Comm 2302 Spring 20

Summary: 

The reading discusses how sexual advertisements have been both useful and detrimental in the eyes of consumers. Prior to 1955, it played a key role in getting women to purchase products full of ‘sexual promises’ that often left them with ‘dead enthusiasm’ and low numbers of loyal customers. Therefore, women post 1955 look towards products that would make them more respected as partners. It showed the thought process of how sexualizing women in ads would impact sales. In addition, trial and error allowed for business’ to determine to what extent sexualizing women was positive. Distress’ study of ‘Mistress vs. Wife’ was mentioned. This concept involved getting men’s attention with something more sexually appealing to bring them in and then selling them something more wife material. Marketing strategies shifted to reassuring women of their femininity. A key finding in the reading states “products have fundamental differences of meaning for men and women.” Overall, the article takes key examples of how this has been observed with different companies and products.

Outside Example: 

This outside example is a skittle commercial that was banned. The commercial was meant to drive consumers to a “feeling” that they felt is desirable by most. IN the commercial skittles are used during a scene of intercourse. The approach to make it more ‘acceptable’ was to put the two individuals in clothing that implied they had just gotten married. However, the overall concept was banned for the explicit content and ultimately over sexualization.

Connection: 

This is directly correlated to the article because it talks about how companies attempt to sexualize individuals and products to increase sales. However, this strategy often backfires if they over sexualize, which occurred in this commercial. In the article they stated that when companies realize they have gone too far they might re-evaluate their approach. Similar to Marlboros 1956 observation of sexualizing their product more towards women would not increase sales considering men were their primary smokers, Skittles saw a flaw in their strategy as well. Skittles realized that this ad would not increase sales because the men’s masculinity was downplayed and the women was not seen as more feminine or respected, in fact it was the opposite.

Reading Summary

In this reading, we learned about the semiotic method and how it helps guide us to interpreting different meanings of media. The semiotic method allows you to look at signs or symbols and determine the underlying meaning of that piece of context. This technique helps us understand more than just what is being portrayed in front of our eyes. There are four elemental principles of semiotics that are frequently used to interpret data and text. First is that a meaning of a sign can be found within relations in a system. This means in order to break down the sign, you must know which system it belongs to and why. The second elemental principle is finding the denotative and connotative meanings of signs. To be more specific, denotation is a sign’s first level meaning or what it is directly showing, and connotation is the indirect meaning of a sign. The third principle is that connotative significance involves abduction and over determination. Abduction is searching for the most explanatory answer within data, and over-determination is the multiple causes behind a cultural phenomenon. Lastly, the fourth elemental principle states that cultural myths are reflections of their builders’ values rather than logic which ties into social reality and how humans experience the world. While it is true to say that signs can be broken down and analyzed differently, the main idea behind the semiotic method is to question and analyze everything.

Outside Example

When reading this text, I kept thinking about how pop culture has been a significant influence on how audiences take in media. It reminded me of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire because there are so many hidden, indirect meanings within the movie that reflect our society today as well as direct context clues. The movie begins with characters Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) having to join a Victors Tour. There is corruption and rebellion in their capital which makes Katniss have some concern. They then find out, President Snow has too much power over his people and decides to have yet another Hunger Games. The basic premise of the Hunger Games is to control population and bring balance to a society that has been born through lots of poverty but also lots of wealth.

Reading Connection

The movie’s cover shows Jennifer Lawrence pointing an arrow as she is surrounded by black, orange, and red flames. The dominant color is red in this particular picture which shows anger, passion, rage, power, aggression, and war. These are all words that describe the sequel as Katniss is the leader of the rebellion of President Snow. This would be considered a denotative sign because it is directly showing the themes of the movie by showing specific colors. Audiences can see red, black, and darker shades throughout most of the film as death and rebellion are common themes in the film. There are also connotative signs in the movie that are trickier to find, like how the movie warns us about population control and how tyrannical government leaders can be corrupt. President Snow is a great example of a connotative sign because he describes what a “good” society is to Katniss as he tries to manipulate her into doing something that is wrong. There are plenty of underlying messages throughout this film and I think using the semiotic method to analyze/interpret this movie would be very interesting.   

