Essay Proposal

A proposed essay title or topic

A comparison of male and female representation in advertising.

The main issues addressed by your argument (in bullet points)

•        The differences between male and female orientated marketing, focussing on deodorant advertisement.
•        Sexism and objectification in advertising over the years.
•        Roles of men and women contemporary society.
•       How much so are the issues raised self perpetuated, and is there a need for change?

Any visual material that you will look at (include hyperlinks if possible)

http://www.lynxeffect.com/#/home.aspx

http://www.sureforwomen.co.uk/women/home_woman.html

http://www.mya.co.uk/ppcmya2/

What theoretical approach / methodology will you use? e.g. marxism, the gaze, psychoanalysis etc

-       Gaze theory

Which specific theorists / writers will you refer to?

-       Michel Foucault

-       John Berger

-       Rosalind Coward                                                                                             

-       Germaine Greer

-       Natasha Walter
Laura Mulvey

At least 5 books / articles / resources already located (referenced using Harvard)

Gauntlett, D., (2008), Media, Gender and Identity, Routledge (Oxfordshire),

Thomas, J., (2001), Reading Images, Plagrave (Hampshire)
Mills, S., (2003), Michel Foucault, Routledge (Oxon)
Cohen, M,  Mast, G,  Braudy, L,  eds., (1992), Film Theory & Criticism: Introductory Readings,
Foucault, M., (          ) Discipline & Punish,
Chandler, D., Notes on 'The Gaze', [online] (Updated 10/04/2000) Available at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze.html

Task 2, Adorno on Popular Music (1941)

Adorno's article sets to highlight the difference between what he describes as 'popular' and 'serious' music. Adorno himself was a sociologist and philosopher, with marxist influences, however generally rejected by many of the Marxist philosophers of the age.

He describes the standardisation that exists within popular music, wherein every song conforms to the same structure, "best known is the rule that the chorus consists of thirty two bars and the range is limited to one octave and one note". What I find particularly interesting is, considering the time period, Adorno's 'popular music' is in fact what we would consider to be the roots of all that is good in our music industry today, the beginnings of Jazz, big band and swing. It seems that Adorno has described the problem of our music industry long before his time, with our current array of repetitive dance anthems and the clones churned out by X-factor. Adorno argues that this kind of standardisation promotes 'standard reactions' - 'wholly antagonistic to the ideal of individuality in a free, liberal society'. 

I believe if Adorno has a case here, it can be applied more correctly to contemporary music than the music of his day. His ideas of pseudo individualisation, i.e. the falsity of our seemly free choices, can be applied more correctly to our current situation, where everything is watched, monitored, and laid out for us like a 'multiple choice questionnaire', more so that it was 70 years ago. Adorno also touches on the idea of belonging, feeling a connection with a group of people through the same music, instead of striving to be more intellectual and selective in our choices.

"obedience to this rhythm by overcoming the responding individuals leads them to conceive of themselves as agglutinised with the untold millions of the meek who must be similarly overcome. Thus do the obedient inherit the earth."

This particularly negative view on what must have been quite an experimental and fun time for music, is where I feel  the worth in this article fails. With regard to the current musical happenings, there is now so much variety out there, some of which is standardised and conforms, some of which doesn't - yet both with equal worth - that if you don't like the record, you're more free now than you ever were to put something else on. I agree this does nothing for the 'millions of meek' who still buy 'Now That's What I Call Music', but at least this multiple choice questionnaire now has more choices.

Task 1, Panopticism in Contemporary Culture

Panopticism is a theory developed by the french philosopher Michel Foucault. His theory is based upon the panopticon, a type of prison designed in the 1700's allowing all the prisoners to be watched at any given time, though Foucault's theory expands on this as he applies panopticism to past events, such as the plague.


Panopticism can be applied to many modern situations, the most obvious of which being our current state of affairs regarding CCTV observation. The argument being that CCTV cameras are there for our own safety and protection, but to what extent? Foucault argues that after a length of time being observed by an 'unknown power' we being to self regulate even when the panoptic gaze has been removed. We are no longer free to do what we please in a world where someone might be watching, and this is enough to make us 'docile' and 'malleable'.


