THE SEMIOTICS OF WRISTWATCHES

This article examines wristwatches as meaning-bearing objects, essenti al to modern industrial societies. It discusses the everyday uses of w ristwatches, including occasions on which they are given as gifts, ges tures in which they are involved, and their role as cybernetic devices for modern workforces. It then looks at three advertisements which in dicate how wristwatches are linked to the larger ideological assumptio ns of North American society. The paper concludes with an account, sup ported by evidence from these advertising texts, of changing attitudes to time in the postmodern period.