Reading Summary

As pop culture begins to be a topic studied to find the real meaning of signs in higher education, there was a need to develop a method that would be able to separate personal opinions from real evidence to support a claim. Semiotics is a method developed to study pop culture signs and finding the underlying meaning rather than the direct meaning. In recent years we have seen a shift in the meaning of what a vampire represents in pop culture. Before, a vampire was a evil, horrific figure such as the story dracula (1897). Now it is considered to be a sexy, sympathetic, and cool young adult like in Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. To be able to find the connotative meaning of a sign involves both abduction and over determination. We also need to keep in mind cultural mythologies (the form each individual views the world) to know the values or beliefs of the builder.

Source: Maasik, S. & Solomon, J. (2012). “The semiotic method.” Excerpt from Signs of life in the USA., 17 pages.

Outside Example

Reading this chapter reminded me of Prometheus a 2012 film directed by Ridley Scott where a team of explorers follows a star map of several ancient civilizations seeking the origins of humanity. When they arrive they begin to find clues that an alien civilization once thrived on that planet but some crew members begin to worry about the reason the civilization went extinct. Soon after, the crew finds themselves fighting for their lives against unknown horrors. In the end, only one crew member and an android escaped and set a new voyage to meet with the creators of humans.

Reading Connection

In “Signs of Life in the USA” the authors talk about how signs have a denotative and a connotative meaning. This reminded me of the movie Prometheus which is a prequel to the Alien saga because it has an underlying meaning that might not be clear by watching the movie once. I was really into these movies a few years ago and read about the hidden meaning in Prometheus. Its denotative meaning is an alien movie where humans have to fight for their lives against aliens. However, if you look into the movie you find a lot of clues of how this movie is actually about sacrifice vs survival. We see the selfishness of various crew members which leads to them getting killed and the sacrifices made by a few members in hope of their friends surviving and escaping.

READING SUMMARY

The semiotic method involves interpreting signs; signs are anything that have meaning. The method of semiotics is well-suited for analyzing pop culture. There are four elemental principles of semiotics. The first is that the meaning of a sign can be found within its relations in a system, so to figure out the meaning of a sign, you must know which system it belongs to. A system of beliefs or values is also called a cultural mythology, which controls the way we view reality. The second involves finding the denotative and connotative meanings of signs. Denotation is a sign’s first level of meaning or what it shows directly, and connotation is what a sign suggests indirectly or its political/cultural significance. The third principle is that connotative significance involves abduction, which is a search for the most likely explanation, and over-determination, which is the numerous causes behind a cultural phenomenon. The fourth is that cultural myths are reflections of their builders’ values rather than the laws of nature or logic, as social reality is created by humans and how we experience the world. The semiotic method also has its challenges; how you interpret something is a product of who you are, as culture shapes our values and perspectives. Systems are coded differently by different cultures, and the winner of the cultural code, or mythology, sees it as the truth. Overall, the idea with the semiotic method is to question everything.

OUTSIDE EXAMPLE

The first thing that came to mind when I was reading about the semiotic method, especially when I saw the first page of the reading (very colorful), was the meaning behind color. I’ve always been a fan of those ‘what do these colors say about you’ type of things, and when I looked up examples of the semiotic method, the meanings behind colors was one of the first examples to show up. Colors in particular contain a lot of meaning. We associate red with anger or blood, green with nature and peace, yellow with happiness and sunshine, and blue with the ocean and sadness.

