European Capitals of Culture. Visual Standardization Through Generic Images
European Capitals of Culture. Visual Standardization Through Generic Images

Summary/Abstract: Cities representing European Capitals of Culture (ECCs) are chosen to promote the diversity and multiculturalism of a global city. But this multicultural and international character comes with the price of standardization, a concept enhanced by the EU through the idea of togetherness, and individuals belonging to the same cultural space. Therefore, the visual communication of those cities can be more homogenized, less descriptive and without particularities related to a culture of a specific geographic area. Following Jewitt, Bezemer and O`Halloran (2016), this paper aims to employ a multimodal analysis of images used by the local authorities of Plovdiv and Matera (European Capitals of Culture in 2019) on their websites. Therefore, it aims to demonstrate how these two cities communicate using generic images, focusing on what Machin and van Leeuwen (2007) identify as characteristics of global images, namely timelessness, low modality, decontextualization and also relying on generic attributes, models and settings. As a result, images become more symbolical and conceptual, causing national identities to diminish in the viewers’ eyes, making cities seem familiar, thus enriching the togetherness of globalization.

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