Task 5

As designers our skills and talents are wasted on commercialism. Ken Garland reflects on this in First Things First, "Flogged their skill and imagination to sell such things as: cat food, stomach powders."

Our society has become consumed by capitalism. We want more and more because as a nation we have the wealth to buy these goods. Ken Garland says, "Those working in the advertising industry are wasted on these trivial purposes, which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity."

Designers are wasting their skills on endless consumer goods as pointed out in First things first manifesto 2000, "Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design." Designers need more challenging work which can stand out and show the talents that designers have. The skills of designers are unique and need to be put to better use to show that our nation is cultured.

Task 4

Provisional essay title

How is propaganda used as a tool within panopticism

Issues addressed and thrust of argument

Prove how graphic design can be used to persuade, scare and make people feel aware of themselves within society through the use of propaganda.

I'll look at how propaganda was used in world war 2 to strike fear into people. The gestapo were a constant threat to people. Society feared that the gestapo had eyes and ears everywhere, making people keep quite however fact is they may not of been there at all, panopticism was a useful tool which Hitler used through propaganda. I will relate this to now and how we are still put under pressure, not by an individual but by society, to fit into society we must look and dress a certain way.

Visuals

Posters of propaganda.

Leaflets.

Book used in schools possibly.

'One people, one nation, one leader' With this tag line and Hitler standing sternly up right in military uniform its a clear message of power the Hitler has and is watching over his nation, he has a panoptic view.

Visuals like the above which show Hitler watching over Germany's youth. This propaganda shows Hitler watching, making people believe they are being viewed, relating directly to panopticism.

What theoretical perspective/methodology will you use?

Panopticism-idea of thinking your being watched but nothing to say you actually are.

Propaganda-Relating how panopticism comes through propaganda.

Which theorists will you refer to?

Foucault

Lyon, D, 2006. Theorising Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond. Devon. Willan publishing.

Darman, P, 2008. Posters of world war 2. Allied and axis propaganda 1939-1945. London. The brown reference group.

Thomas, J, 2000. Reading Images. Palgrave Macmillan.

Bentham, J, 2009. Panopticon: Or the inspection house. Kessinger publishing.

Kinsella, J, 2002. Outside the Panopticon. Press Roots Press.

Welch, D, 2001. Propaganda and the German cinema 1933-1945. I B Tauris and Co Ltd.

Fyne, R, 1994. The Hollywood Propaganda of World War 2. The Scarecrow Press

Zeman, Z, 1982. Selling the War: Art and proganda in World War 2. Bookthrift.

Pratkonis, A, 2001. Age of Propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion. A. W. H. Freeman and Co ltd.

Aulich, J, 2007. War Posters: Weapons of mass communication. Thames and Hudson.

Luckert, S, 2009. State of Deception: The power of Nazi propaganda. W. W Norton and Co ltd.

Foucault, M, 1995. Discipline and Punish: The birth of the Prison. Vintage.

Lecture 6

Globalisation, sustainability and the media

Socialist-combination of economic technological,sociocultural and political forces.

globalization-increase in westernisation, technology expansion

George ritzer coined the term mcdonaldization, dominates the world

Marshall Mcluhan-understanding media

living in a global village

technology shrinks the world brings us together-technology means the world mus come and work together

-ideologies of religious nationalism and globalisation forced to clash through technology.

world the global village be better with a set of values.

time warner owns a huge amount of diferent medias meaning 100s of different media outlets have same opinion because owned by one company.

Main market importance is north america west europe japan and australia. then developing countries like china and india then rest of the world.

-uk media power can be thought of as a new form of imperialism

-world wants to be america

chamsky and herman-manufacturing consent

-propaganda a model

ownership

funding

sourcing

flak

anti-socialist ideology

-ownership-rupert murdoch money maker all about selling so limits what we know

sourcing-reporters are placed in western places where things might happen

Flak-uk based global climate coalition

Lecture 5

Reality, Virtuality, Hyperreality

Jean Baudrillard 1929-2007-philosopher

was associated with movements of structuralism and post-structuralism in ww2

-key theorist of post modernism

-baudrillard fond of Karl Marx

-Marx propounded the critique of political economy

-Baudrillard fond of Ferdinand Saussure

-Saussure pioneered the theory of linguistic value and the differential theory of the sign.

-Baudrillard also fond of guy debord

-fond of marshall Mcduhan

-Pioneer of media and communication theory

-fond of Geoge Bataille

-Looking at sacrifice and rituals in diverse cultures

-fond of marcel mauss

Jean Baudrillard wrote-the system of objects-Simulacra and simulation-the gulf war did not take place-the illusion of the end

context-vietnam war in 60's cultural movements in the US

-Situatonism and the student-work protests in 1968

-the rise of consumerism and mass media

-the end of colonialism

-the cold war

-the watergate scandal expose of the president through taping

-the collapse of modernist topianism shift to post modern society

Hyperreality-hotel bonaventure, los angeles, modern-futuristic

-plates allegory of the cave-question on reality the world is an image of something

-the loud family-first reality show of a family

Baudrillard wrote a book forget foucault.

Task 2

Theodor Adorno believes that all pop music is standardized. According to him pop music is churned out repeatedly with no difference and people will buy it over and over again. Everytime a new single comes out under the pop genre it is virtually the same as the previous pop single, according to Adorno. He believes that pop music is 'easy' to listen to, we 'digest it' easily unlike particular classical pieces of music which needs our direct focus and attention to understand the piece of music.

Adorno says, 'The term plugging originally had the narrow meaning of ceaseless repetition of one particular hit in order to make it successful.' So if we here a piece of music enough, we end up liking it. Pop music is churned out repeatedly therefore we must like it according to Adorno. Pop music is highly promoted 'plugging' with singles being on the radio and tv day in day out, this is without a doubt mass culture. Pop music uses continually similar rhythms and beats which society like to hear, it isnt diverse or different in any way.

Adorno doesnt think theres any originality in pop music, he thinks people are lazy, they watch tv and listen to music to relax, it takes no effort and doesnt push us intellectually. I personally dont see why this is a bad thing. Adorno is basically addressing mass culture, churned out culture which is just the same as previous, its the same dull thing which doesnt push us intellectually but so what? People work everyday the last thing people want to do when they go home is struggle to understand music or their tv. Music and television is a comfort, sitting down in front of the tv shouldnt be a chore. The fact that programs such as big brother, x factor etc have been showing for so many years must be because society wants to watch it so whats wrong with that? Once people get tired of watching certain programs the viewings of that program drop and its thrown away. If people enjoy something why shouldnt more of that thing be produced.

Lecture 4

Communication theory

Lasswell maxims: who says what to when in what channel with what effect.

-Tufte argues that powerpoint makes it more difficult to communicate.

-Cybernetic or information theory/socio-psychological/socio-cultural/critical theory.

information source--transmitter--signal--(noise source)--received signal---receiver--destination

graphic designers remove the noise and communicate silently.

cybernetics-control and communication in the animal and machine.

semiotics-signage

Semantics-what a sign definition is

syntactics-relationship with other signs

Phenomenology

-how something appears in ones perception

-a bad experience can lead to expecting a constant bad experience in that thing

-experiencing and interpreting

Aristotle-Rhetoric (propaganda)-convincing someone.

The sociopschological tradition-science of communication

Sociocultural tradition-how the world works and communicates effects how we communicate.