Week 6 - Visual Rhetorics

Week 6 highlights on another new theory of communication which is called Rhetoric. Rhetoric is known to be a very successful means of communication. The founder of Rhetoric is Aristotle who was a student of Plato in the Greek civilization. (Griffins,1997, pg.279). For this week’s journal, I will analyse how visual rhetoric is used in advertising and how does it successfully persuade the consumers to buy their products through the use of rhetoric. The image below is a Burger King advertisement. The reason why I chose to analyse this image is because I believe that this image contains a rhetorical visual and by analysing this image it will help me enhance my understanding towards this visual rhetoric and persuasion.

According to Aristotle, “Rhetoric is the art of discovering ways to make truth seem more probable to an audience that isn’t completely convinced. (Griffins,1997, pg.280). The available means of persuasion are based on three kinds of proof which is the “logical, ethical and emotional”. Logical proof comes from the line of argument in the speech whereas ethical proof reveals the speaker’s character through message. On the other hand, Emotional proof is the feeling the speech draws out of the hearers. (Griffins,1997, pg. 280)

Fig. 1

When we see Fig. 1, the visual elements shows a fast food restaurant and a lady serving the customer with a smile. It also shows a humanly figured customer purchasing some food. We obviously know that this is burger King because the logo is placed right in the centre of the counter. By looking at the human figure purchasing the product, we automatically infer or assume that it is the Ronald the clown from Mc. Donalds because of the colour of the hair and the red shoes. Here ,the clown is used as an enthememe. According to the theory of Rhetoric, the theory focuses on two forms of logos, which is the enthymeme and the example. An enthymeme is an incomplete version of a “formal deductive syllogism.” (Griffins,1997, pg. 281). For rhetorics to happen there must be an enthememe. Now the proposition is much clearer. Burger Kings is the greatest burger. Even the clown who resembles or we assume is Ronald Mc. Donald buys Burger King.


This advertisement targets audience of all ages from the young to the old. For people who have a schema of what Ronald Mc Donald’s look like and who are loyal customers of Mc. Donalds, they will automatically assume that the customer in the image is indeed Ronald Mc. Donald. In rhetorics, the purpose of the enthememe is to make the audience / viewers to assume and complete the argument. According to Aristotle, “ enthymemes intuitively unite speaker and audience and provide the strongest possible proof.....The audience itself helps construct the proof by which it is persuaded.” (Griffins, 1997)

I personally think that the overall argument and the purpose of this image is to show customers that Burger King is the best burger in the world and it is trying to show that even the mascot, Ronald Mc. Donald eats Burger King.

However, the enthememe of this image is the customer. We perceive the customer to be a clown which represents Mc. Donalds. Without the enthememe, this image will not be a rhetoric image as there will be no argument. Here, the customer who we perceive to be the Ronald Mc. Donald is the unstated premise of the argument. Thus this is part of the deductive argument. Although we cannot see the full body of the clown since he is facing backwards and wearing a raincoat, automatically we are already assuming that he is Ronald Mc. Donald and he is buying Burger King. Through this advertisement, it is telling the customers that Burger King is the greatest Burger outlet and even Ronald Mc. Donald is purchasing burger’s from Burger King. This is how they use the art of Rhetoric visuals to persuade customers to come to them .

Here we can see that both visual and verbal rhetorics work together very well to convey the argument. The Burger King Logo becomes the anchorage to this advertisement. Because of this anchorage, it changes the meaning of the image making a controversy out of a simple image. If there is no anchorage, it looks just like an ordinary clown buying burgers or people will not even notice or associate the clown with Mc. Donalds. The advertisement never said anything about Mc. Donalds or who the customer was. From the image, the viewers infer that it is the clown from Mc. Donalds because the advertiser has cleverly placed an enthememe and it depends on the interpretation of the viewers to achieve the advertiser’s motive. The clown is used a means of persuasion to make the viewers convinced that Burger King is the best. According to Kenneth Burke ( 1968 ), the key for persuasion is “identification”. Burke said that in order for persuasion to take place , one must identify the purpose of the speaker . This is also another evidence where the advertiser successfully makes the viewers identify the purpose which is Burger King is the best. The advertiser created this image in a way that the enthememe is made open to the interpretation of the viewers.

