Staging a tomatoscape
A case study in place branding and/as semiotic reflexivity
A strategic, often spectacular intersection of semiosis and spatiality, place branding should be an obvious topic
for linguistic landscape research. Isolated studies which do attend to branding seem insufficiently concerned with its conceptual
and metasemiotic complexity. Part visual essay, my paper examines the small Spanish town of Miajadas which, in a performative act
of scale-jumping, declares itself Tomato Capital of Europe. Drawing on fieldwork, and using a three-part analytic
framework, I document the range of semiotic and sociomaterial tactics by which Miajadas stages itself as a ‘tomatoscape’. Through
its mediatization, mediation, and remediation the town maximizes its location
in the global economic order. This case study underscores how place branding is a highly contingent mode of semiotic reflexivity
which is seldom discrete or unilateral, but which can be highly effective.
Article outline
-
- 1.Place branding and/as semiotic reflexivity
- 2.Staging a tomatoscape in Miajadas
- 2.1Mediatizing the brand
- 2.2Mediating the brand
- 2.3Remediating the brand
- 3.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
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Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Thurlow, Crispin
2024.
Working beside/s words: A case study in the partiality and provinciality of language.
Multimodality & Society 4:1
► pp. 11 ff.

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