Mapping out socio-cultural transformations through food packaging design in Turkey : a case study

Abstract

Exploration of the impact of socio-cultural transformations in the development of food packaging design and brand identity in Turkey, in the post-1980 period, is the focus of this research. Accordingly, this thesis explores the related and broad issues of modernization and convergence; globalization, consumption contexts and culture; internationalization of retailing; postmodernism and aestheticized (conspicuous) consumption in parallel with developments in food packaging design and brand identity. All these are tied and analyzed in a case study where in the collected samples, developments in domestic and foreign food packaging design and the corresponding brand identities are socio-semiotically related to the transformations in socio-cultural context in Turkey. Socio-semiotic method of analysis, along with visual style analysis, has provided a study of images in their social and material context which is in accordance with this field of research.