Critical Positions on Advertising

• More of a harmful resource - manipulative. It is the most effective and dominant medium in the 20th century
• in 21st century, impossible to escape advertising (times square new york) - everywhere we walk we are subjected to media messages/promises/fanticy figures/ideals e.g. billboards, tv, radio, internet. 
• Can chose to ignore them but they all affect us - unconcions/concious, direct/indirectly affects you on some level
• Britain - 25 million new print adverts produced every year - range from newspapers (selling garden ware) to billboard adverts (big business, commerce)

COMMERCIAL CONSUMER ADVERTISING

• KARL MARX 1818-83 - wrote about Capitalism and how it has an effect on individual in the society - many people then wrote about advertising in a Marxist way. 
• Says that we could live in a CONSUMER/COMMODITY culture. 'The Commodity self' - Steward Ewin. Judith Williamson quote "Instead of being identified by what they produce, people identify themselves through what they consume" (instead of you measuring yourself by what you can do (intelligence, achievements, characteristics) we measure it by what people own/what they can buy. = our culture is a debased version of real life. 
• EXAMPLES of commodities which people judge by - cars, laptop, houses, clothes/shoes, jewelry, music listend to (it becomes a physical record of your identity/who you aim to be). Increasingly we are buying these things to become this person/our culture persuades ourselves that we need something in order to become X. Housing etc become symbols of you as a person for everyone else. 
• We strive to get things which things represent who we are AND we judge people according to what their commodities are. Snobbery - M & S vs Aldi shopping bag. It could make people work harder to strive to achieve/buy certain things to prove themselves. 
• GLAMOROUS - is the condition of being envied/cant afford not to be glamourous (Through the consumption of products.)  Glamour is a product of our contemporary lives - measuring ourselves again our unattainable ideas. 
• ADVERTISING - isn't very successful of selling things. Selling the promise of an improved version of your life through the purchasing of things. 

SYMBOLIC ASSOCIATIONS - make things seem more powerful than they are. 

• CK1 PERFUME - sociability, community, popularity is being sold here. Men and women in close proximity - the advert doesn't actually show u what it smells like, they just advertise the effect which it will 'supposedly' happen. Youth, sophistication, coolness, fashion, status and glamour. Androdginity - woman with shaved head, more developed sexuality (not blond bimbo). Images like this create a FALSE DESIRE to purchase these
• PUBLICITY - when you walk into town, you have everything you need but when you walk past shops and boutiques you feel the need to purchase. It persuades us to keep spending/buying through the promotion of false

HOW DOES COMMODITY CULTURE PERPETUATIONS FALSE NEEDS?

• aesthetic innovation - you keep coming back for the next upgrade even though you already have one. 
• planned obsolesce - planned for them to break so the customer has to keep buying a new one,
• novelty. 

COMMODITY FETISHISM

• basically, advertising conceals the background 'history' of products. in other words the context in which a product is produced is kept hidden. 

REIFICATION

• products are given human associations. 
• Products themselves are perceives ad sexy, romantic, cool, sophisticated, fun etc. 
• Humanity is placed onto objects eg. boots are sexy. An furthermore, people start using these personified objects as characteristics. 

Frankfurt school - commodity colture manipulates us and makes us thing one dimensionally - it prevents us living full, meaningful and creative lives. 

John Burger - ways of seeing - strange connection now between modle and old art as the model now represent perfection. Rather than being an abstract image of perfection (statue).

 

ADVERTISING (economy, subsidizing the media quality, stereotyping) creates wealth for our world. It puts a lot of money in society, it encourages choice and gives us the illusion of freedom but this illusion is freedom is questionable - how free are you really when you constantly being told you have to be better. 

Advertisers get money from us. We can watch tv for free because of adverts.

It is successful at challenging stereotypes - it is also one of the worst industries at perpetuating the worse stereotypes. 

It makes us unhappy with our lives and possessions. It potentially manipulates people into buying product that they dont really need/want. 

It encourages additive, obsessive and acquisitive behaviour.

it distorts the language between people

It encourages consumers especially children to want products and brands that they cannot afford, causing feelings of inadequacy and envy. 

