The Telecom Industry as Cultural Industry? The Transposition of Fashion Logics into the Field of Mobile Telephony

Antti Ainamo , Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic (1)

1 CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations (Sciences Po, CNRS)

In its traditional acceptance, the term “fashion” triggers images of frivolous, quite irrational and relatively inconsequential swings in clothing styles, with a particular impact on women. At first sight, such swings seem quite a world apart from high technology which on the contrary tends to be associated with ideas of science and rationality and suggests a masculine world. It is therefore surprising at first sight that the field of mobile telephony has, for a number of years now, shown signs of being impacted by fashion logics. The pioneer, there, was Nokia. Since 1995, the Finnish company has been using the imagery of fashion in its self-presentations, discourses and communications campaigns. At the beginning, it may be that the encounter between Nokia and fashion was a chance, or at best an emergent, happening. Progressively, however, the company made it a conscious strategy to appropriate elements of the fashion business model and to re-inject them into its actions. [First paragraph]

Mots clés: Sociology of organizations; Fashion industry; Telecom

Domaines: Gestion et management; Economies et finances

Antti Ainamo, Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic. The Telecom Industry as Cultural Industry? The Transposition of Fashion Logics into the Field of Mobile Telephony. Candace Jones; Patricia M. Thornton. Transformation in Cultural Industries, JAI Press, pp.45 - 80, 2005, 9780762312405. ⟨hal-01892000⟩