Image Capital, Field, and the Economies of Signs and Space

Abstract

Drawing upon the concept of cultural capital, this article develops image as a form of Bourdieusean capital to examine what Lash and Urry identify as the economies of signs and space. Image capital refers to the accumulated labor of visual resources that allows agents possessing it to yield power. The concept of image capital will differentiate the power of images from the power of linguistic signs in the age of mediation.