GLOVISCOMDIFF · Globalization, Visual Communication, Difference

Globalization, Visual Communication, Difference

The rise of global capitalism has been overwhelmingly associated with the increasing ‘loss’ of difference in cultural production. Less attention has been given to how cultural and social difference may be mobilized for symbolic and material profit in global(ist) communication contexts. The EU-funded project “Globalization, Visual Communication, Difference” (GLOVISCOMDIFF) project investigated key aspects of social and cultural difference to stress the vital role of specific identities in global communication practices. The visual is an especially privileged and in fact crucial mode of communication in contexts of globalization thanks to its perceptual availability and cross-cultural potential. Due to the centrality of ‘design’ in the global economy, the study of visual communication industries and case studies provides a fertile and needed area of inquiry to advance the academic debate on homogenization and heterogenization in relation to cultural globalization. Researchers looked at ways in which global visual communication texts integrate, mobilise, and use important features of social and cultural difference such as locality, diversity and dissent. In doing so, the project examined the significance of specific identities tied to nationality, race, gender, class, place and politics. The project team examined visual homogeneity and heterogeneity in a variety of global communication texts and practices found in popular and consumer culture, photography, branding, and urban place-making. Through a combination of publications about key case studies, an edited collection, collaborative research partnerships, and several research events with leading scholars in the field, the project focused on three key themes, i.e. locality, diversity and dissent. By tackling major theoretical, critical and empirical approaches to social or cultural difference, the project contributes to visual communication knowledge on key processes of globalisation. Two major book publications originating from different aspects of the project are in preparation for the two years following the end of the project-funding period. Findings will underscore the cultural and economic value of the work of professionals such as designers, photographers, and urban planners. They are increasingly responsible for communicating and therefore also reproducing cultural and social differences on a daily basis.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union