A Suburban Dreamscape Outshining Urbanism: The Case of Housing Advertisements

Abstract

Cities and suburbs are often constructed as different socio-spatial entities to afford different ways of life. Although that dichotomy has been challenged, it has maintained its popularity in academic discourse. As with many European cities, the municipality of Oslo—the capital of Norway—is experiencing population growth. To provide sufficient accommodation for its inhabitants, the municipality has adopted a compact-city strategy to prevent urban sprawl. However, in 2018, a major private housing developer launched an advertising campaign that promoted the benefits of living in the suburbs rather than in dense urban environments. Using concepts that were adopted from “social semiotics,” this article demonstrates how specific uses of semiotic resources can create a suburban dreamscape that can potentially attract urbanites to suburbia.

Selling homes: the polysemy of visual marketing

“…Our analysis indicates that Block Watne creates a (positive) suburban dreamscape that stands in a dichotomous relationship with the (negative) urban life (see also Skrede and Andersen 2019). This purpose is achieved by choosing certain semiotic resources at the expense of othersparticularly concerning the leftright orientation and the decontextualised backgrounds, as well as by means of other modality cues.…”

“…We had analysed these before talking to Block Watne and the selected informants to avoid being influenced by our informants' reading. We had analysed three of the representations (1)(2)(3) in the context of another project (Skrede and Andersen 2019). The two others (4-5) are analysed as part of this project.…”

Commodification of the Egyptian New Capital: A Semio-Foucauldian Landscape Analysis

“…Adding to the silence effect, the realistic colors of the photo are replaced with overall light grey and brown colors, which attribute a low modality to the image (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 159), giving an unrealistic impression. Such modality conveys an aura that is dreamy (Skrede & Andersen, 2019), eternal, or timeless (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). The monochrome colors of the billboard abstract it, foregrounding a visual conceptualization of a silent urban space.…”