentgrayson.com/Grayson%20Archive/authenticityjcr.pdf.
Greenhalgh, P. (1997). The History of Craft. In The Culture of Craft: Status and Future. ed. Peter Dormer. New York: Manchester University Press. 20-52.
Gummesson, E. (2000). Qualitative Methods in Management Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Halliday, S. (2001). Deceit, desire, and technology: A media history of secrets and lies. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 37(2), 141–54. doi:10.1093/fmls/37.2.141.
Hansen, E. L. (1995). Entrepreneurial network and new organization growth. Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice, 19 (4), 7–19.
Holt, D. (2004). How Brands Becomes Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review.
Holt, D. B. (2006). Toward a sociology of branding. Journal of consumer culture, 6(3), 299-302.
Howes, D. (1996). Introduction: Commodities and cultural borders. In D. Howes(Ed.) Cross-cultural consumption: Global markets, local realities (p. 1-18). New York: Routledge.
Kozinets, Robert V. (2015). Netnography: Redefined. London: SAGE.
Lash, S., & Urry, J. (1994). Economies of signs and space. London: Sage.
Littrell M. A. & Anderson L. F.; & Brown P. J. (1993). What makes a craft souvenir authentic? 20(1), 197–215. doi:10.1016/0160-7383(93)90118-m.
Luckman, S. & Thomas, N. (2018). Craft Economies. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Luckman, S. (2013). The Aura of the Analogue in the Digital Age: Women’s Crafts, Creative Markets and Home-based Labour After Etsy. Culture Studies Review, 19(1), 249-270.
Lury, C.) 2011(. Consumer Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
McFall, L. (2004). Advertising: a cultural economy. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
McRobbie, A (2004). Making a living in London’s small-scale creative sector. In Dominic Power and Allen J. Scotts (eds.) Cultural Industries and the Production of Culture. London: Routledge. pp. 130-143.
McRobbie, A. (1996). All the world’s a stage, screen or magazine: when culture is the logic of late capitalism. Media, Culture & Society, 18, 335-42.
McRobbie, A. (1998). British fashion design: rag trade or image industry? London: Routledge.
Mukherjee, I. & Maggie Griffith Williams (2016). Branding Authenticity, Global–localization and technology: Thematic analysis of two West Bengal urban–rural handicrafts NPO websites. Connexions: international professional communication journal. 4, 91-130. DOI: 10.21310/cnx.4.1.16muketal.
Nixon, S. (ed.) (2002). Who needs the cultural intermediaries? [Special issue]. Cultural Studies, 14(4).
Orvell, M. (1989). The real thing: Imitation and authenticity in American culture,1880–1940. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Richardson, A. (2010). Innovation: Why a company’s toughest problem is its greatest advantage. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Roubal, O. (2017). Sociology of Branding: “Just Do It” in the “No Limits”. World Communication Today, 8(1), 40–51.
Sennett, Richard (1998). The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co.
Silverman, D. (2000). Doing Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Sinclair, J. (2008). Branding and Belonging. Journal of Cultural Economy, 1(2), 217-231, DOI: 10.1080/17530350802243636.
Soar, M. (2002). Graphic Design/Graphic Dissent: toward a cultural economy of an insular profession. PhD Dissertation: University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Turney, J. (2009). The Culture of Knitting. Oxford and New York: Berg.
Wang, J. (2008). Brand New China: Advertising, Media and Commercial Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wherry, F. F. (2006). The social sources of authenticity in global handicrafts markets: Evidence from Thailand. Journal of Consumer Culture, 6, pp. 5-32. doi:10.1177/1469540506060867.
White, H. (1973). Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Yin, R. K. (1993). Applications of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Zelizer, V. A. (1988). Beyond the Polemics on the Market: Establishing a Theoretical and Empirical Agenda. Sociological Forum, 3(4), 614–634. http://www.jstor.org/stable/684548

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 26 July 2022
  • Revise Date: 10 September 2022
  • Accept Date: 02 December 2022

Share

How to cite

Statistics