In conclusion, rhetorics is indeed a powerful tool especially when it is used in advertising. The best thing about rhetorics in advertising is that the enthememe is placed in a such as way that it leaves the premises open for the audience to interprete the purpose of the advertiser.



REFERENCES:

Chandler D., (2002), Semiotics, the basics, Great Britain :Routledge


Em Griffin (2000), A First Look at Communication,Mc Graw Hill, 7th Edition.

Week 5 - The Effects of Gestalt and Schema Theory

For Week 5 of the lecture, we were introduced to another topic which relates to Semiotics which is the effect of Gestalt and the Schema theory. For this week’s journal, I am going to focus on Schema theory by creating a presentation for a group of primary school children and I am going to explore and investigate how schema theory can be used and applied by learners of every age especially in young children. My topic for the schema will be about fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents in the home. The reason why I chose these schemas is because according to Piaget’s ideas of children’s cognitive stage development, children between 7 -11 go through a pre-operational stage of learning, hence they are able to think logically about classifying objects into several features.( Atherton, 2010). Therefore based on Piaget’s theory, I will investigate whether they are able to classify things that causes fire and extend their schema about the causes of fire.


Before that, I will first explain a little bit about Gestalt and how it works. Both Gestalt and Schema theory are interrelated. Weitheimer( 1910) a German Psychologist describes Gestalt as “the whole is different from the sum of its parts”. The word Gestalt comes from the German noun meaning “Shapes”.

On the other hand , A schema generally means anything that an individual has experienced. According to The Schema Theory, people organize everything that they know into schema and structures. When people have their schemas , they are able to identify and associate things that they see around them. Schema theory also suggests that when a person doesn’t have any existing schema, it is very difficult for them to learn new information on a certain topic. There are two important parts for Schema theory, one is that every person’s schema is individualized and the other is that the knowledge structures are expandable.

Furthermore, Schema theory explains how knowledge is created and used by people who are in the learning stage. The term “Schema” has been created by Bartlett (1932). However, This theory was developed further by R.C Anderson (1984) , a respected American Psychologist. This theory represents an individual’s understanding of the world.

The first video clip that I use demonstrates how dangerous fire can be to children and at the same time it helps the child to understand how to prevent fire accidents in the home. The video clip also includes an animated fire engine which will catch the attention of the child and at the same time give them a schema of what a fire engine does.

Bartlet viewed schema as “ an active organization of past reactions, or past experience.”(pg. 257). It is important that every child has a schema about things around them so as they grow older, they are able to extend their schema further. Fire preventions and safety precautions are also important for children to understand at a young age because without these schemas, a child might be prone to play with matches, candles, oven and other dangerous things in the house without knowing the dangers that it can cause. According to Piaget’s theory of development, children adopt a series of schemas to understand the world ( ).In the above figure, I have provided two visual schemas that will frame my topic for fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents in the home.

According to the Piagetian Theory, when a child receives information that doesn’t fit his or her own schema about a particular object or event ,the child will experience incongruity. (Martin, 2007). The video shows a fire engine giving advice to the children regarding the fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents at home. Here, the fire engine is an incongruous schema because we don’t see fire engines talking in real life . By using the animated fire engine as an incongruous schema , the children will pay more attention to it and will create arousal and excitement because the fire engine is talking and giving them advice. Hence, it will make them wonder what the fire engine is trying to say to them.



In this video clip, the fire engine is talking and teaching the children about fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents in the home. This video is able to build a schema on the children regarding fire safety. It gives them the idea of what to do when a fire is detected in the house and the do’s and don’ts in the house to prevent fire accidents at home. By using animated graphics to relay the message to children, it helps them to recognise and remember the situation.



