Think of a topic that you can have 4 separate angles on the topic - 4 things to investigate within the theme, try and highlight what these themes and angles will be in the proposal.
Methodology - a coherent approach
e.g. semiotics / psychoanalytical / communication theory / narratology / feminist / Marxist
Without one of these then the dissertation will get jumbled, Outlined explicitly at the start, number 2 will be more focused.
It is acceptable to blend the methodologies
Have a theoretical approach
The dissertation needs to have Primary research to be able to get a first.
Examples of primary research;
- interviews with designers / peers / professionals
- anything that you analyse / art objects / logos / indent etc - and interpretations of academic text (Foucault)
- empirical study - some type of experiment that you set up yourself
- archival research
Secondary Sources - start off with these. Need to find as many secondary sources about the topic as you can, you then need to look at where your primary research will come from that. Chose some chapters from the book - 4 chapters.
- book about
- topic
- approach
- primary research
Design for social change - key things
Design activism - design that wants to be political, design that wants to change
Baldin's 'Visual Communication from theory to practice' - they make the argument that all design is political. It is political because design always supports one side or the argument.
Relations of production
Dialectical Materialism
All society is based on a base (forces of production and relations of production - the balance of power) and a superstructure
Materialists argue that all forms of art, design, etc is produced out of this and reflects the relations of production (balance of power)
e.g. patriarcle society where men mainly have control over the mass media. So the type of things produced by the mass medial reflect the dominance of men over women e.g. naked woman on page 3, and in films women take the role of the beauty or the prise for the men to catch. Once these images get produced and reproduced then people start to believe this is how it has always been. This can be applied to class, race, sexuality, eco politics.
If you want to make a change you can to work out how to intervene this social pattern / circle
IDEOLOGY - key but sticky concept that has all sorts of different meanings, get a critical definition of this
- political programme
- false consciousness
Marxist theory of this is; a system of believes that becomes naturalised and then it seems that the ideas become that of the whole society. They eventually cements itself as the culture of everyone. It creates a fall way of thinking about the world.
'Naomi Klein - No Logo' - directly led to the occupy movement - 'we are the 99%' - slogan, it immediately reminds people of their position in the base. Before this people had no idea of social class and that the top 1% of the world owned the % of the world.
Ad busters & Culture Jamming
Need a solid understanding of the AUDIENCE - any design that seeks to make an impact in the world has to be AUDIENCE focused rather than Design focused.
Audience Theory - deals with issues of mass, reception
* You could have a historical chapter, the one of what was the ideology at that time, then one of the communication theory, and communicate to a mass audience, then the final chapter could be a case study.
Subculture / Culture - work out the difference between these (culture = dominant) culture is produced by the dominant factors of the relations of production, and subculture is created by the repressed factors of the relations of production.
Once the culture becomes dominant the subculture becomes irrelevant, the only time this culture / subculture cycle is broken is when the subculture dominates over the culture.
Victor Papanek - Design for the Real World' - he came up with the idea of the social teeth (10%)
What I need to do, nail down the theme then do the literature search.
Dissertation Ideas
Continue essay on branding and the social effects it has. Chose and contrast larger brands and how they have dominated and shaped our society, what is involved in societies behaviour.
The influence of advertising and how it dominates our society.
Advertising - advertising does influence the way we think and feel (just like all of mass media does), but this isn't because they are trying to exploit or manipuate people, advertisers are people of an already exploitative society.
There is a level of persuasion - the way they do this is not the fault of advertisers it is the fault of already created culture.
Ad busters - culture jams - they have just created another brand / to hold onto. They have branded themselves in a way to buy into the branding consumerism.
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