"Personalisation"

Bring the 'Man' out








This is quite an effective and convincing way to present something. It shows the evolution of man in five minutes. If we have a closer look it is mentions the time. It is assumed that even a monkey can turn to a man with that particular razor. It is at the same time funny and convincing as the message is delivered effectively. I must say there is a resemblance.

Swap-swap

A WOMAN'S DREAM










Why are women seen as the weakest when she gives life?
This immoral thinking. This picture is like really the dream of every women as they only know this pain of delivering a child. We should respect women. All I wanted to show is that men should have live the life of a woman at least once to know how it is difficult and not look down upon them. 

Gender

Gender is ideological and invests with them with cultural meanings. Ideas of gender offer themselves to us as natural and timeless but are in fact a product of history. When this topic is brought forward, we come across may contradictions which later results to gender discrimination. As we live  in a male dominating world, women are considered as the weaker sex. It is believed that a real mother is someone who should not work. This has been such since years ago. So in a way women have always been seen inferior to men. Thus, everything can be imposed on them.

This picture is a duck but in a woman posture. This is discriminating as women are being compared to animals. At some point it may seem funny but it is not a proper thing to do. Women cannot be ridiculed this way. They some kind of made a joke out of women. They should respect women and treat everyone equally. 

Playing with the imagination

     " It doesn't matter what you see. "

This ad is hilarious. It is full of ambiguity. For namesake, it is a beer ad but it actually shows something else. 

" It doesn't matter what you see. What's important is what it is. What's important is the beer. "

It talks about the beer but wants us to see something else. People will easily notice that this ad is showing a hand trying to grab a breast. This is the image which is being projected and that was the only aim. Much emphasis is laid on the bigger image of the mug which looks like a breast and the full picture is in a corner of the ad; really small. It is a double-meaning ad and again the sexual connotation is present. Even the message is indicating us to stare at the 'breast.' 

Diversion

Media often diverts the mind; in either a good or bad way. Big billboards everywhere can have adverse effect. It is a good way to pass messages to people. It is quick view but still lots to know. It can also have an opposite effect. 

This ad made me laugh actually. If we take a closer look, we can see a van crushed against the wall. The billboard is about an auto glass repair ad. This is quite an effective way to advert though; putting the picture of a sexy half;naked woman to attract the attention of the men driving this way, grabbing their full attention through the help of the woman which will make them look at the billboard rather than concentrating on their way and finally bump into some wall or tree. This will increase the number of clients. Interesting concept ;)

Code of sexual attraction

Sometimes the element of sex is propagated in order to attract the attention of people. This is quite a bad thing. Some ads are really R-rated. It is not good for people to be exposed to such things; especially children. This will have a bad impact on those children who are exposed to such things. That is why many ads have been banned. There were even ads which are full of vulgarity which can divert the mind of people. 

This is a pefume ad. It is a very sensual one. It seems as if the woman in there is having some kind of orgasm. I actually do not get it; what's the point of putting so much seduction in it. It is only a perfume ad. I do not see what relates the perfume to 'seduction.' This may have effect on people. They will get every sort of ideas coming to their mind; bad and good which has mininum chances of giving good ideas. This is quite provocative though. 

Superficiality, Fakeness, Misconception...?

Superficiality is a common thing in the media-world. It the way people are presented which actually is not a real representation of them or a modified version. Taking magazine covers as an example everyone looks good and it is only the outer part of the people being projected; especially with celebrities. They are presented in such a way that everyone would laud and praise them. 

A picture of the famous Kim Kardashian's picture and how she is presented in front of the audience:

Well that is what is called an awesome picture. She looks perfect and so beautiful.

Do you want a glimpse of what her real feature is? How she look in reality? So, here is another picture of her.

This is the 'real' her. 

Would you say that it is the same person? Never. She seems so different in reality. This caught my eye the moment I came across this picture.

All this only to show how fake media can be at times. People are presented in a modified way. The pictures are edited. This is distortion of reality. It not only applies for pictures but also for published things. News also are hideous as not everything is exposed. There are things which are seen as tabous for the society, thus, they again provide a distorted news.

Myth

Myth is the term used for the circulation of ideology through representation for particular ideological statements. It refers to de-politicisation or naturalisation of political ideas or values. Myth also favours consumer sovereignty. Myth sets up freedom of choice for the consumer.  It presents affluences as naturally as desirable as an existential ideal and depicts all aspects of the world as commodities to be consumed. Myth defines existence as a matter amongst commodities available to be consumed. 

Materialism

Materialism sees ideas and values as emerging from social practices and ways in which society is organised. Ideas are not universal and timeless but change as ways of living change. The idea of human equality becomes possible only within capitalist framework. The picture above shows a capitalist lady. She has a materialistic mind as we can notice from the way she is dressed and the little dog in hand. She is a victim of materialism. Thus. for materialism, our social existence is not defined as what we believe is true. This will distinguish the past from the future as the future is going to be different, better and maybe more exciting.

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ides that constitute one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things. It a set of social values, ideas, beliefs, feelings  and representations by which people collectively make sense of the world they live in. It is a naturalised, common-sense, taken for granted world-view.

The main purpose behind ideology is to offer either change in society or adherence to a set of ideals where conformity already exists through a normative thought process. 

There are two philosophical of the relation between ideas and the world. They are idealism and materialism.

Idealism understands objects and concepts in the real world as derived from ideal forms and ideas. Thus, for idealism, ideas precede reality. Reality is universal, unchanging and unchangeable.

" Societies are divided into conflicting and unequal classes; the socially powerful and the powerless. Ideology blinds us to the unequal distribution of power in society. "

Totally the wrong way

There are certain ads that do not hold any particular relationship with the product. Call it biased or immoral, it is totally the other way round.