By using this incongruous schema, the presentation will be successful as this is part of “accretation” of the schema. According to Widmayer (2004), “Accretation” is a process whereby learners take in new information but do not need to alter the existing schemas. When the video clip show the children that the fire engine is giving advice, it strengthens their schema of a fire engine thus they get to understand and believe what the fire engine is telling them in regards to fire precaution. According to Widmayer (2004), Schema theory articulates three process of which knowledge structure changes. Among them is accretation, tuning and restructuring. Here, If the child has a schema of what a fire engine does and the dangers of the fire, they will go through an accretation process. An accretation process is where the children have an existing schema of the fire engine and they will just take in new information but do not have to change existing schemas.

Children are attracted to the flames of the candle or lighter or anything that burns with flames. By nature, children are constantly curious of their surroundings and they are always ready to try out new things. However, it is the parents or teachers responsibility to create the schema in children that these things are dangerous. Their curiosity might lead them into danger in which they are not aware of. In video 2, it shows a schema of what will happen if the children do not listen to the advice given by the fire engine in Video 1. When we look at the 2nd video, it shows a real image of what fire looks like. This gives an image and a schema to the children of what fire really looks like in the real world and the dangers of it.

The top level of the schematic process is the fire. The top level always represents the truth about the situation. For example in the video 1, the top level schema is the fire engine and the flames of the fire because this is the schema that I am trying to embed in the children when doing my presentation. However, the lower level of the schematic process is the variables that cause the fire. For example , the candles , the stove, the matches, the lighter , cigarette etc. This is part of the lower schema because it has terminals that can change. For example the candles can become different kinds of candles, or the stove can be of different colour or brand, or perhaps the variables which caused the fire can vary into different cause such as electrical wiring mishaps. The variables can change and it will not effect the top schema. The people who watch the video still know that the video presentation is focusing and highlighting on fire safety and precautions.

In conclusion, I am convinced now about Piagets theory whereby he claims that children are able to think logically about “classifying objects into several features.”. I have also explored the use of incongruity for visual images to create schemas in children. By understanding the use of top and lower schemas, children are able to classify the objects into groups because when the top schema changes it doesn’t fit their existing schema however, when the lower schema change, they are still able to modify their top schema and adjust it to the changes.

References :

Atherton J S, (2010) Learning and Teaching ; Piaget’s developmental theory , UK : http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm Retrieved on 10th September 2010.


Martin, R.A (2007). The psychology of humor : an integrative approach. Google Books, Retrieved on 8th September, 2010 from http://www.books.google.com.bn/books


Retrieved on 10th September, 2010 from www.spiritus-temporis.com/schema-psychology


Tracey, Diane H., Morrow, Lesley Mandel. Lenses on Reading : An Introduction to Theories and Models. New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press, 2006. Pg 53

Week 4 - Visual Syntax

Now, we have reached week 4 Lecture. For this week’s topic we learned about the three most important dimensions and rules of visual communications which are the visual Syntax, semantics and pragmatics. These three important rules makes up the structure, the meaning and the context of the image. Here, we are taught how visual images also uses syntax, semantics and pragmatics to make sense and understand an image.


My proposition for this particular week will be that Visual Images can actually be considered a language because what I have learnt in class today shows that Images do have their own syntax, semantics and pragmatics. I will do so by investigating the origin of Roman alphabets. As a Visual Communication Student , I have every right to believe that images should also be considered a language because images have the power to send messages and play a major influence in people’s lives the same way words do.

Over the years, there has been a disagreement between linguists and visual communicators because there are various linguistic scholars who fail to acknowledge that images can be considered a language. According to the Linguists, “Images do not have common elements similar to a written ABC alphabet” and they have no formal structure or syntax therefore they cannot be considered a language. ( Lester, 2000). To strengthen their argument, Noam Chomsky also stated that “a language is defined by its alphabet and it’s grammatical sentences”.(n.d.)

