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Navigating the Cultural Landscape Through Publishing Brands: A Theoretical, Gendered Perspective

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Abstract

In the consumer’s cultural landscape everything is gendered, including publishers. Some publishers lean into the gendered elements of their brand personality and make active choices to design their brand, and the books they publish, to engage with gendering elements of design, fonts, colours, and text. The consumer can utilise publishers as landmarks to understand which spaces are safe for them to perform their chosen self- and projected-identities, and form relationships based on these considerations. Ultimately, the consumer enacts a gendered performance of self in their cultural landscape and in doing so, they can choose to interact with publishers that embody different gendered elements within a complex discourse of consumerism, societal norms and expectations, and perceptions.

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Notes

  1. Fricatives are the f, s, v, and z sounds – whereas voiceless fricatives are f and s. Voiceless stops are p, t, and k [49], pp. 10–11).

  2. From a Western standpoint. For more information on cultural stereoty** of colours see [51].

  3. The gender of a brand is one of several aspects of the wider brand personality, but it is the one that is most pertinent to understanding how gender identity works in the consumer’s cultural landscape. For more information on the dimensions of brand personality see [38, 54, 55], and for how these brand personality dimensions exist in other cultures see [56,57,58].

  4. Searched 22 December 2022.

  5. Brand pride is linked to the repeated use of ‘me’ in relation to the brand along with a feeling of personal connection with the brand and self-congruence (both inward and outward)—these elements, among others, develop into the concept of brand pride [72].

  6. Brand sacredness is related to a “transcendent consumer experience, defense of a brand, incorporation brand in extended-self, brand ritualism and brand evangelism” (2018, p. 733).

  7. For more information on cross-gender brand extensions see [74,75,76,77].

  8. Passive reception in marketing literature considers a variety of angels such as passive reception and multitasking [92, 93] and the passivity of the consuming audience [94].

  9. For more reading on Theatre and Performance Studies, see [99,100,101,102] for an intro into some of the key concepts in this area.

  10. For an overview of the literature in the area of identity principles see [109] chart which lists out the relevant research into the five key identity principles of salience, association, relevance, verification, and conflict.

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    Miriam J. Johnson

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Johnson, M.J. Navigating the Cultural Landscape Through Publishing Brands: A Theoretical, Gendered Perspective. Pub Res Q 39, 162–177 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-023-09953-1

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