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Re-branding academic institutions with corporate advertising: a genre perspective

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA, SELANGOR, MALAYSIA, dhajibah{at}salam.uitm.edu.my

The end of the 1990s witnessed the corporatization of public universities in Malaysia resulting in the publication of corporate literature in these universities and the type of writing Fairclough (1993) refers to as the marketization of academic discourse. Marketization is necessary in public universities due to stiff competition in attracting students among the public universities as well as from the increasing number of private universities. This article reports how Malaysian universities re-brand themselves using the results of an investigation on corporate brochures from these universities. The investigation employs a structural analysis and a textual analysis. Although informative in nature, these corporate brochures exhibit the use of promotional elements in the texts as seen in the contents and the language use. The communicative functions of university brochures are viewed to be more promotional than informative.

Key Words: brochures • corporate culture • genre analysis • re-branding • universities

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Discourse & Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1, 57-77 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1750481307085577


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Osman, H. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?