Dissertation books.

Hyper reality.

 An example of hyper reality in our culture is the celebrity taking on invented personas. A great example is 'The Hoff' aka David Hasselhoff. An actor most famous for shows such as Baywatch and Knightrider. His notoriety is from these shows and consequently  has ruined his credibility as an actor and singer. David disappeared for a while but came back reinvented as 'The Hoff'. David was and probably still has a serious outlook on life however once 'The Hoff' was invented there was no going back. 'The Hoff' in the public eye is a man who drinks a lot, has a lot of fun, says what he wants when he wants and generally tries to be the exact opposite of the characters that have have stuck with him from his earlier days. 'The Hoff' is Davids alter ego. From releasing ridiculous songs to drunken rampages. He has reinvented himself and to be fair he deserves a pat on the back, not many people can do this successfully. Its nice to know that amongst all of his ridiculous stunts, he is hopefully just having a laugh and not actually believing himself to be 'The Hoff'. When being interviewed by Pierce Morgan, David is quoted as saying  "No one wants to hire David Hasselhoff anymore they want to hire the Hoff" . He knows this and his playing up to it all. But if it works for him then he has succeded fooling everyone.

Ponopticism.

A ponoptic area of our society is the Immense CCTV coverage of our lives. On the one side the advantages of CCTV can  be seen first hand in the prevention of crime. However the other more daunting and scary side is how much as a society we are actually monitored. Britain appears to have far more watchful eyes trained on its population than any other country in the world. This it why CCTV is deterrent and a key ingredient in reducing crime and keeping society safe. However  CCTV also makes sure society remembers that someone is always there, watching at times like Big Brother. Making most of society feel to frightened and paranoid to break the law. The reality of this is that a lot  of theses cameras aren't  always monitored or are just recording the live events. This is were CCTV fails society or the people governing and monitoring them fail society. "This surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration"- we are not alone. There is an uneasy presence lingering. We are being monitored, recorded and checked up on every second of the day, being molded into docile bodies without even realising. 


A docile body described by Michael Foucault- "one that may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved. And that this docile body can only be achieved through strict regiment of disciplinary acts". Focault argues that we cannot choose to enter modern society; we are controlled by it through its technologies of power. In a sense we almost being turned into Robots. Doing exactly what we are told. "The penetration of regulation into even the smallest details of everyday life through the mediation  of the complete hierarchy that assured the capillary functioning".Who monitors the people doing the monitoring. That is the question that worries me. How do we know what is being done with these CCTV evidence. Or how much of it is being ignored. 


The more we rely on technology to protect our lives the more we become complasent about the invasion of our privacy, its a necessary evil of our modern society.



All quotes form Michael Foucault.

Bibliography.

“Advertising appeals to a way of life we aspire to but have not yet achieved. A publicity picture suggests that if we buy what it is offering, our life will be different from what it is... Not only will our home be different, but all our relationships will become radiant because of our new possessions; but we can only achieve such radiance if we have money. And so publicity also works on our anxieties about money, urging each of us to scramble competitively to get more. Making money appears as if it were itself magical... According to the rules of the dream, those who do not have this power, and those who lack glamour, become faceless, almost non-existent. Publicity both promises and threatens this play upon fear; often the fear of not being desirable, and of being unenviable. It suggests that you are inadequate as you are and consoles you with a promise of a dream” .

( Jeremy Bulger- ‘Ways of seeing’). youtube

Publisher: Vintage, 1985 Ogilvy On Advertising Ogilvy & Mather was built on David Ogilvy's principles: in particular, that the function of advertising is to sell, and that successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer. Found on his website I think…

David Olgilvy once said, “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest- it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes.”

I can not "think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil."

-       Arnold Toynbee, quoted in Eric Clark, The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising, 1988, New York: Penguin Books, p. 371.

It is stimulating people constantly to want things, want this, want that." 

-       - Malcolm Muggeridge, quoted in Eric Clark, The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising, 1988, New York: Penguin Books, p. 371.

