Cultural Considerations
University of San Jorge (Venue in the city centre): Calle San Voto, 6-8 50003 Zaragoza, Spain
Featured Mainstreaming Modesty: Commodifying the ‘Islamic’ in Fashion
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sabah Uddin
This paper focuses on Muslim women social media influencers negotiating through the heady narratives inside and outside the Muslim community on what “good” Muslim women should wear. Looking at the current trend of Muslim women creating modesty/Islamic fashion content on social media platforms, I analyze images of modest fashion expressed on digital platforms, where Muslim women content creators are actively using aesthetic driven communities to produce self-expressed visual content. I explore the questions: Is this move an appropriation of western rhetoric seeking to create a market and image that is palatable to the western eye without significant internal challenge from the Muslim community? Or is it simply for them, a material act of publicly promoting piety through “fashionable” dress?
Unmasking Cultural Factors: Exploring the Role of Visual Communication and Context in Western Resistance to Mask Wearing during the COVID Pandemic
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Suki Kwon
This paper investigates the resistance to mask wearing among Westerners, particularly Americans, during the COVID pandemic, with a focus on the concepts of "low context culture" and "high context culture" as well as the visual cultural tendencies of Westerners. The study delves into the influence of visual culture on cultural attitudes and the characteristics of low and high context cultures in relation to visual communication. By examining examples such as body language, eye expressions, emoticons, and the failure of the Hello Kitty character in the Western world due to its lack of mouth expression, the paper provides a deeper understanding of the underlying cultural factors contributing to the resistance against mask-wearing in Western societies.
Art Infusion in Advertising and Its Effect on Brand Image View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elif Esiyok
Art infusion is realized when art creates a positive effect on product or brand evaluation. With adverts using artworks, an intellectual and high-class image is conveyed to the consumer, and a positive effect is created on content, quality, and measured evaluations with the inclusion of art in the advertisement. By providing the image transfer of the work of art to the brand, it affects the consumer with positive feelings such as luxury and exclusivity, and at the same time, the prestige of the art used in the advertisements is transferred to the products due to the spreading effect. In particular, luxury brands pair their products with famous paintings or visuals inspired by famous works of art, and it is argued that the presence of art can have a positive impact on brand image and brand evaluations. In this study, the importance of adverts containing art in the brand image perceptions of university students is investigated. For this purpose, data were collected from 16 male and 16 female students through in-depth interviews from qualitative research methods. Although most of the male participants stated that the use of art in advertising did not increase their awareness of brand image, female participants stated that it caused them to perceive the brand image more positively. In particular, the view that art adds elegance and modernity to the product was expressed more intensely among female participants, while male participants stated that the use of art in advertising is a feminine feature.
