184 ACCESSING AND GENERATING DATA
- Advertisements—among “the most pervasive forms of global communication and a sig-
nificant site of cultural production” (Tinic 1997, 4)—can also provide useful evidence of
meaning (e.g., Hooper 2001, 141–43, 202–3). One might look, for instance, at the Italian
clothing firm’s “United Colors of Benetton” advertising campaign.^20 This campaign, begun
in 1985, could be read as a powerful image of cultural globalization, of the production of a
single global culture irrespective of race or national identity. It offered images of world
peace and harmony, showing youth of diverse races and ethnicities cavorting happily while
wearing the same Benetton clothing (Tinic 1997, 5). As the WTO’s Ruggiero triumphantly
announced in 1996, globalization was creating a “global audience” and a “global village” in
which “From Buenos Aires to Boston to Beijing, ordinary people are watching MTV, they’re
wearing Levi’s jeans, and they’re listening to Sony Walkmans” (1996, 2). Interestingly, the
Benetton ad campaigns have been quite controversial. Put differently, they have become the
site of ferocious battles over meaning: “Benetton’s portrayals of racial unity have fueled
accusations of racism. Images implying religious tolerance have been called blasphemous”
(Tinic 1997, 4). - Even e-mail can provide us with evidence of discursive constructions and meaning produc-
tion. In a recent article (Laffey and Weldes 2004), my coauthor and I drew on a poem en-
titled The Binch^21 that had been widely circulated by e-mail in the United States and elsewhere
in the days after September 11. The Binch, which parodied Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch Who
Stole Christmas, was intended to explain the terrorist attacks to young (American) children.
The first two verses explained that
Every U down in Uville liked U.S. a lot,
But the Binch, who lived Far East of Uville, did not.
The Binch hated U.S.! the whole U.S. way!
Now don’t ask me why, for nobody can say.
It could be his turban was screwed on too tight.
Or the sun from the desert had beaten too bright.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.But, whatever the reason, his heart or his turban,
He stood facing Uville, the part that was urban.
“They’re doing their business,” he snarled from his perch.
“They’re raising their families! They’re going to church!
They’re leading the world, and their empire is thriving,
I MUST keep the S’s and U’s from surviving!”We drew on this bit of racist doggerel to illustrate popular explanations—“they hate our
values”—offered in response to the then ubiquitous, and uncomprehending, American ques-
tion “Why do they hate us?”- As with high data, sources of low data are bountiful. The Internet (e.g., Miller and Slater
2000; Saco 1999, 2002), photography (e.g., Kennedy 2003; Morrison 2004), jokes and
humor (e.g., Nevo 1984), travelogues (e.g., Clark 1999), and comics (e.g., Barker 1989;
Mangan 2000), to mention but a few possibilities, can all provide additional forms of textual
evidence. Each can tell us something about different constructions of globalization, of poli-
tics, of the social order. Other, strictly non-textual sources of low data, but sources that can