“…people are threatened…the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire."

-       Pope John Paul II, quoted in Eric Clark, The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising, 1988, New York: Penguin Books, p. 371.

From the book practises of looking- an introduction to visual culture.by marita stuurken and lisa cartwright. Oxford university press.inc. 2009

 “When Benetton produced this advertisement in the 1990’s of a black women nursing a white child, a range of interpretations were possible. This advertisement was published throughout Europe, but magazines in the United States refused to run it…"

“In the United States this image carried the troubling connotation of the history of slavery and the use of black women slaves as wet nurses to breast-feed the white children of slave owners”

“In the United States this image carried the troubling connotation of the history of slavery and the use of black women slaves as wet nurses to breast-feed the white children of slave owners.”

Jeremy Bullmore is quoted as saying “advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel.'(2003).

“Appealing to the publics conscious” (John Berger- ‘Ways of seeing’)youtube

CTS essay

To what extent can advertising be used as a force for positive social change?

Advertising is a way of communicating with people. The majority of advertising is used to persuade or encourage the audience to buy something. Some advertising is used for political campaigns and some for a social change. Ideological advertisi­ng is also very common. Brands can use advertising to generate sales and increase consumption of their products. They do this by “shoving” their campaigns in our faces in as many places and as many different ways as possible. Our world is now polluted with TV adverts, billboards, posters and many other forms of advertising, offering the latest things on the market. Advertising encourages us to buy things that we don’t even need; and more often than not, somehow, someway we are persuaded to buy into this product’s regardless of whether it be a car, those new jeans, a watch, that new I-pod, phone or trainers. We always do it. The reason for this is because:

 “Advertising appeals to a way of life we aspire to but have not yet achieved. A publicity picture suggests that if we buy what it is offering, our life will be different from what it is... Not only will our home be different, but all our relationships will become radiant because of our new possessions; but we can only achieve such radiance if we have money. And so publicity also works on our anxieties about money, urging each of us to scramble competitively to get more. Making money appears as if it were itself magical... According to the rules of the dream, those who do not have this power, and those who lack glamour, become faceless, almost non-existent. Publicity both promises and threatens this play upon fear; often the fear of not being desirable, and of being unenviable. It suggests that you are inadequate as you are and consoles you with a promise of a dream” .

( Berger, 1990).

           

‘Ogilvy and Mather’ advertising agency was built on David Ogilvy’s principles’, “In particular that the function of advertising is to sell”. With advertisers saying things like this, it’s no wonder that people view advertising as a modern day evil. Arnold Toynbee stated, “I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil,” (1988). Anyone who shares this opinion would not be blamed for thinking so; The Pope John Paul II himself is quoted as saying “…people are threatened by… the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire” (1988). What the Pope is trying to say here is that advertising tries to sell you a dream, an idea, or a notion, that all of your worries and problems will be resolved by purchasing something to fill a void in your life. However, in reality, this is a short-lived dream, only giving the consumer a minimal amount of time with whatever he or she has purchased. Unfortunately, the product the consumer has purchased will be thrown out, run out, break or become obsolete eventually.

The advertisement above is a great example of how the sole purpose of advertising is to sell. This Nike advert is aimed at women and the point of the advert is supposed to be that, no matter what, nothing will beat hard work. However, what this advert is really saying is that with the help of the technology within these shoes and hard work combined, you will find your ultimate quick fix to staying toned and fit. Yes, the technology in these shoes may ‘activate muscles how they are supposed to’, but the reality is that there is no quick fix. With most trainers you can stay toned and fit; it’s about the effort you put into doing this and it is not down to the trainers you are wearing. The slogan ‘the shoe works if you do’ is very clever and targets an audience that likes to keep fit, but this slogan could be applied to any other advert about a pair of trainers and still work. Nike is selling a dream. The person purchasing these trainers may not even be purchasing them to use for exercise purposes, they may just like the look of them. Therefore this idea that advertising’s main function is to sell, “stimulating people constantly to want things” (M Muggeridge 1988), is true for commercially based advertising. Non-commercial areas of advertising however, are not solely used for the purpose of generating sales; for example, in public service advertising. Public service advertising is used in the public’s interest of the general public, to encourage positive social change. Public service advertising attempts to improve the world we live in, by making people aware of environmental, social and ethical issues, through supporting charities. These sorts of charities are usually government departments or donation-funded charities. These adverts still have to be funded and paid for. Some advertisers offer discounted rates and some will do the campaigns for free as they are for a good cause.

