Power Play: Authority and Assumptions in Airport Signs

Rose states that "any object is always actualized in a specific moment of use, which produces both the object and the sort of person looking at it" (Rose 220). This is clearly seen through the assumptions made by the signs and by the people viewing them; in fact it establishes their relationship. The signs in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport find their identity by what they can give and what the passengers they are speaking to need. The signs assume a number of things: that the viewers need at least one of the presented things, gates, tickets, around know what the symbols mean, even down to the simplicity of the questions mark, the fork and knife, and the airplane. At the same time, as people assume, they are actualizing the signs they see. Without the people, the signs are void of meaning. On a basic level, both the signs and the people give life to each other in the context of the airport. Outside of the airport, the signs do not make sense, nor would it help people should they be found outside of the context of where they can be used.

The ability for the signs throughout the airport to assign a name to the people walking through the space is an example of the power they are given as a traveling necessity that people require these days. The "power/knowledge that constitute the institutions: for example ... regulations,... laws, morals, and so on" comes from the authority that the people seem to have allowed throughout their lives (Rose 174). It is as though the power that people started with (assuming that people start with power) they have entrusted to the institution of airports in general. The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is simply an example of this. The technologies that the institution uses are these signs and symbols. They are an "asserted...truth of their claims" that they received power to produce (Rose 174). The regulation and simplicity of the images helps to express the wide range of audiences (though they are all passengers, as this sign has defined) that airports support.The "co-construction of image and observer" that Rose states "relate[s] to each other in specific times and places" can be seen here (Rose 220). This sign suddenly requires that people who enter this new area of the airport must be passengers. This "passenger-ness" that people take on is a temporary and finite identity that the airport has temporary and finite power to use while the people walk through the airport. It is an identity that both the people and the airport must agree on for the process of movement to the airplanes to continue. As they enter this line, the sign constructs the people and gives this identity and the people give the construction of "this is an institution's line that has more power than I have." The importance of this co-construction is that it "does not pre-exist its social life" and therefore needs the people to give it the ability to form a line, both theoretically and in actuality (Rose 220).

This argument is further understood through the lens of a producer/consumer relationship. Leiss claims "that persuasion is not only good for society as a whole but that, in fact, consumers want to be persuaded. Affluent societies are characterized by a scarcity of time, because as we produce more and more goods, we require correspondingly more and more time to enjoy them fully" (Leiss 44). This idea, that people are pressed for time and want to be convinced of things, shines light on the concept of the people giving power to the institution of the airport itself. In society today, the constant rush and hurrying of people has force people either to make faster decisions or to give up the right to make decisions for themselves; in a public forum, the latter is the only proper form. It could be because of this that people so willingly become passengers and enter lines, obeying "restricted area" signs even though it may technically help them get to their plane faster. The very existence of such signs is almost a flaunt of power by the institution of the airport; since people no longer have their own will, and according to Leiss want to be persuaded after giving up their will, they become passenger "robots" that obey the minute details of the airport signs. The pictures of the Puerto Vallarta trip package can be an extension of this power. Because the passengers are already so duped into following lines and staying out of restricted areas, maybe the power the airport holds can be used to persuade them of things they don't need. In this way, "the manner in which production generally becomes organized in such a way that one of its moments necessarily passes through the visual, that is, that it creates and image that (while the tip of the iceberg) is essential to the general management, organization, and movement of the economy" establishes the power of the airport into a purpose: to make money (Peaslee 204-205). While not all images in airports are particularly about the airports, they also take aspects of anthropology into account, expanding this idea of the use of power and knowledge in creating a profit for the carrier of that authority. Edwards (2002) describes how images are able to be broken down into their content, their material, and their presentational forms. While these three ads have the same image, only stretched to different lengths and heights, they are still presented in different ways. The different material forms in these three airport ads are the banner, the smooth picture, and the internet advertisement. While their presentation is similar as far as layout, offer, and information, these ads find difference in their location, one hanging as arriving passengers descend the stairs to exit the building, one is presented to departing or visiting people, and the last is given to the online audience in hopes of persuading people in the earlier stages of planning a trip. This difference could be to reach these three distinct sets of people in hopes that the hopelessness of being a passenger "robot" would have set in by now and the offer would look more appeasing. These images can be cross-analyzed through an anthropological and discourse analysis II lens. The power and authority that airports have as they move people through the areas also allow them to advertise to them, especially if the convincing produces them to use airports more. Because of this authority and the actualization that the images have when they are seen, these images have the "purposefullness" to exist. Due to the multiple audiences they reach, they are able to exist for different reasons. The banner almost welcomes newcomers to the Austin area, similar to how people would hold a banner or a sign up welcoming someone they were waiting for, like a relative or a foreign exchange student. At the same time, the glossy ad behind the screen becomes a sort of symbol for the interpellation that has already occurred with the people who entered the airport by car instead of by plane. Finally, the internet ad purposes to hook people into a deal they weren't expecting.
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