Affiliation:
1. School of Social Sciences & Global Studies, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Abstract
This paper proposes a qualitative methodological framework grounded in the interpretation of skeuomorphs. Scholarly attention to this phenomenon has largely come from the spheres of archaeology and design/technology. Drawing on Benjamin's ideas about the interpretive scope of objects, I propose that skeuomorphs reflect the social conditions of their creation and can therefore be the starting point for generating a series of contemporary sociological insights. The proposed framework is applied to two case studies for the purpose of clarification.