I have done several research and my findings is that during the historical period, before words or alphabets even existed, human beings communicate using signs and symbols. Iconic symbols as Pierce named it, is used as hieroglyphics during the Egyptian century . Language in its spoken form is a natural phenomena because it is common to everyone as a means of communicating. However when comes to writing, it is only achieved by some cultures depending on their historical background. In the past, certain cultures needed a form of writing to record matters dealing with trade, religion or power (Crees & Leeuwen, 2004) . During those days, things were written in a form of icons. According to Pierce, there are 3 types of signs which is iconic, indexical and symbolic. “Icons is an image that refers to something outside of its individual components.”( Pierce, pg.31 ) . People in the Roman and Egyptian period communicate through signs and drawings which closely resembles the object. This is commonly used for the hieroglyphics. This is how the alphabets were invented. For 25,000 years, the chief mode of written communication was paintings on the walls of caves.

Fig.1

An example of alphabets in order.

Fig.2

An example of hieroglyphics used during the Egyptian period

Visual communicators have also challenged statements from the linguists as their research has provided sufficient evidence that images can indeed be considered a language because according to visual experts, there are also rules to visual syntax. Saussure made a distinction between langue and parole. Langue refers to “system of rules and conventions which is independent of individual users” . Parole on the other hand refers to “its use in particular instances”.(Sassure, 1974) These rules have been studied by psychologists as well as both neuro and cognitive scientists. According to visual syntax, human beings follow an unconscious rule that leads us to focus on a certain point and start moving our eyes from the start and to the end of the image.




In order to test whether this statement is true, let us observe an image from an advertisement, and we will test the order of eye movement and see whether or not it follows a visual syntactic rule as claimed by the Visual Communicators.

Fig.1

An image of a hairdresser advertisement

Fig.2

The Lines and Arrows indicates the movement

Fixation




Here is a hair dresser advert advertising hair cut. Fixation is where the eye is fixed to a certain point in the image for a certain period. The fixation point for this advert will be on the hair between the two fingers. The reason for this is because according to the law of Pregnanz, the eye is lazy and it will only identify the most prominent image. When we apply the law of contrast, the colour of the finger is much in contrast with the colour of the hair which makes the hair in between the fingers stand out. According to Suzzane Langer, “grammatical structure is not a symbol of itself but it ties several symbols,....to make one complex term.”In an image, that term or idea is expressed through “ visual forms..lines, colours, proportions, etc. And are just a s capable of articulation as pictures.” This is the synctactic theory of visual communication. ( Langer, n.d.)



In this image, the hair in between the fingers captures our attention that cause our eyes to focus on that part. Perception is also another factor as to why we focus on the hair between the fingers. For most adults , their first impression on this image is that they see two legs which is actually the fingers and to them it represents nudity . However, when I asked my 11 year old boy what this image represents , he said that the finger represents a scissor and he interpreted it as someone trying to cut some hair. Here, it is proven that perception of an image strongly relies on cultural and historical knowledge. The reason why most adults interpret this as nudity at the first impression is because they already have a schema of what nudity is. On the other hand, the boy is innocent and sees the picture as exactly how it is represented. A perception only has meanings when the signs are recognizable and when it can be related to personal and cultural experience.



From the eye fixation in between the fingers , the focus of the eye slowly moves down to the fingers and then around the hair. The last part of the fixation will be on the text. Here, we can see that there is a set visual syntax rule of the eye movement and how they see the images. This is also similar to the structure of language.



Visual syntax also explores how colour, lines , shades and shadow are all part of the visual grammer. These rules are the syntactic rules of colour, syntactic rules of line and the syntactic rule of composition.



RULE OF CONTRAST.

When we analyse Fig.1 above, we can see that the colour of the background which is the hair is dark and the colour of the foreground which is the fingers is light. The two colours of the image is strongly contrasted hence it highlights the main image which the little part of the hair between the fingers.



RULE OF LINE

The major function of the line is too create a border and to guide the eyes of the viewers towards the direction of the image. When there is a border in the image, it makes the image look more prominent and focussed. Take a look at the Fig.2 and compare it to Fig.1 above. The image in Fig.2 gives a more prominent look to the image and it looks like it is in a frame. This is because of the border around it.

Fig. 3

When the rule of Lines is applied it gives a more stability and prominent look to the image.