READING CONNECTION

The meanings behind colors, as I said before, have always been very interesting to me. I really like the color blue, so I looked up the meaning behind it. It is often associated with sadness, but also the ocean as well as calmness. Online, it said that blue is connected to depth, stability, and tranquility. It is also a color of trust, loyalty, wisdom, truth, intelligence, and confidence. The use of this color also contains meaning, though blue is used a lot. For example, the Democratic party in the US is associated with the color blue. The color blue could be analyzed with the semiotic method; it is connected to so many different systems and used in a wide variety of items, symbols, and more. So many things that involve blue could be analyzed, but all of its different meanings and how it is used in society and the world is very interesting.

Summary

Chapter 8 discusses the different strategies ad companies used in the mid 20th century to advertise their products to a specific sex.  These companies also discovered that men and women both want to be reassured of their masculinity and femininity, and by creating advertisements for reassurement, sales improved.  Many companies originally used rather sexist techniques or images to advertise their products, but many psychological studies taught them better ways to appeal to consumers. For example, one study showed that the commonly “masculine” drink of whiskey and gin was being consumed by women as well, and by subtly altering their labels, this product became more appealing to women.  Sales increased without transforming the product to being entirely feminine. Chapter 9 analyzes how people rely on food for psychological and emotional needs as well as physical ones, and that this stems from society’s oral fixation that develops as an infant. It discussed how our moods or mindset determines what we will consume. For example, the chapter states that obese people prefer foods that they know and love, rather than trying new foods.  Also social doctrines affect food, meaning that a producer will not advertise his high calorie milk if society values being thinner and healthier.  

Example

The topics covered in Chapter 9 reminded me of the ASMR phenomenon in 2019.  Everyone could not explain why they enjoyed watching and listening to these videos so much, but they just knew they could not stop watching it.  These videos consisted mainly of someone whispering something, clicking their fingernails on their teeth, or chewing certain foods that produced odd sounds that were found to be very satisfying to viewers or listeners.  There was even one YouTube channel of a girl who ate strange things like deodorant and glass for her ASMR videos, and somehow it was so disturbing that it received enough views to encourage her to continue producing uncomfortable ASMR videos. 

Connection

This example can be linked to Chapter 9 because this chapter discusses the numerous ways that people are orally fixated.  Many advertisements are edited to make someone’s mouth water or want to bite into the food, and this is because these companies are aware of how effective advertisements are when they are targeting society’s oral fixation.  This is also a strategy used with cigarette advertisements in the fifties, and the chapter indicates that cigarettes and cigars appeal to the thumb sucking and breastfeeding that everyone experiences as a child. ASMR videos also appeal to society’s oral fixation and appeal to mouths because many of the sounds are created by whispering or eating strange things.

Reading Summary

The study of pop culture is finally starting to become more common. The study of pop culture grows as we move away from entertainment being available to only the upper class. A sign is something that carries meaning. Anything in pop culture or entertainment is a sign because of this Shows and movies can carry meaning just like a book or short story could. Words that carry meaning are called signs or  text. 

The semiotics method is a method that allows you to look at text and signs and determine the actual meaning of what you are seeing. Semiotics determines how the meaning of things are more than just what you can visually see. Meanings change over time and also have political dimensions to them. Political dimensions means it has a group interest behind its meaning. Denotation is what you visually see and connotation is what meaning there is beyond what you see. When determining the reason behind a sign abduction is when there is a claim of one meaning behind it. Overdetermination is when more than one reason is behind a meaning of a sign.

Vampires today are not portrayed the same as they always have been. They now carry the context of being young, cool, and sexy. They used to be immortal recluses who were terrified. Now we have Twilight. This change came because of a change in portrayals over time. The portrayals shifted to reflect the wants of people in modern society. People don’t want fear, they want vampires to reflect the foil of their life. This is where semiotics play a part in taking pop culture and using it to understand the serious issues of the world we live in.

Source: Maasik, S. & Solomon, J. (2012). “The semiotic method.” Excerpt from Signs of life in the USA., 17 pages.

