MODERNITY & GLOBALIZATION

G205 – Week 2Finishing up Peiss & Berger

INFRASTRUCTURE –noun 1. the basic, underlying framework or

features of a system or organization. 2. the fundamental facilities and systems

serving a country, city, or area, such as: transportation, highways, freeways, interstates, communication systems, power plants, schools, etc.

3. the military installations of a country.

MODERNITY & GLOBALIZATION Modernity in America occurred over

several hundred years and is most often associated with the rise of industry (factories, urbanization, etc.) in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Globalization describes an ongoing process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through globe-spanning networks of communication and trade; a process whereby an increased portion of economic or other activity is carried out across national borders

PEISS & THE GENDERING OF A NATION How do spaces become gendered in

Peiss? do these gendered spaces shift?

What is consumer citizenship? What is uplift?

1947 PUCK COMICS WEEKLY

AMERICAN WEEKLY 1949

MCCALL’S 1949

2010 AD

CH. 1ADS, FADS, & CONSUMER CULTURE

Hours per year spent by average citizen watching TV: 1679

Price of air-time for a 30-second commercial during 2006 Superbowl: $2.5 million

Total amount spent on advertising in the US (2005): $280 billion

Total amount spent on advertising in the rest of the world: $241 billion

Americans who expressed interest in products to block advertisements (2004): 69

WHAT IS ADVERTISING? WHAT DOES IT DO? Means “to make known” and is utilized by

the media industries to “attract attention” to products available for purchase to a Target audience: humans 18-49.

Creates “desire” for products. what is desire?

Uses techniques of persuasion that are often linked by scholars, including Berger, to our “unconscious mind.” What is that?

Usually printed as opposed to a commercial, which is filmed.

DOES ADVERTISING AFFECT YOU?

If so, how? How do you read

advertising? Have you ever

bought anything based upon an advertisement for the product?

If not, why not?

Analysing advertisements

Berger uses the following approaches (methodologies) to analyse ads, including:

• Semiotic analysis• Psychoanalytic theory• Sociological analysis• Feminist analysis• Historical analysis• Myth/ritual analysis

Psychoanalytic theoryFreud suggested that our ego continually balances the primitive subconscious desires for satiation of our id against our superego, which provides critical self-examination and anticipates the potential damage of actions proposed by our id.

I call this a “filter.”

Advertisers frequently try to encourage our id in order to get us to notice and desire their product

• How does the advertisement make use of the human psyche to sell products?

1966

Psychoanalytic theory• the snake: phallic symbol• the snake: anxiety,

corruption• the word “sex” contained in

the ad (“subliminal”)• removal to the tropics from

the “civilizing” influence of home

A blogger’s review: “Fidji, ‘the perfume of paradise found,’ rather than being a soliflore representation of an island flower like those simple souvenir perfumes, instead creates an olfactory translation of paradise, with notes that evoke the dreamlike mood you feel lying on the beach as an island breeze blows the scent of tropical flowers your way and the sun warms your skin.” - emphasis added.This ad appeared in some

countries without the snake. Why?

SEX &GENDER UNDER STRUCTURALISMBIOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM / DETERMINISM male/female gender/sex culture/nature mind/body rational/emotional universal/particular light/dark straight/curved presence/absence active/passive objective/subjective

The ―natural physical body itself determines human ―natural and/or what it means to be a man or a woman, “sexual difference.”

This structural theory about the human body (along with binary oppositions) stems from Enlightenment (18th C) philosophers, including Descarte (―I think therefore, I am), who posited that human consciousness is what separated “men” from other animals.

Men were the universal human subject associated with culture, reason and the mind. When considered, women in early western cultures were property of the men in their lives and associated with nature through their bodies (menstruation/reproduction) and thought to be driven by emotion rather than intellect.

CH 3

Semiotic analysis

Semiotics is the study of signs – how things can be used to deliver some kind of message.

The important point to remember when considering how things functions as signs is that the meaning attached to them is arbitrary. The meaning of signs is a convention that is learnt within a group/society, it is not a natural and universal meaning.

• What signs, symbols and codes can be found in the advertisement?

Psychoanalytic theory

Freud suggested that our ego continually balances the primitive subconscious desires for satiation of our id against our superego, which provides critical self-examination and anticipates the potential damage of actions proposed by our id.

Advertisers frequently try to encourage our id in order to get us to notice and desire their product

• How does the advertisement make use of the human psyche to sell products?

Sociological analysis

Consider how elements of the text are relevant to such matters as socio-economic class, gender, race, sexuality, status and role.

• How does the advertisement reflect social concerns, and the problems of people in their daily lives?

Feminist analysis

As a specialist application of sociological analysis, feminist analysis is particularly concerned with power structures in society, especially those that keep women in an inferior position.

• How does the advert reflect the values of male-dominated society?

Historical analysis

Here the advert can be evaluated in terms of the changes that have taken place in advertising over the years, how the advert fits into a larger campaign and/or previous advertising campaigns.

• How does the advertisement relate to historical events?

Myth/ritual analysis

Advertisements often contain allusion to contemporary popular culture. In addition, there is a vast wealth of shared cultural knowledge relating to mythical knowledge, such as biblical stories or classical mythology.

• How does the advertisement relate to ancient myths?

An example: Fidji perfume advertisment

How might we use Berger's six different approaches to analyse and understand this advertisement?

Semiotic analysis

• empty space• position of mouth in photo• posture of mouth/lips• Polynesian woman?• long, dark hair• orchid• Fiji: the tropics (escape)• language: French

Psychoanalytic theory

• the snake: phallic symbol• the snake: anxiety• the word 'sex' contained in

the advert (subliminal)• removal to the tropics,

away from the civilising influence of home This advert appeared in some

countries without the snake. Why?

• value and importance of romantic heterosexual love

• target audience: young women seeking escape?

• prestige product: expensive perfume, French language and associations with high culture

• role of women: providers of sexual pleasure, temptress

• ethnic assumptions: women from less developed nations seen as less repressed, more passionate (more primitive)

Sociological analysis

Feminist analysis

• snake: phallic symbol? = subjugation, dominance

• women's role as objects of male pleasure

• objectification of women in adverts: accessible to the male gaze, on show to gratify male desires

• holding the “desirable” bottle of perfume, but perfume's purpose is to please men: women perpetuate male dominance?

• return to paradise = return to male dominance? (Garden of Eden: “And [your husband] shall rule over you”)

Historical analysis

• Cleopatra killed by a snakebite• Advertising: historical context

Myth/ritual analysis

• Medusa• Garden of Eden• Women as dangerous,

snakelike, venomous• Temptation

Advertising as communication

Berger's model of “focal points in the study of communication”

AudienceArt

Artist Society

Medium

Interactive oral assignment: instructions

You (the whole class) have been chosen as the committee that will nominate and choose the best print advertisement of all time.

1. Work in pairs (preparation: HMWK) Each pair will nominate one advert. You need to select that advert, and prepare a short presentation of the meaning contained within that advert.

2. The meeting (next lesson)Each pair presents their advertisement, after which the whole group discusses the adverts and decides on the winner.

Criterion: The advertisement that communicates the most meaning

Berger, Arthur Asa (2007) Ads, Fads and Consumer Culture: advertising's impact on American character and society. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield

References