Apple iconography

Abstract

Since the advent of the electronic age, new media technologies have frequently been described in religious terms. New media technologies have been imagined as both liberating tools with utopian promise and revolutionary forces with eschatological implications. The religious rhetoric used to describe these technologies is part of a “technological mythology” - a narrative form in which technology is assigned a spiritual significance. Technological mythologies are evident in science fiction literature, film, academic scholarship and the rhetoric of inventors and entrepreneurs. However, very little attention has been paid to the representation of technological mythology in American advertising. This dissertation considers the intersection of technology and the American religious imagination in the advertising of the Apple computer company. Through evocative visual metaphor Apple advertisements combine technology promotion with metaphysical themes – making Apple ads icons of the information age.