However, we should note that both horizontal and vertical lines gives a different impression. For example, if the lines are horizontal, it gives the viewers an impression of depth. When it is vertical it stops the movement of the eyes for a moment before the eye movement continues to move to the next image.




RULES OF COMPOSITION.



In the rules of composition according to the syntactic rule of visual communication, it has the rule of third which is essential in photography. The rule of third actually helps to focus the composition. When we follow the rule of thirds, the image will turn out to be what is considered a good image. The image will not be out of focus and the viewers is able to identify what object is being highlighted. In this image Fig 1. And Fig.2 , the rule of third is focussing on the fingers. Perhaps we can say that the fingers is what the advertisers use as a subject to highlight the hair. Without the fingers, the climax of the image is gone.



We often ask what is the relationship between semiotics and semantics. Semiotics studies the meaning between signs and what they denote ( Barthes, 1977 ) whereas Semantics questions the “meanings behind the image and how the meaning is being created”. For example, when we look at the image again in Fig.2, we ask how did the advertiser create this meaning. What sort of visual grammar did the advertiser apply in order to capture the attention of the viewers.



CONCLUSION



Thus, from all the evidence given above, i hereby conclude that visual images can indeed be considered a language because images also contains certain rules such as syntax, pragmatics and semantics and I have demonstrated how these rules are applied into visual images.

The reason why children or adults are able to remember something well and clearly by looking at visual images is because according to Lester, (1996) “Words are repressive while pictures are fascinating, easily understood within a particular culture and can be made personal mediums of expression.” Indeed, visual images can be considered a language because they do have their own form ,structure, conventions and rules



REFERENCES:

Gunter Crees & Theo Van Leeuwen (2006), Routledge. 2nd edition.Reading Images. The grammer of Visual Design,pg.21. Retrieved from http://www.books.google.com.bn on 7th September 2010


Langer, Suzanne K. (1960). Philosophy in a New Key. Cambridege : Havard University Press.


Lester, Paul Martin.(2006) Visual Communication Images with Messagess 4th edition. Belmont,CA: Wadsowrth Publishing Company.

Week 3 - Semiotics Revisited

SEMIOTICS REVISITED


In Week 3 lecture, we are introduced to the theory of Semiotics. We learned the meaning of connotation, denotation, signifiers , signified and all that are inter-related to the study of Semiology. We were further taught how to analyse advertisements by using semiotics .

For Week 3, I will be analysing a fashion advertisement using Semiotics. My hypothesis for this week’s journal is that majority of the Fashion advertisement in the West uses the sex appeal to attract consumers. The reason why I want to analyse fashion advertisement which uses sex to promote their product is because I have always wondered what is the significance of sexual appeal in relation to fashion today. In order to test my hypothesis, I am going to examine a popular advertisement that portrays fashion today. I am going to start by analysing the politics of fashion, ideologies, denotation and connotation. Then I will sum up my conclusions to my analysis by stating out the outcome of my analysis and why fashion advertisers use sex appeal as their main attraction to customers.

Before I start my analysis, I would like to give a little bit of introduction to semiotics. The study of Semiotics was founded by a Swiss Linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and Pierce (1839-1914) . However, in the late 1960’s this idea was further developed by Roland Barthes as he used Semiotics as a major approach to his cultural studies. Ever since then, many scholars came up with various definitions of Semiotics but according to Pierce, he defined Semiotic as ‘the formal doctrine of signs’. ( Pierce 1931-58,2.227).

In semiotics, the concept of ‘code’ is fundamental, as Roman Jakobson emphasized, “The production and interpretation of texts depends upon the existence of codes or conventions for communication”.(Jakobson, 1971,pg.147) .Everyday, we see signs all around us and we communicate using signs. However, we never question why do these signs represent what it means and who are the people that has assigned the meaning to the sign. We live in this ‘take for granted world’ and use signs as our means of communication the way we are taught to understand it.

