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On Representing the City on Postcards

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses aspects of city picture postcards and explains their functioning. Making distinctions on the basis of appearance I have discussed cityscape postcards and postcards without cityscapes and the usage and types of texts on postcards. Those visual elements become important in the process of using postcards for communication. Although communication takes place between subjects, I have studied how the image of the city (as a part of larger semiotic reality) is modified in communication. As postcards are widely used in society, it is not just an individual but to a large extent also a social phenomenon that has considerable influence on the creation of social reality. A postcard has its influence firstly as an individual whole with its own message and secondly as a part of a multitude of postcards that together combine into a system of representing the city. Following the visual appearance I sketched a typology of different ways of representing the city by means of postcards. To analyse postcards taking into account their actual usage, I made distinctions between different stages in the process of creating and using the cards and respective stages of artefactual postcards. The process is divided into the creation of material card; transforming the card into letter and using the received card. The analysis is mostly concerned with the first stage, as it is in this stage, compared to the next ones, that the function of representing the city is more primary.

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