            David Olgilvy once said, “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest- it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes.”(1985). However, this shows he has relized the immense power when used in a positive social change, which can be seen through public service adverts David Olgivy’s agency have made, such as the WWF campaigns “What will it take before we respect the planet.”

These adverts show a world where nature has finally given in to its urban surroundings and the pollution of humans. The graffiti from an urban city has defaced these animals. It is a reminder of how close our two worlds really are, and the effect our world has on theirs.

There are already lots of campaigns out there appealing to the good nature of people, hoping that they well take heed of the messages they are seeing about issues that relate to people and creatures from all over the world. They are not always just messages or acted out scenes; a lot of these adverts use graphic imagery and real life photography to get their point or messages across.  Below are some great examples of how public service advertising can use shock tactics to gain publicity for their campaigns. 

        

The graphic imagery in these adverts is quite hard-hitting and horrific. However  it is hard-hitting and they are straight to point and make’s you take into consideration the consequences of your actions. You would not see these images used to sell or promote alcohol, cigarettes or knives. These adverts have been cleverly created, relying on the fact that the graphic imagery will play on people’s emotions and moral obligations not to do these things, in some cases to, donate or volunteer.

            United Colors of Benetton is a clothing company that have been producing thought provoking and controversial adverts since 1986. All of the adverts that they produce are very clever, and have important messages within them. The first slogan that they used was ‘All the colors of the world’. It later changed to ‘United Colors of Benetton’. The adverts they produce are aimed at uniting everyone no matter what your race. 

These adverts are visually, very moving. I find I have to look at them for a while to really to take in what is being said. Theses adverts broke the mould when they were released, they were something very different. They are not as visually upsetting as the previous campaigns; but instead they have subliminal messages about uniting people of all skin colours and races. Accompanied by their slogan.  This simplistic and clever approach has brought them recognition from around the world.

“When Benetton produced this advertisement in the 1990’s of a black woman nursing a white child, a range of interpretations were possible. This advertisement was published throughout Europe, but magazines in the United States refused to run it…” The image is supposed to convey the relationship between mother and child… However “In the United States this image carried the troubling connotation of the history of slavery and the use of black women slaves as wet nurses to breast-feed the white children of slave owners” (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009).

Advertising like this is made to provoke. Because of the different interpretations of this advert, you can expect a variation of responses. But this is the beauty of this type of advertising- because selling is not the key element when designing for an advert like this, the shock factor can be thrown in to get a reaction from the audience, “appealing to the public’s conscious” (Berger- 1990).

            Jeremy Bullmore is quoted as saying “advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel.'(2003). And, in a sense he is right. United Colours of Benetton adverts are great examples of a company that have taken advantage of their advertising campaigns. They have done this, not for increased sales and profits, but to convey a message; a message of bringing people together.

In conclusion I believe that advertising is a necessary evil, from which a lot of good can come from. Although it’s primary function is to sell, however when used it the interest of people, animals or our environment it is a very powerful tool. It can help bridge the gaps of racial divides, save peoples lives, make people aware of world issues. It makes us think about issues that are far from our minds, things that we know are happening but choose to ignore or forget about. These issues are only addressed because they are brought to our attention through the same advertising techniques used to sell a brand’s products; ‘communicating’ the message to the public, ‘persuading’ the audience to take a moment to sympathise and it ‘encouraging’ people to help by making them aware about the problems in the world. So the same techniques are used for a positive social change

            Instead of selling, this type of advertising asks for people to help themselves, help each other, volunteer or donate. This type of advertising can change people’s views and attitudes. By simply having these adverts out in public view people are constantly reminded that there are problems that the world needs to address. So to answer my original question ‘to what extent can advertising be used as a force for positive social change?’ The best way of gaining support and awareness for these type of campaigns is through the medium of advertising.

