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Surfing in the Third Millennium: Commodifying the Visual Argot
Author(s) -
Lanagan David
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/j.1835-9310.2002.tb00210.x
Subject(s) - popularity , commodification , mores , advertising , odds , media studies , point (geometry) , consumption (sociology) , sociology , style (visual arts) , marketing , business , visual arts , art , political science , economy , social science , economics , law , politics , medicine , logistic regression , geometry , mathematics
The practice of surfing has often been at odds with the mores of wider society, to the point where surfers have been described in the media as rotten, long‐haired, unwashed drug addicts, or as jobless junkies. However, in recent years there has been an increase in the popularity of surfing and an increase in the consumption of surfing related commodities. This increase in popularity is largely due to the marketing practices of the business interests that are involved in surfing, which has appropriated its images and sold them to a rapidly expanding and lucrative market. This paper will outline how the commodification of surfing's visual style, and the meanings that are symbolised by this development, have had a three‐fold effect on the sport. First, surfing has been shifted away from the beach into quite different contexts; second, surfing as understood by the wider society has been altered and; third, the commodifying practices of business interests have transferred the symbolic ownership of the sport from surfers to surfing capital.