商品の社會的定義の歷史的展開 -日本におけるポケットべルのイメ一ジを事例として-

Historical Development of Social Definitions of a Commodity, Part l: A Case Study of the Common Images of Pager in Japanese Society

The purpose of this study, which contains two parts, is to examine the influence of physical/technical changes in characteristics of a commodity on the formation of common images of the commodity (Which will be called social definition in this study) In the first stage of this part of the study, the theories relevant to the two aspects of a commodity-its physical/technical characteristics and its images-is reviewed and it is argued that most of the theories have tended to concentrate on only one of the two aspects next, the concept of social definition of a commodity that has been developed is explained, Finally, a cases study of changes of the social definitions and the physical/technical characteristics of the pager in Japan from 1968 to 1996 is conducted by the analysis of both the contents of 156articles selected from various magazines and data selected from archival documents.