It uses images that encourage us to buy products and brands that have been potentially unhealthy

it encourages unnecessary production and consumption therefore depleting the worlds resources and spoiling the environment. 

Modernity & Modernism - An Introduction - Notes

• MODERNs - the inferior version of the classical idea - negative. It shifts in the 18th century to a positive way
• Paintings - shocking use of bright colours and style
• MODERNISM is the idea of progress and development - 'New Labour, New Britain' - the idea that modern is better

MODERNITY 1750 - 1960

• Post modern era - argued that we are now this era but really it has never ended. 
• Paris - most modern city due to new trains, transport and electricity (Hausseman)
• URBANISATION - allowed a shift in society and was a direct result of industrialization
• changes in transport, steamships, telephone, expanded railways which enabled people to travel great distances
• New forms of leisure - shopping, galleries, music - bossier
• Life further rationalised by time - factory workers - 9 hours and have a break and the idea of a holiday

PROCESS OF RATIONALITY & REASON

• ENLIGHTENMENT - period in late 18th century when SCIENC/PHILOSOPHICAL thinking becomes more important
• CITIES - personification of modernity e.g. Eiffel Tower - symbol of modernity
• SHIFT IN ART - the experience/shift in modernity becomes the subject of the art - grand boulevard, clothes - key signifiers of who has wealth and status
• HAUSSEMAN - Paris 1850's
• PARIS - change from the narrow run down streets to large high rise buildings to accomodate the speed of the new life. All the working class were pushed out to the edges, more control/policing - now the centre is the symbol of rich/upper class zone
• PHYCOLOGY - worries that the new speed/way of life is distracting and affecting people - speeds up out life but distracts people within it
• Rich and poor are forced to mingle - makes people more competitive.
• New available spaces of leisure around the rivers. 
• SEURAT, DEGAS AND CALLAIBOTTE - new classes and now new division. Both show the physical and physocological distance

MODERNISM

• emerges out of subjective responses of artists/designers to MODERNITY

MODERNISM IN DESIGN

• Anti historian - to look forward
• Truth to materials - technology
• Internationalism (all modern design should speak the same language) - IKEA!
• Stripped dwon asthetics, purely functional, not real beauty but beauty through the simplicity 
• ADOLF LOO's (1908) - Adornment is crime - truth to materials, retarded individual
• BAUHAUS - the most influential art school of the 20th century - gridded big windowns and new font - modernising education. It was shut down by the Nazis as they thought it was too progressive
• TECHNOLOGY - new materials - concrete/steel

INTERNATIONALISM

• The language of design that could be recognised by all e.g. London Tube map

Image Analysis Exercise - Notes

IMAGE 1

• Different countries, food, serving, slave trade, patriotism, garnished colours. The globe/countries shown on it represents the TRADE
• Uncle Sam - symbolic personification of fathering - same first letter of United States
• This is an advert for the RANGE cooker - peculiar advert as it doesn't sell the cooker for it's merits, it just demonstrates the brilliance of the US and that America is better than the other countries. 
• Commodities - shown through the aspirational lifestyle - the advert shows that if you purchase this cooker you will have a better quality of life/idealised lifestyle
• American attitude to the rest of the world - it demonstrates that they are more important.
• The Globe also represents the other countries of the world and that they have come to dine with the US e.g. that America is feeding the rest of the world. 
• Strange food provided to the other countries - Chinese figures are eating a birds nest
• advert shows SUPERIORITY
• Buildings in the background - makes a reference as at the time there was a big exhibition showing which celebrated 100 years of Americas Greatness - NATIONALISM
• The Eagle is the symbol of American freedom - it sits by the table
• The TYPOGRAPHY - not a contemporary style of font, makes you think of the early USA - bold and also type is in gold. 
• Colours - all from the American flag (red, blue and white) as well as the decoration which is stars and stripes - shows the glory of America. The curtians actually are the American flag - bright primary colours which stand out, not a realistic use of colours
• The advert attempts to tap into the spirit of American Triumph
• Prosperous house - idealised lifestyle, buying into the dream that America is better than anyone else and trying to represent that the US has surpassed all other countries.
• COUNTRIES = Dixi (S. America), West = land of the free and home of the brave, England - newly developing, not as great US