According to Pierce, (1931) there are three types of signs used in semiotics which are the Indexical, Iconic and Symbolic. Indexical is a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way to the signified whereas iconic is a mode of signifier which resembles the signified. Symbolic, however is a signifier which does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally conventional. (image,power and politics, pg.31)

Now linking back to my initial hypothesis of fashion, we can see that the image below is an advertisement for D & G. I will analyse this fashion advertisement using Semiotic analysis and I will further analyse the connotative and denotative meaning of the advert as well as identify the signified and the signifier for the image.

Fig. 1

Dolce & Gabbana Fashion Advertisement

POLITICS OF FASHION


The politics of this advertisement can be interpreted as the politics of sexuality, the politics of fashion, politics of masculinity, politics of femininity, politics of heterosexuality, politics of lust etc.

IDEOLOGIES OF FASHION

To explore the meanings of any images , we have to understand the ideologies first and relate the image to the ideologies in order to understand the meaning. Ideologies are systems of beliefs that exist within all cultures. ( Image, Power and Politics, pg.22).

Firstly , I will explore the ideologies of the image in Fig. 1. The ideologies that can be derived from the advert is that it is fashion for the mature people as it symbolizes sexuality, fashion is unisex, women being submissive at the same time seductive, young adults involve in drugs, the discourse of masculinity and femininity etc.



DENOTATION

Next, I will start by analysing the denotative aspects of the advertisement. “Denotation” in semiotics is described as the literal meaning of an image (Chandler, 2002, pg.140).According to Wilden, 1987, the term ‘’denotation’ is sometimes regarded as a digital code (pg. 224). The setting of this particular advertisement takes place in a communal shower which signifies that these models are very daring and bold. Next, we will look at the signifiers. The signifiers here is that there is a man who is half naked and bending towards a women. The women is lying down and gazing somewhere. Her eyes looks dark and puffy as if they had been taking drugs. When we analyse the posture of the models, we can see that each of the models are posing in a very seductive posture . All the women are posing in a sexual position. The body of the girls are the stereotype sexy girls while the men are all hunks with muscular bodies. However, the women bending behind the man looks like she is on the lookout for her friends who are about to do some daring action in the communal showers. The women sitting on the far left looks like she enjoys to be touched by the man behind her.

CONNOTATION

On the other hand, the term “Connotation” refers to the the socio-cultural and personal associations of the sign. (Chandler, 2002,pg. 140). These are typically related to the interpreter’s class, age, etc. The signifier of the models in the communal shower connotes that they are very daring and bold. We can say that Dolce & Gabanna’s clothes are for the daring people and anybody who uses Dolce & Gabanna clothings will be daring and willing to try out anything new. The signifier of the white colour clothes they wear connotes purity, cleanliness and innocence which can also be interpreted as the people who wear D&G are clean . If we look at the far right of the image there is an D & G label and it connotes the image of the clothes .

ANCHORAGE

Anchorage is a text which links the image to the text and strengthens the meaning of the text in regards to the image. The term anchorage is introduced by Barthes (1977). According to Barthes, anchorage can ‘fix the floating chain of signifieds” and limit an individual’s interpretation of the image.(Barthes, 1977, pg. 201) When we look at the image without the “Dolce and Gabanna” logo, we have the impression that it is a group of young people who is being bold to do sexual actions which many may consider as immoral . However, when we see the logo on the image, it immediately changes the meaning attached to the image. That is the importance of pragmatics in visual images. After looking at the image with the logo, we can see that this image reflects fashion of today. The action of the young people in the image reflects the act of being daring and bold. Without the logo, this image gives a vague statement to the consumers about fashion and people might misinterpret this image by thinking that it is an act of immorality . This also shows the importance of the “anchor” as it anchors the meaning to the image which shapes an individuals interpretation of the image.

CONCLUSION

Here, we can see that the image draw a cultural knowledge that sex is appealing to almost every mankind on earth. By using sexual appeal it can easily attract the consumers to purchase their product. Many fashion designers have noticed the success of using sexuality as a way to visually attract consumers. The mass media is certainly an important socializing agency thus much of its content will obviously reflect the patriarchal ideology which is portraying women as appendages to men’s arms or sexual playthings.

