• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.41
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• pp.75-107
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• 2008

The paper aims to figure out the meaning of money in terms of communication in which we can find the specific communicative and cultural form of money. In the modern capitalist society, we cannot limit money within the economical terms - for example, store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account and means of payment - because money mediates all human activities beyond the economic boundary and conveys specific meaning in the social and the cultural area. Money can be the medium of the cultural and the communicational as well as the medium of the economic. In this respect, we've try to articulate money with linguistic or semiotic insight. Through this theoretical dialogue, we find two significations of money as a medium of communication. The first signification is meta-signification which drives the individual to the unlimited accumulation of the money. Meta-signification displace the second signification of the money that is the singular, over-determined and the mosaic significations. In this process money can be the signifier without signification. And then, money is the Master signifier which all sign should be identified imaginary. Finally, Money is not only the re-presense (Darstellung) of all sings but also the representative (Vertretung) of all signs. But this double position creates some tensions and makes master signifier of money unstable. Man's analysis of Bonapartism, which shares the linguistic or semiotic insight, shows the crack of the re-presence between the representative. Like Marx's analysis, the money has the tension between two signification which makes the room for the struggle to signify.