IMAGE 2 

• Clearer image. Shows 3 images - 2 children and a male adult figure who looks at the viewer 
• The son is playing with toy soldiers on the floor not looking at the viewer while the daughter looks at her father.
• TEXT - italic, bold, friendly and ironic considering the question being posed. Italics - makes is more of a softer way of speaking. YOU - relevant, direct, underlined and in caps. 
• The poster is an attempt to show the idea of national greatness and saying 'go to war otherwise in the future you will not have anything to talk about with your children. 
• It is a propaganda poster for CONSCRIPTION - guilt trip/emotional manipulation to make men sign up.
• It also promotes the idea that even after the war the country and all its men will be ok - it implies that there will be no loss as the poster talks about the future and children - says that they will win the war and that men should join as the war will go down in history - 'great war'
• SYMBOLISM - flowers on the chair - men have a duty to queen and country to do this. The clothes are the uniform of the guards outside the palace
• The father looks worried after his daughter has just asked the question, he turns away from her. 
• 'The GREAT War' - will be written  in books - you can't miss a chance to go down in history. 
• Child playing with soliders - suggests that if he was old enough he would want to go and join the war - he is challenging his father. 

Both images romanticise national identity. The second image is a less aggressive nationalist propaganda poster while the first image is a Nationalist advert which promotes and celebrates Americas greatness. 

Compare and Contrast

The first poster, 'Uncle Sams' is a Nationalist advert to sell a 'range' cooker. The name itself is personification of a 'father figure'.It is a symbolic poster which shows people that if you buy this cooker you will be better than everyone else and recieve an aspiration lifestyes. The second poster contrasts greatly with the first as it is a propeganda poster for the First World War. It is sending a message out to the men that they should sign up for the war as there was a conscription.  The messe in this poster is 'go to war otherwise in the future you will not have anything to talk to you children about.' This message contrasts greatly with the Uncle Sams advert as it gives the idea that if you dont do what is told by the poster your life is dim in the future, whereas in the Uncle Sams advert it is saying how if you do get this you will have a better life, not that your life will be dim without it. 

The subject matter of the Uncle Sams poster is four people sitting round a table, one of which is represented as a Globe, representing of the trading countries with America. There is a maid to the left side of the table who is putting food on the table. This poster represents America's attitude to the world at the time, that they were more important than the others. This is shown by the other people who are representations of other countries of the world; Dixi, the West and New England and how they are coming to eat with America, this represents that the US is feeding the world. The whole setting of this poster is dedicated to the US to show off its greatness. 

This greatly contrasts to the First World War propaganda as it is a clearer image and more realistic in comparison to the first poster. It shows three figures; two children and a father who is sitting in a chair, looking at the viewer with a perplexed and slightly anxious expression. The son is playing with toy soldiers on the floor while the girl asks the question written on the poster "Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?" This poster contrasts with Uncle Sams advert as it is promoting the greatness of war and joining together to fight, whereas the first poster promotes the idea that a person/America is better than everyone else because of purchasing this. The son playing on with the toy soldiers represents how that if he was old enough he would join the war, he is challenging his father. 

The colours of the two posters are very different. The Uncle Sams poster, the main colours used are red white and blue; all the colours of the American flag. In addition to this, stars and strips are the main theme throughough the poster for example, the carpet, the walls, the curtains, the male figure's trousers. This is to attempt to tap in the spirity of the American Triumph and demonstrate a prosperous house and idealised lifestyle. Whereas the propeganda poster, the colours are more realistic using greens, beiges, browns and black,  not bright and more typical of a propaganda poster at the time. The colours are not trying to demonstrate how better off their life will be, it represets how 'normal' it is to join the war, and that they should follow the norme. 

The main contrast between the two posters is that the Uncle Sams poster is trying to show off the greatness of America and how it is so much better than the other countries. In comparison to the propaganda poster which is not trying to promote the countries greatness, it is persuading men to join the war to make their country win, and hence be great.