ABSTRACT
Political science and international relations (IR) have recently experienced a visual turn. Previously neglected, the study of visual artefacts has gained momentum across a variety of subfields, ranging from political communication to security studies. Political scholarship on visuality displays meaningful differences, which largely overlap with broader epistemological divides between positivist and post-positivist social science. The political meanings and implications of logos have largely remained neglected. This chapter provides a thorough literature review on visual politics and business logos. It provides an overview of Political Science scholarship focusing on visual artefacts. The chapter focuses on IR reviewing the growing literature that examines the impact of pictures, flags, uniforms, maps, and the other visual items that serve as the background of international politics. It reviews the work on logos conducted by scholars of semiotics and marketing studies, the two disciplines that have dedicated more systematic attention to these visual artefacts.
