Representing IT: Embodying the Electronic Economy

Abstract

The meaning of acronyms such as `IT' or `TIME' is very wide including technologies related to tele- and datacom, information technology, broadband, media and entertainment. Once dealing with digitized information, technologies related to telecom and broadband are often quite abstract and non-tangible—and difficult to represent within marketing communications. How are such technologies represented in communication efforts of major corporations marketing their IT products and services? This paper focus on how IT technologies are represented in increasingly social ways, infusing their materiality with anthropomorphous and cyborg qualities of body and soul. We study the discourse of print, television and radio ads of major corporations involved in current information and communication technologies such as Ericsson, Sony and Telia. The human body and how it functions to represent technology is a central concern, and we draw on recent work in marketing, photography, and management studies to situate bodily images within the marketing of the electronic economy. The paper ends with some speculations on the changing nature of representation in information technology ads, and offers some conclusions about the body as a basic element of communication about invisible products.