ESCHEW IMAGE I: A World of Image

In North America we live in a world of image rather than substance. Image is synthetic, that is it is constructed, malleable, simplified and vivid. In thinking of image one can think of Nike's corporate image. It is carefully constructed and has virtually nothing to do with the manufacture and distribution of running shoes. Because the image is constructed it is malleable and can be shifted to accommodate different cultural milieu. The image has no subtlety or negative aspects, it is a distilled positive "experience." Stripped of the richness of actual experience, image is well suited to media. In fact it is constructed at great cost specifically for media. A corporate image is custom designed for sound bites. It is easily repeated and disseminated making it vivid and compelling. Thus image doesn't have to “be,” it just has to "appear to be." Interestingly this works synergisticly with media. Image demands media, media demands image. The two have a dynamism that is more than the sum of their parts. Yet both are limited by the intrinsic constraints of the other. This notion is at the core of Marshal McLuhan's aphorism, 'the medium is the message" —more on that later. What the image/media synergy doesn't handle very well is substance, which is extemporaneous, authentic, complex, unedited "being." Actual people are complex, unpredictable, take time to figure out, real people don't translate well into sound bites.

Apart from its synthetic nature, image is also autonomous. It exists separately from the reality of the original. As we have noted, the Nike image has little to do with the reality of the company. The image, although initiated and created by Nike, exists "out there," residing between it's creators and its intended audience. As many celebrities have discovered, the autonomy of image has its perils. Although a celebrity image is very carefully crafted it can be subverted, co-opted even hijacked and replaced with an image wholly beyond the celebrity's control.