Outside Example 

Star Wars: A New Hope is known for having influences from current political events during its creation in the 70’s. The closest comparison it has had is to the vietnam war and how the american democracy had turned into a power hungry empire that tried to take over other countries and cause war for no other reason than greed. The empire is led by Palpatine, aka the president, who sends out his army and Darth Vadar, aka his general, to take over these other planets. George Lucas has admitted that the script was based on the American philosophy when it comes to war. He was fascinated by the idea of how “how democracies get turned into dictatorships”.

Article: https://www.pacificcouncil.org/newsroom/how-international-politics-influenced-%E2%80%9Cstar-wars%E2%80%9D

Reading ConnectionThe way that Maasik and Solomon talk about signs is interesting.When it comes to Star Wars: a New Hope, the denotation is the movie is a space opera about good versus evil. When it comes to connotation, you can identify the parallels of how the movie matches with the serious issues of society. Despite the fact George Lucas said it explicitly, the movie itself can be interpreted to have that meaning. Had the movie been created before the Vietnam war, the meaning of the movie might be completely different from what it was originally for. The political dimension to the movie existed from Lucas’s agenda behind creating the movie.

Reading Summary

Gestalt theory refers to a series of laws that describe how our brains perceive objects. Of the laws, four are relevant to design. The rule of proximity states that objects that are close together tend to be in the same group. The rule of similarity states that we group things with other similar things. The rule of continuity states that we continue patterns past their natural ends and that our eyes will naturally follow lines. The rule of closure states that we automatically make shapes out of white space.
In addition to Gestalt theory, we can make more dynamic designs by adding hierarchy, which entails emphasizing some details and hiding others so that readers can discern what is most important on the page. Examples of hierarchy can most often be found in newspapers. Newspapers follow a modular, or rectangle, page design and are accompanied by their own set of rules. To keep a newspaper looking clean and easy to follow, pay attention to the rules regarding the body copy, headline, deck, byline, photos, and cut-line.

Outside Example

When reading about visual hierarchy, I thought about how important it is for sports and games to display key information in a clear manner.

This screenshot from a professional League of Legends game. There is a great deal of information on display here: team names and player names, champion icons, how much gold each team has, the number of kills in the match, etc..

Reading Connection

Though there is a lot of information, it all largely follows the hierarchy of visual design. The game itself is front and center, which is where a viewer’s eyes would be most of the time. Important game dialogue, such as an objective being destroyed, is also front and center. For someone familiar with the game, it is easy to see where the key information is and what is being presented. For someone unfamiliar with the game, they may still get a sense of what is important based on what information is on display. For instance, though you may not know what the big 6 and 1 means at the top center of the screen, you can see that the Blue team is winning.

Reading Summary

The article describes how, in the 1990s, the Subaru car company recovered itself from an almost terrible downfall by beginning to target to lesbians. The idea of making ads targeted to lesbians was progressive but still very risky because the LGBT community was not culturally accepted yet. The company decided to go with the idea after many meetings which included one with a Japanese man who said that Canada had already done it and succeeded. Although the company suffered a lot of backlash from many people and other companies, the company seemed to meet the goal to attract the large and underrepresented group of lesbians. After making them public, the advertisements started to gain attention from different standing points since they were radically out-of-the-normal. In order to prevent lawsuits or a bigger negative crowd, the company decided to strategically place subtle hints that only members of the LGBT community would understand. As a result, the company began to be accepted again and this time by both straight and gay people. The LGBT community did not backlash the company for the change of the ads because the company openly supported their community and is still considered a “gay-friendly” brand.

Outside Example

My example is a commercial by Gillette razors named “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be.” The commercial caught my attention because it isn’t your typical manly commercial that shows men in tough situations or anything similar to that. Instead, the commercial shows men in another light, as possible sex offenders or unaware advocates for gender inequality. The commercial ends saying that men can be better than what their current label is. I chose this ad because it clearly targets men and their current situation of always being seen as a possible harmful figure in society when they can be and are better than being a machista.

