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Article published In:
Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 10:1 (2024) ► pp.1–21

Staging a tomatoscape

A case study in place branding and/as semiotic reflexivity

ORCID logo | University of Bern

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.

Keywords: place branding, semiotic reflexivity, mediatization, mediation, remediation, linguistic landscape
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
  • References
Published online: 31 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.23019.thu
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