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Research Agenda. Using observations, photographs
and interviews with architects and designers,
I will for South Africa perform both a semiotic
analysis of casino design as a whole (i.e.,
across
as many of the 40 casinos as I can visit) and a
close “reading” of one in particular. For
California, I will do the same. Here I will be
particularly concerned with how Indian “culture”
(tribal religions/mythologies, the work of
Indian artists) is displayed in the casinos. In
addition, I
will compare the designs of those casinos
constructed pre-Prop 5/1A and those built after.
(My
early fieldwork in California has revealed such
differences—early casinos offer generic, Las
Vegas-like themes, while those constructed since
go to great lengths to make an integral part of
the architecture tribal themes).
Marketing
25
Clotfelter and Cook (1989) identify two main
themes in advertising for state lotteries in
America.
On the one hand are those designed purely to
maximize sales—e.g., those that depict winners
enjoying
immense riches, present unrealistic odds of
winning (“buy a ticket and win!”), etc. On the
other are
“socially responsible” themes—e.g., those that
present the actual odds of winning, emphasize
the “good
causes” to which proceeds go, etc. If we apply
this schema to casino marketing in our two cases
we
would expect firms in the South African
industry, where positive developmental effects
are equated with
an overall maximization of revenue, to employ
techniques of marketing in line with the former
strategy.
In turn, advertisements for tribal casinos
should depict gambling not so much as
entertainment or an
opportunity to win riches, but as a contribution
to a “good cause.”
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