Connection

The Gillette commercial and the reading connect because both companies took risky decisions in their marketing strategies. Ever since I was little, I remember the Gillette commercials always showing a physically fit man in his 20s without a shirt or a good-looking 40 year old man shaving in front of the mirror and then trying to impress the ladies. This type of technique of appealing to man masculinity was very popular for many advertisements back in the day. A couple of years ago, gender equality was not supported by a large number of people just like the LGBT community wasn’t at the time that the Subarus commercial was put out. Another similarity between the two ads is that the Gillette commercial is also very different but progressive just like the Subarus one.

The Gillette commercial starts by showing really close-up shots of men’s faces which is very unusual because close-ups tend to humanize a person more. In the background of the ad you can hear several news reports of men sexually assaulting women or of the #metoo movement as men reflect in the mirror. I really liked that part of the advertisement because it made it seem like men are reflecting on the person they want to become which is the whole purpose. Going back to the article, the Subarus advertisement made a difference in how society viewed the LGBT community and I believe that Gillette is trying to attempt the same outcome with men by changing not only society’s view but also men’s view of themselves.

Reading Summary

In Debbie Does Salad, Kaufman compares food porn to pornography and explains how they are intercorrelated. The goal of both is to urge desire and satisfaction through visual pleasure. He focuses on the creation of food centered shows and refers to porn shots and videography that depict the same idea. The reason that Food Network is constantly gaining popularity is due to its ability to create and fulfill a need and satisfaction for the viewer. The setting is clean and inviting and the food created is relayed in a way that emphasizes simplicity and the ability for anyone to recreate the meal. To increase desire, the angle of the food shots is close up and clear to create a mouthwatering sensation.  

Outside Example

This article reminded me of the Tasty buzzfeed videos. These videos start with the finished product to draw attention to the video. The video lasts about 30 seconds in which it shows the entire recipe being completed from start to finish giving off the impression of simplicity. The food is zoomed in and has the perfect editing to induce the visually pleasing effect. I’m always drawn to these videos because they’re short and I belong to a generation obsessed with food and aesthetically pleasing images. Although I have never made a recipe from one of these videos, I watch and save them as if I will and do.

Reading Connection

The Buzzfeed Tasty videos are accomplishing the exact same goal as Food Network in satisfying desires concerning food. Food Network is slightly more personable in that a person is talking to you directly and the Tasty videos are solely food. I believe this is because they are short and want to create an immediate desirable effect to gain attention. Whereas with Food Network shows, the length is extended and therefore the process is elongated. One could say they both share the same outcome but with a variation of plots. Food Network shows build up to the final product whereas the Tasty videos present you the product automatically. The goal of both is to convey a sense of satisfaction through visual images. 

Summary:

“Debbie does Salad” suggests that sex porn and gastroporn are extremely similar. Both forms of entertainment cater to basic human needs (sexual desire and hunger respectively). To quote Bob Tuschman, TV producers create a “sensual lush world, begging you to be drawn into it” (57). Although we want to be part of that world, our attempts to replicate what we see on screen or in print rarely match up given the great detail (ie. lighting, buffing etc.) and many hands involved in production.

Outside Example:

One example I thought of while reading the article are Pinteresters’ attempts to recreate cakes seen on the website. Although delicious, these attempts tend to go horribly wrong as seen below.

Connection to Reading:

As mentioned in the reading, recreating what we see on TV or printed in recipe books is an almost impossible endeavor. Although replicating this monkey cake may seem an easy feat, the cake only looks the way it does due careful planning and execution. The picture is likely edited while the lighting, the positioning of the cake and the setting of the scene (ie. the color scheme, bowl of maltesers, candles) were specifically chosen to make the cake “pop”. With this intense organization in mind, it’s no wonder the average Pinterester falls short of the mark.