Essay proposal.

To what extent can advertising be used as a force for positive social change?

• The function of advertising.
• How advertising communicates to people.
• How advertising effects our emotions and our decision making.
• Public service advertising.
• Graphic imagery and shock tactics used.
• A positive social change.

( Jeremy Bulger- ‘Ways of seeing’). youtube.

 Arnold Toynbee, quoted in Eric Clark, The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising, 1988, New York: Penguin Books, p. 371.

 Malcolm Muggeridge, quoted in Eric Clark, The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising, 1988, New York: Penguin Books, p. 371.

Pope John Paul II, quoted in Eric Clark, The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising, 1988, New York: Penguin Books, p. 371.

Practises of looking- an introduction to visual culture.by marita stuurken and lisa cartwright. Oxford university press.inc. 2009

Graphic design and Deconstruction

These bullet points below were taken from ‘With aid of text ‘Thinking with type (Lupton, E, 2008)’ and describes the relationship between a designer and text:

 

Text

·      “Letters gather into words, words build into sentences.” In typography, “text” is defined as an ongoing sequence of words, distinct from shorter headlines or captions. The main block is often called the “body” comprising the principal mass content. Also Known as “running” text, it can flow from one page, column, or box to another. Text can be viewed as a thing- a sound and sturdy object-or a fluid poured into the containers of page or screen. Text can be solid or liquid, body or blood.”

 

·      “Designers provide ways into-and out of-the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts and alternate routes through masses of information.”

           

·      “Typography helps readers navigate the flow of content.”

 

·      “Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design’s most humane functions is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.”

 

 

Error and ownership

·      “Typography helped seal the literary notion of  “the text” as a complete original work, a stable body of ideas expressed in an essential form. Before the invention of printing, handwritten documents were riddled with errors. Copies were copied from copies, each with its own glitches and gaps.”

 

·      “Printing with movable type was the first system of mass production, replacing the hand-copied manuscripts. As in other forms of mass production, the cost (setting type, insuring its correctness, and running a press) drops for each unit as the size increase”

 

·      “Since the rise of digital tools for writing and publishing, manuscripts have all but vanished.”

 

·      “Print help establish the figure of author as the owner of a text.”

 

Spacing

·      “The typographers art concerns not only the positive grain of letterforms, but the negative gaps between and around them. In letterpress printing, every space is constructed by a physical object, a blank piece of metal or wood with no raised image.”

 

·      “Spoken language is perceived as a continuous flow, with no audible gaps. Spacing has become crucial, however, to alphabetic writing, which translates the sound of speech into multiple characters.”

 

·      “Spaces were introduced after the invention of the Greek alphabet to make words intelligible as distinct units.”

 

·      “Tryreadingthislineoftextwithoutspacingtoseehowimportantithasbecome.With the invention of typography, spacing and punctuation ossified from gap and gesture to physical artifact. Punctuation marks, which were used differently from one scribe to another in manuscripts era, became part of the standardized, rule-bound apparatus of the printed page.”

 

·      “Typography made text into a thing, a material object with known dimensions and fixed locations.”

 

·      “The French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who devised the theory of deconstruction in the 1960’s wrote “Typography manipulates the silent dimensions of the alphabet, employing habits and techniques- such as spacing and punctuation- that are seen but not heard.”

 

 

Linearity

·      “In his essay ”From Work to Text,” the French critic Roland Barthes presented two opposing models of writing: the closed, fixed “work” versus the open, unstable “text”. In Barthes view, the work is tidy, neatly packaged object, proofread and copyrighted, made perfect and complete by the art of printing. The text, in contrast, is impossible to contain, operating across a dispersed web of standard plots and received ideas… He also anticipated the Internet as a decentralized web of connections.”

