Persuaders

1. I am an advertising major, so, in all honesty, I wasn't planning on being surprised by many of the things revealed in this video. I was quite wrong. One of the most surprising things i encountered was the Sex In The City scheme. The fact that Absolute vodka invented a new drink and basically wrote an entire episode of Sex In The City was quite startling. That show was very popular when it was on, and the fact that a business was given so much creative control surprised me very much. I think my shock goes back to what one of the people being interviewed said. He said something long the lines of this: People don't want their entertainment stuff to be tainted by their product stuff. And upon learning about this new fad of trying to weave products into TV shows and movies, I feel that something I watch will just be trying to sell me something.
Another very surprising aspect was the portion on Frank Luntz. I have for a long time realized that politics are very deceptive, just like some advertisements. But learning that it is this man's job to find the perfect way to say something really made me say wow. Whether or not you think he is 'tricking' the public or merely just 'clarifying', what he does works and i had no idea i was subject to someone behind the scenes like that. Seeing this documentary will only make me question what i see and hear even more. I knew before that advertisers are very smart, and would do anything to break through the clutter. But now every time i watch a TV show, i will be trying to pick out products that are extraneous, trying to protect myself from the constant flow of advertising that can often be manipulative.
I also was very surprised and pleased when the man being interviewed spoke up and questioned why white bread would make anyone lonely. I would have done the same thing. I think market research is a good idea and obviously it helps. But sometimes, in the case in the movie, it seems ridiculous. I think the man that questioned the interviewer made a plea for all of consumers when he spoke out against the seemingly unrelated concepts advertisers try to make us feel.

2. I agree wholly with The Persuaders that there is far too much advertisement going on in today's society. I feel that i am exposed to so many ads, where ever i go, that i have started to filter them out. As stated in the movie, there is far too much clutter. Billboards encroach on city streets, blocking out the sun. Fashion magazines are 60% advertisements and 40% content. Web pages have borders of flashing boxes, promising free laptops. TV commercials take up almost 10 minutes of a 30 minute program. And because of all of this, more ads are being produced in smarter ways to sell things in different places then ever before. It is a vicious cycle and i'm not sure where it will end.
I think it would be very interesting to go back in time and live a day or a week and see how much advertising one encountered. Obviously the number would be much smaller. Was that because advertisements were better? or people were more gullible? Or because there was less clutter? I would venture a guess that it would be a combination of the latter two factors. And I don't want to think about the amount of advertising a person could see in a day 20 or 30 years from today. If something doesn't change, there could be a serious problem. It would be interesting to see how and why advertising has progressed to it's current state of affairs. What pushed it to the forefront? It must have something to do with the great number of businesses that exist today. Everyone is striving for a dollar and it is becoming harder and harder to convince the average person to buy.

Myth of Photographic Truth

In this cropped photo, One can see a soldier and a man, who appears to be pointing or doing something else mundane in nature. But as one can see below, this man is actually shooting someone. This very famous photograph taking during the Vietnam war has come to symbolize the harshness of war. But when cropped, the photo completely loses it's meaning. This is a very interesting example of the myth of photographic truth.

Final Collage

This is my second collage attempt. Since I lost the file of my original, I used new things I had learned to create this alternate composition.

Photoshop is the medium

Looking at photoshop through Marshall McLuhan's eyes, You could see it as a medium. As a medium, you could consider it's content as all of the tools used to create and retouch art and pictures. Examples would be the brush tool, the lasso tool, all of the pre-loaded colors, and other such usages available to the photoshop user. But the message of photoshop goes far beyond an eraser and a brush. The invention and wide spread use of this program has changed the culture. Especially since our culture loves to take pictures. It seems that everyone who takes pictures for a living uses photoshop, but the beauty of it is an amateur could use it to. Photoshop has become synonymous with retouching photographs. Whether it is for fun or to make money, the ease and flexibility of photoshop has secured it a place in the 21st century culture.

Collage Changes

One of the questions i was having was about the background. I left mine white, but it may have created a more interesting composition if i changed it. This was both a conceptual and technical issue, as it deals with the collage concept and the uses of photoshop. If I had a bit more knowledge of the layers, i could have done this.

Collage and explaination

The iPhone has been one of the biggest and most mainstream communication breakthroughs in the past couple of years. It's abilities seem to grow every day, and it has had a large influence on culture. Thinking about the iPhone in the mindset of Marshall McLuhan, you can see that it has many kinds of content. The main ones, pictures above, (from left to right): Internet access, music, video, pictures, and games. But the content is certainly not limited to those illustrated above. The iPhone's messages, however, are more complicated. It is certain that the iPhone has had an influence on how people communicate today. Many of the influences are possitive. The first picture under messages is people talking and the iPhone certainly allows you to do this. With phone calls, text messages, emails, and networking sites like Facebook at the user's disposal at all times, it is very easy to stay connected. It shrinks the world by giving the user access to any part of the globe in seconds. It compresses a cell phone, computer, camera, video camera, an iPod, and more into one item. And this is the reason i have a suitcase pictured above. It allows for travel. The user can be on the move and still use all of the content of the iPhone. It opens up even more possibilities and again, this aspect has had a great influence on sciety. But, as with anything, bad comes with the good. I have a rope about to break on my collage because this constant access and ease of information can cause stress. Constant bombardment with emails or phone calls is not good for someone. You should be able to have a break in your day to relax. but people become attached to their iPhone and can never put it down. This is also a cultural problem that can come with technology such as the iPhone.

communication technologies

1. Skype
2. Biometric Technology
3. iPhone