" Pepsi ad "

For example, this pepsi ad, it has nothing to do really with the product. They took a celebrities like David Beckham in the ad to make it seem very interesting and attract the attention of people. This may have a great effect on people; especially girls. Whether this is going to encourage them to drink more pepsi, I do not know, but for sure they will be tempted. These kinds of ads are made only to promote the sale of the product or maybe they did not have any idea and wanted to try something different. Unfortunately it does not make any sense. I think most of the people could not make meaning out of it.

Stereotyping

A stereotype is a popular belief about specific types of individuals or certain way of doing things. The concept of stereotype and prejudice are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardised and simplified conceptions on people based on prior assumptions. Another name for stereotype is bias. A bias  is a tendency, most of these are good, but sometimes stereotyping can turn into discrimination if we misinterpret a bias and act upon it in a 
negative manner. It a way to marginalise certain individuals; telling things like they are not acceptable and all.

Here are some cases where people are being stereotyped:

This picture shows that however you are, you are going to be stereotyped.

Semiotics

Semiotics suggest that even the most realistic representation produce an encoded version of reality rather than reflecting or mirroring reality directly. 

We see the world through the lens of cultural knowledge. When we look we see something visually but when we see it and understand it, that is because we are seeing it through our cultural knowledge otherwise we would not make sense of it. The cultural encoding does not necessarily have to draw on any kind of natural association between the idea that is represented and the way it is represented.

Socially-constructed reality

 The world is said to be an illusion; whatever we see is not reality. We only assume and believe what we see to be reality. Even what we think is not real. This is so because there are different aspects and beliefs which contribute to that. Our reality is modified by people’s opinions, different cultures and different perspectives. Due to that fact that many groups of people give meaning to everything that is around them, this can be easily manipulated and that is where the power lies.

"The Titanic sinking Scene"

This video is from the movie " Titanic." It is based on a real story which means the sinking of the Titanic really occurred. The film was adapted after the real sinking. This video seems to be real. As the characters in it are feeling scared and the fright is clearly seen. It is a preview of how the ship sank. 

No matter how realistic it may seem, the world produced by any text is construction. This is because our media is mediated. All our access to reality is mediated through the ways we learned to see and understand through representational systems. There is no such things that is unmediated access to the real world. Reality is ‘modified’ not only because the way people see things but the representation also has a hand in whatever is being projected to us. Nowadays, everything is mediated in order for people to understand properly the message they try to pass. Representation helps us to communicate and interact more with everyone around us. Some people may take reality as being part of their emotions. We understand world through representation, thus in a way the world is said to be real as we see things and form part of this world; this reality.  

"Not a transition from “reality” to “fiction”, from “authentic representation” to “constructed image” "- Geoff King

Mislead & Influence

We all know the famous " Big Mac " of the McDonald's. Here is a picture of how it is represented.

This is the original picture of a Big Mac. It appears to be yummy.But is it how it really looks like?

Now let me show what is the Big Mac we're are usually served at the McDonald's.

Here it is: 

This is the real Big Mac. Is it the same as the advertisement representation?NO!!

So we see that some ads may be really deceiving. They provide a nice picture of the product which is actually not true. This is what is called misleading advertisements. The people are being fooled by the media in a certain way. But for sure, this is only for cases of mislead. It influences people. When they see the ads, they will be tempted to go to the McDonald's to get that Big Mac as the ad is going to encourage them to go for it but then they will surely be surprised to see the actual Big Mac which is not consumable. The ad is only good for the eyes and bad for the health. People should not get fully involved in media. They have to be careful about such ads where the real things are not published. 

Meaning and Power

Whatever is being represented to us must have the power to give meaning. Only then we will be able to deduce something out of it. Power to represent is very important as far as media is concerned because if reality is based on media, population will follow media and they should get a clear meaning of the represented idea. We highly rely on media. 

Reality v/s Media-World

The world is real, but what is media-world? Is it real?
In the picture, we see that the world is connected to media. If the world is real then media-world also is real. Is it being pulled too far? Yes it is. But with evolution we have to accept it as we all know we have to be updated with everything. Media is taking a large space in the lives of each and every one. We have become dependent on media-world. The fact that we live in a world of media, this makes it our reality now. Whether we are living in a virtual world or not, we do not actually know; which is quite similar with the fish. This is where the question of Reality v/s Media arises. 
We form part of an unreal world, we do not know because we live in it. For us, this is reality; the Media-World. Our thoughts are based on media. We no more think by ourselves or maybe we do not have trust in ourselves anymore as we have in media. We would rather take the aid of media. The media has a great impacts on people. It even affects our way of thinking. the source is the Web which actually connects us to the virtual world. It has a great hand in the change within us. Media is pervading over the world. 

Does a fish know it's wet?

In the first lecture/tutorial, we came across an ambiguous subject. There was a question as such:
" Does a fish know it's wet? "

I believe it does not know. It lives in water which is its reality. It does know what is the feeling of being wet or dry unless it is taken out of water. But it will obviously die before knowing what is dryness. Due to the fact that it lives only in water, it does not know what it is to be dry, but some people believe that fish have the concept of wet as they have to avoid being out of water. Throwing a human with the intelligence of a fish into a pool, will he know now what is being wet and what id being dry? If we see it him as a human, he will surely know as he is aware of both feelings but again as a fish he might nit actually know, or might also know. As said before the question is an ambiguous one which will only depend on the way people think, or the way the fish thinks. :)

What are we learning in Making Meanings?

Representation, Communication and Power
Relationship between the media and the world


We learn the power of representing something to communicate.
By making any representation, we should abide to the ethics it calls for.
Power to represent in news, films.
The implication of that ethics.
We must think about the ethics of that process.