 "All mechanisms of power, which, even today, are disposed around the abnormal individual, to brand him and to alter him."


...To make him self regulate and fit in with society. The CCTV operation is exactly this, we are a surveillance society constantly being 'trained and corrected' by our constant observation.






All quotes taken from Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault (1975)

Lecture 6, Globalisation, Sustainability and The Media - notes

Socialist - unify the world, collective, cultural

Capitalist - expand territories

Cultural globalisation - homogenised, standard, unified 

'Mcdonaldisation' - George Ritzer 'society takes on the characteristics of the fast food restaurant.'

Marshall Mcluhan

• Idea of the 'global villiage
• Technology shrinks the world
• Technology is an extension of our senses 
• like radio is an extension of our ears etc.

Global Village Thesis

'more in touch with the world, more responsible' - slightly naive viewpoint, utopian.

Iraq front line - brought to our front rooms

Media - an extension of our minds?

Jihad vs Mcworld. - book based on a 1992 article.

 - war between the east and west, religion vs. secular state

- centripetal / centrifugal force - action-reaction force pair associated with circular motion

Problems of globalisation

   - removes state individuality, thus our identities

   - accountability

   - cultural imperialism and dominance, instead of a 'cultural rainbow' 

KEY THINKERS

• Schiller
• Chomsky 
• Imperialism through ways of thinking rather than physical strength.

Oligopolies (4/5 of these are in the USA)

Time Warner owns hundered of smaller outlets

 - media outlets owned by the same company will not have individual views.

- 'marketing importance'

.....................................................................................................................................................................

• Flow of American culture through out the world
•  can almost map this on physical imperialism of old.
• looking to America as our cultural leader...
• Schiller - 'social dominance through the spreading of Americanisation to countries that cannot afford it.'

Big Brother example...

Skin Lightening example...

 - the world seeks to be the same. but to an American model.

Manufacturing Consent - Herman & Chomsky 1988 

- Mass propaganda, seeking to turn the world into the same American model.

- Propaganda Model

Oligops - media for profit, news in particular - capitalist.

Sourcing - news reports are in the interest of the west.. as thats where the news reporters are?

FLAK

- negative responses to news stories

- pay offs

- bribes

- falsely manufactured science! (GCC Example, covered up)

Anti Ideologies  - Anti-ideologies exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real, exaggerated, or imagined.

e.g. - the environmental protestors attacked and labeled 'eco-terrorists' 

Al Gore's - An Inconvenient Truth... sensationalist.

- current argument as to wether or not this film should be shown in the U.S as part of their national curriculum. 

Gordon Brown - "Flat Earthers"

• Jim Inhofe
• Nigel Lawson - "wouldn't be too bad if the world warmed up"

Flak Video - counter sustainability attack.

nuclear power? a green solution?

- money as an exchange for pollution... buying air space from less privileged countries.

Sustainability - buzzword since 1987

Sustainability under capitalism

example..

• Biofuels...
• renewable
• clean
• more expensive
• morally unsound...
• BIOX
• Hamilton ghetto
• built in a designated green space
• tremors destroyed houses
• chemical releases 

Capitalist project to 'solve the worlds problems' , but cause more problems than then solve.

GREENWASHING.

- A company who presents an eco-friendly image, though doesn't necessarily back this up. 

Mcdonalds green logo example

Ford 'Eco-boost' example

Kimberly Clark 'natural nappies' example

Environmentalism

 - Al Gore - reforming...

 - a solution within capitalism

Ecologism 

- Almost a communist view

- belief in a new system..

Victor Papanek - ‘Most things are designed not for the needs of the people but for the needs of manufacturers to sell to people’ (Papanek, 1983:46) Design for the Real Word

Shepard Fairey  - manifesto - http://obeygiant.com/about

Lecture 5, Hyperreality - notes

Jean Baudrillard 

• controversial, outspoken
• didn't like these labels placed on him
• structuralism + post structuralism 
• Key theorist of post modernism 

Precursors 

• Karl Marx
• Labour theory of value 
• Ferdinand Saussure 
• Swiss linguist - Theory of linguistic value
• Theory of the sign
• Guy Debord
• Society of the spectacle (image culture)
• Marshall McCluhan
• Simulation (media is the message)
• Georges Bataille
• Ritual + sacrifice 
• Theory of the general economy
• Marcel Mauss
• The gift - an economic principle

Jean Baudrillard 

Simulacra and Simulation (1975) - most famous work

Symbolic Exchange and Death

The Illusion of the End

Context...