 

·      “The singular body of traditional text page has long been supported by the navigational features of the book, from page numbers and headings that mark a reader’s location to such tools such as the index, appendix, abstract, footnote, and a table of content’s. These devices were able to emerge because the typographic book is fixed pages.”

 

·      “Whereas talking flows in a single direction, writing occupies space as well as time Tapping that spatial dimensions- and thus liberating readers from the bonds of linearity-is among typography’s most urgent tasks.“

 

·      “Although digital media are commonly celebrated for their potential as nonlinear potential communication, linearity nonetheless thrives in the electronic realm, from the”CNN crawl” that marches along the bottom of the television screen to the ticker style LED signs that loop through the urban environment.”

 

·      “Linearity dominates many commercial software applications. Word processing programs, for example, treat documents as a linear stream.”

 

 

 

·      “In contrast, page layout programs Such as Quark and adobe InDesign allows users to work spatially, breaking up text into columns and pages that can be anchored and landmarked.”

 

·      “Not all digital media favor linear flow over spatial arrangement, however. The database, one of the defining information structures of our time is a nonlinear form. Providing readers and writers with a simultaneous menu of options, a database is a system of elements that can be arranged in countless sequences.”

 

·      “Typography has evolved from a stable body of objects toa flexible system of attributes.”

 

 

Birth of the user

·      Barthe’s model of the text as an open web of references, rather than a closed and perfect work, asserts the importance of the reader over the writer in creating meaning. The reader “plays” the text as a musician plays an instrument”

 

·      “Like an interpretation of a musical score, reading is a performance or written word.”

 

·      “Redefining typography as “discourse,” designer Katherine McCoy imploded the traditional dichotomy between seeing and reading. Pictures can be read (analyzed, decoded, taken apart), and words can be seen (perceived as icons, forms, patterns). Valuing ambiguity and complexity, her approach challenged readers to produce their own meanings while also trying to evaluate the status of designers within the process of author ship.”

 

·      “The dominant subject of our age has become neither reader nor writer but user, a figure conceived as a bundle of needs and impairments-cognitive, physical, emotional.”

 

·      “Graphic designers can use theories of user interaction to revisit some of our basic assumptions about visual communication. Why, for example, are readers on the less patient than readers of print? It is commonly believed that digital displays are inherently more difficult to read than ink on paper. Yet HCI studies conducted in the late 1980’s proved that crisp black text on a background can be read just as efficiently from a screen as from a printed page.”

 

·      “The cultural habits of the screen are driving changes in design for print, while at the same time affirming print’s role as a place where extended reading can still occur.”

 

·      “Another common assumption is that icons are a more universal mode of communication than text…Yet they can often provide a specific and understandable cue than a picture. Icons don’t simplify the translation of content into multiple languages, because they require explanation in multiple languages, because the require explanation in multiple languages. The endless icons of digital desktop function more to enforce brand identity than to support usability.”

 

·      “The beauty and wonder of “white space” is another modernist myth that is subject to revision in the age of the user. Modern designers discovered that open space on a page can have as much physical presence as printed areas.”

 

·      “In our much –fabled era of information overload, a person can still process only one message at a time. This brute fact of cognition is the secret behind magic tricks: sleights of hand occur while the attention of the audience is drawn elsewhere. Given the fierce competition for their attention, users have a chance to shape the information economy by choosing what to look at. Designers can help you make satisfactory choices.”

 

·      “Typography invented in the renaissance, allowed text to become a fixed and stable form. Like the body of the letter, the body of text was transformed into an industrial commodity that gradually became more open and flexible.”

 

·      “The computer display is more hospitable to text than the screens of film or television because it offers physical proximity, user control, and a scale appropriate to the body.”

 

·      “The printed book is no longer the chief custodian of the written word. Branding  is a powerful variant of  literacy that revolves around symbols, icons, and typographic standards, leaving its marks on buildings, packages, album covers websites, store displays, and countless other surfaces and spaces.”