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Following Domo-Kun: The Commoditization of Cultural Objects in the Global Market
Jillian Rae Suter
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5526/2014.06.004
Keio University, Japan
This paper analyzes and attempts to bridge the gap between popular culture’s aesthetics, popularized by Camille Paglia and her work Sex, Art and American Culture: Essays (1992), and international marketing culture’s aesthetics, as described by Schmitt and Simonson (1997). Popular culture and marketing rarely share the same realm of research. However, these theories start to influence each other, which are especially visible when compared with international marketing as the framework. In order to analyze the gap between popular culture and marketing culture, the author followed a cultural object, Domo-kun, as it entered the US market. Domo-kun gradually changed, including its marketing aesthetics, its significance, and meaning within popular culture after it entered the market. These meaning changes are through the process of commoditization, emotional value, and how they are reinterpreted within cultural frames and reference groups.
Commoditization, cultural frames, reference groups
Sociology Study ISSN 2159-5526, June 2014, Volume 4, Number 6, 507-513
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