Page 99 - Consuming Media

01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 86

86 Consuming Media

These photographs looked like they were designed to appeal to a broader segment
of consumers, a more diverse population. The campaign, employing visual signs of
cultural diversity, does represent the demographics of the city of Solna more accurately
than the initial image of the family. According to the manager, however, the campaign
was not designed to appeal to Solna Centre’s diverse population of consumers but
rather to ‘create involvement’ among employees. All the people in the photographs,
with the exception of the little boy, work in the Solna Centre, and the manager could
identify most of them: the man in the image of the ‘bi-racial couple’ is actually a
Norwegian who works in a men’s clothing store, and the ‘single mother’ is co-owner
of one of the cafés. The idea, the manager said, was to have a little fun and at the same
time encourage employees to feel connected to the workplace. This claimed lack of
intended diversity meaning does not make the first reading false, since the producer’s
expressed intention does not confine the signifying effects of any picture, but it
certainly adds another dimension to it. Do consumers ‘feel [more] at home’ if they
happen to recognize the people from these posters as they do their shopping?
These photographs of people obviously have a different purpose than those we see
displayed in store windows. They are part of Solna Centre’s own promotional
campaign and occupy the arenas of common commercial space. The people in the
pictures are locals, ‘real’ people if you will, who work in this place. However, it is
important to recognize that they do not portray themselves. They appear in poses and
contexts that are visual representations of specific social relationships, which may
have nothing to do with who they ‘really’ are. Despite their local origins, these photo-
graphs draw their meanings from visual stereotypes that are national and even global.
We don’t see the café owner herself, but a single mother. We don’t see a young store
clerk who speaks with a Norwegian accent, but a representation of a tolerant, multi-
racial society. In the context of this display, they have lost their subjectivity and been
mediatized. Whether the manager wants – or understands – it or not, the images in
their contemporary cultural context do invite interpretations in terms of positions in
the dominant orders of identity and difference.

SELLING PICTURES
We turn now to the shops that sell pictures in various forms. What is on display in
the environment of the photographic and card shops, and how do customers select
and use what they buy in their daily lives? Two of the largest transnational photo-
graphic companies, Kodak and Fuji, have shops in Solna Centre. Both the Kodak
Image Centre and Fuji’s Photo Gang (Foto-gänget) sell and develop film, and offer a
9
broad selection of both digital and film-based cameras and equipment. Both sell
albums, picture frames and other means for displaying and storing photographs.
Each shop has a scanner and customers can order digital copies of photographs. Both
shops also have a simple set-up for taking identification portraits while the customer
waits. The Gallerix shop belongs to a Swedish chain of more than eighty stores, all
similar in appearance and what they offer: ‘pictures, cards and frames’. The pictures
include posters and prints in a range of sizes and formats, both framed and unframed.