Authors: Gili S Drori Giuseppe Delmestri Achim Oberg
Publish Date: 2015/05/24
Volume: 71, Issue: 2, Pages: 163-180
Abstract
The coming of “brand society” and the onset of mediatization spur universities to strategize their visual identity and pay particular attention to their icon Resulting from branding initiatives university icons are visual selfrepresentations and materialcumsymbolic forms of organizational identity In this work we ask What identity narratives are conveyed through the organizational iconography of universities How do narratives combine in this iconography Drawing upon content analysis of Internet frontpage icons of 826 universities from 22 countries we identify four identity narratives guildlike classic narrative professional scientific narrative localized narrative and organizational narrative Second we show that such visual selfrepresentations of university identity appear as products of broad historical themes Last we consider the relations between the four visualized identity narratives showing evidence for iconographic sedimentation between the compatible guildlike classical professional and localnational narratives along with iconographic abrasion of the logic of managed organization on the former We discuss such findings in relation to the historical studies of the institution of the university
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