• Vietnam war + media representation of this
• 60's counter culture
• Situationism 1968
• Consumerism + mass media
• End of colonialism 
• The cold war
• Watergate Scandal 

Collapse of modern utopia 

     - social housing complexes

     - ideas of progression and development 

Koyaanisqatsi - 1982 cult film, part of the quatsi series. Koyaanisqatsi means 'crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living'

- Rise of post modernism

   - disorientating modern spaces - beginning of hyperreality..?

"The map becomes it's territory"

Plato's Allegory of the cave

• Pseudo reality, imitation of reality
• theory also rejects art as this is also a representation of the world, making it as false as the cave shadows.

Simulacra = a lack of reality?

- sacraments 

- manifestants 

- sorcery

                          - examples

ouija boards 

- a representation of another reality? or a mask that hides the fact that there is none?

Disneyfication

castle example

Which is real? the original cartoon of the actual castle in florida?

Neither, they are both copies as there is no original!

Reality Tv

Big brother example

debunks Foucault's theory of panopticism 

Big Brother reverses the theory of observation and control, we are now watching them.

Matrix "welcome to the desert of the real"

Blade Runner

- representation of a modern industrial city

- orientalist, a representation of a 'post modern age'

- a post modern pastiche (a mish-mash)

                        .....................................................................

The Gulf war did not take place -Baudrillard (1993)

 - Media representation of the war, we have no real concept of what happened

End of History?

Berlin wall example

- representation of the west culture winning over the east

- paves the way for globalisation

- Baudrillard would be quick sceptical of this.

Slavoj Zizek 'welcome to the desert of the real'

- This guy likes to stir controversy

Escape from New York

paragliding into the WTC's - a bird's eye view of the catastrophe to follow..

Lecture 4, Communication theory - notes

Laswells maxim

• who - the communicator
• what - the tools of communication
• to who - the recipient 

communication is either transmissional or constitutive (with limitations)

Shannon + weaver bell example

   - a model designed for telephone, but can be applied elsewhere..

The 'noise' is something that effects communication e.g., if I were an agency with an advertising billboard communicating my message to my audience, and someone graffiti's over it, this would be considered noise.

 7 TYPES OF COMMUNICATION

Cybernetic 

                -Spawned from a book by Weiner 1948

• semiotics - study of 'signs'
• semantics - what a thing means
• syntactics  - how one sign relates to another
• pragmatics - how these signs effect change

This theory is a language (like medicine has it's own language)

It is useful when analysing anything visual

BARTHES

Semiotic pasta example

- red, white and green to show authenticity, even though it was produced in France. etc..

Road signs example

- taught what these mean, not instinctive. 

- they are meaningless without cultural structures to give them meaning.

Phenomenological 

                      -phenomenon - appearance of an object in someone's perception

• Actual lived experience as a basis for future opinions and thoughts
• Father/daughter relationship?
• Hermeneutic circle
• experience interpretation cycle...

Rhetoric 

              -persuasion tactics

• exaggeration - convinces us by making the situation seem more extreme
• use of linguistic 'cleverness'...
• personification - helps us relate by making it personally relevant
• Propaganda

                 cons - not complex enough

                           - forgets the 'receiver'

• Needs to be used in conjunction with something else
• Rhetoric can be applied to an image

Metaphor

                -remembering by making associations 

Trash can example ( power point slide fairly self explanatory)

Sociopsychology

                      - science, physical factors

• cognitive - processing
• biological 
• behavioural - how people react in certain situations

Image and text are interpretted totally differently

Sociocultural

                   - how the world shapes us

• how social context effects communication
• student, asian, etc...

Critical theory

              - unpicking the power structure.