Identity Designs: The Sights and Sounds of a Nation.

TLDR

National symbols are enduring political tools that leaders use and rebels defile, reflecting broad social forces that transcend individual nations. The book investigates how design shapes national symbols, arguing that symbols are chosen for their communicative form and that following structural rules yields benefits while violations incur costs. The author identifies social structural factors that set the rules governing symbolic expression. The study finds that national symbols arise from universal social forces, and that compliance with structural rules benefits societies while violations carry costs.

Abstract

National symbols, modern totems with ancient roots, remain entities for which men and women continue to march, debate, fight, and die. Modern political leaders still drape their campaigns in such symbols; modern revolutionaries still defile them. Identity Designs explores the source of this long-standing power--the way national symbols are selected, the manner in which their meaning is conveyed, their potential effects, and the sustenance of their power.In particular, the book charts the role of design in the selection of symbolic images, thus demonstrating that symbols are chosen not just for what they convey, but how they convey their message. Karen Cerulo shows that the symbolic designs of a nation's identity are not simply the products of indigenous characteristics, as conventional wisdom might suggest. Rather, the banners and songs by which nations represent themselves are generated by broad social forces that transcend the peculiarities of any one nation. Cerulo's analysis acquaints readers with a set of social structural factors that delimit rules of symbolic expression. Further, the book suggests the benefits of adhering to these rules and explores the costs of violating them.