February 26, 2007

Annenberg Research Seminar: G. Thomas Goodnight & Sandy Green
ASC 207, 12:00 p.m.

Please join students and faculty for a presentation by Annenberg Communication Professor G. Thomas Goodnight and USC Marshall School of Business Assistant Professor Sandy Green entitled "Valuation Controversy & the Semiotics of Bubbles: Rhetoric, Volatility, and Economics."  From the professors: "We argue for critical inquiry into 'bubbles' as a semiotic field brought about periodically within the larger arena of an economy.  The essay posits a discursive explanation of 'normal times' i.e. those periods that exhibit a limited range of dissensus over asset valuation practices. Bubble semiotics are developed to analyze departures as rhetorical movements that focus interest, create conditions of bounded communicative rationality, and induce extreme volatility.  Rhetorical conditioning of communication is traced across episodes of turbulence, euphoria, panic, and retrenchment in select discourse examples taken from the recent tech and housing bubbles."  Lunch will be served.




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