Gur, Oymen
(2012)
The brand as a social system of interpenetration: conceptualizing brand through communications.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
In this thesis I address oversights in the socio-cultural understanding of the brand by
demonstrating the failings of three prevailing views. First, the brand is commonly
captured through two dimensions: the functional and the symbolic. This conception
results from an oscillation between two distinct worldviews: the material and the
communicative. Second, the brand is conceptualized as the direct result of the motives
of individuals, who are not reflexive of broader socio-cultural formations. Third, the
brand is portrayed as a commercial entity that is coupled with a single ideology for
competitive advantage. However, the multi-dimensional brand is neither essentially
economic nor culturally one dimensional. Using Niklas Luhmann’s social systems
theory, I observe communications media and the brand as self-reproductive social
systems. Merging his methodology of functional analysis with Michel Foucault’s
archaeology, I analyze the relevant academic literature and subject an actual brand to
empirical examination.
Herein I show how communication technologies and media make up ‘the
communications system’, through which the society is not simply communicated but is
created. Like all social phenomena, the brand as a social system (and its meanings)
arises within the communications system by observing itself in relevant communicative
events. The self-reproductive brand system exists within society by differentiating itself
from its environment comprised of disparate social systems. The brand interpenetrates
and then differentiates from each of these environmental systems via a particular
distinction. The plurality and the interplay of these diverse distinctions enable the brand
system. In turn, the brand as a social system of interpenetration fulfils its macro
function in society by translating and synchronising these otherwise detached social
systems. By understanding this broader societal function of the brand and its resulting
dispositions, marketers can elevate their micro perspective in relation to a long-term
macro view and thereby better guide the brand.
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