Branding Information
Paul Duguid
Economics has contributed significantly to the spread of modern notions of “information”. To understand both how the field deployed ideas of information and how this deployment may have influenced the use of the concept more generally, this talk focuses on one topic, intellectual property, looking in particular at economists’ accounts of trademarks. The talk investigates assumptions implicit in celebrated economic accounts of brands, and concludes that the fields’ information-based assumptions significantly underestimate the complexity of both brands and information. Such an exploration is intended to help us understand more generally how we might address important questions around the authenticity and reliability of information.
This seminar will be held both online & in person. You are welcome to join us either in South Hall or via Zoom.
For online participants
Online participants must have a Zoom account and be logged in. Sign up for your free account here. If this is your first time using Zoom, please allow a few extra minutes to download and install the browser plugin or mobile app.
Paul Duguid recently retired as an adjunct full professor at the School of Information and was formerly professorial research fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. Intermittently, he has held visiting positions at the University of Lille, the École Polytechnique in Paris, and Copenhagen Business School, and honorary positions at the universities of York and Lancaster in the U.K. From 1989 to 2001 he was affiliated to the Office of Central Management at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC); prior to that, a member of PARC's affiliated Institute for Research on Learning.
At Berkeley, he taught “Concepts of Information” (INFO 218) and “History of Information” (INFO 103).
Contact
If you have questions about this event, please contact Michael Buckland.