Thus my conclusion after analysing this image using semiotic analysis is that many fashion advertisers do actually use sex appeal for their advertisement in the Western society. The reason why discourse of sexuality is used is because of the culture. Patriarchy ideology takes a dominant stand in the society where women seems to become appendages to men. This statement is also supported by Marjorie Ferguson (Forever Feminine) , a sociologists who found a ‘cult of feminity’ being promoted in women’s magazine. In the West, using sex appeal in these advertisement actually works as it simulates excitement through the eyes of the consumer and directly attracts the consumers to the products.

REFERENCES

Chandler, D. (2002), The basics Semotics, London : Routledge


Stokes, J. (2003). Semiotics. How to do media and cultural studies (pp.70-75). London : Sage Publications.

Week 2 - Perception

SEEING AND PERCEPTIONS


My journal for Week 2 will highlight the difference between “Seeing” and “Perceiving”. I will further explain the meaning of Nostalgia by illustrating Visual Images of Postcards and what is represented through the postcards . I would also like to investigate about Perception and reasons as to why women perceive “Slim as beautiful”. It would be interesting as well to find out who created the ideology and to what extent would a women go through in order to get a body labelled as “Slim”. I will then extend my research to slimming pills and consumerism as how women consumers believe and perceive products such as slimming pills despite the dangers that they have cost with other consumers. The reason why I want to investigate on such an issue is because as a young girl, I have always been overweight and my mother has always sent me to go for aerobics and diet just for the sake of keeping fit. However, it was not till my late teens that I started to take a Chinese laxative which was also in the form of slimming pills and I started to encounter tremendous pain in my tummy. Hence, I stopped taking the pills altogether and I told myself, “Who cares if I’m fat, as long as I am healthy.”

“Seeing comes before words.The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.” ( Berger, 1972). Through this statement alone we can infer that seeing is the first thing that every human beings do as a child before they start perceiving something or before they are even able to think. As a child we always see things and observe things at the same time take it as ‘face value’ i.e what we see is what we get. We don’t analyse what we see as a young child because we do not understand the difference between what is right and what is wrong and we do not have any cultural or historical background where we can base our perception yet. We always rely on our “significant other” to know whether our behaviour is acceptable or not in the society. According to Charles Cooley, 1979, we see others as our “Self Looking Glass” where we respond to how other people perceive us in our behaviour. (pg.63 )

As we grow up in the society and become part of social institutions, we are taught to comply according to social norms and values. Our behaviour reflects what we perceive to be the norms in the society. In some cases, children behave according to how they perceive their surroundings for example, if the community they grew up in treats him good then he will turn out to be good, however if he is being mistreated, there is a tendancy that he will treat others the same way. The way we perceive the outside world is according to what we know or what we believe, which are part of cultural and historical factors. To be able to perceive, we must also be able to understand language .

Perception involves all our experience about the world and how we perceive it is through our sensory organs such as sense, touch, smell, hearing and sight. This is how we make “connections and communicate to the outside world”. (Jamieson,n.d)

The media itself plays a major role in shaping the thoughts and perception of gender and its influence crosses the border between primary and secondary socialisation. For example, when we look at cartoons, we can see all the Princesses eg. Cinderella being portrayed as pretty and beautiful, and most obvious of all, her shape is like an hour glass. Whereas, princess Fiona in Shrek, who is still under the curse of the witch is fat and she is labelled as ‘ugly’ because of her size. Here, we can see that perception of women being slim and beautiful has already been embedded in gender ever since at a young age.

Fig.1

Cinderella portrayed as beautiful because of her slim figure

Fig.2

 Princess Fiona portrayed as ugly because she is fat.

Human beings perceive things around them according to how it is represented. Representation refers to the “use of language or images to create a meaning about the world around us.” (pg.12).

According to the "hypodermic needle theory" ,mass media had a “direct, immediate and powerful effect“on its audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change.(http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/ , n.d) The theory also claims that It is the nature of human beings to be passive in receiving informations and that humans are like sponges and we absorb every information which is fed to us. Have we ever thought for a while and say to ourselves , “Hmm...could this be the truth that i am hearing or seeing?.” Most probably, we will say this to ourselves only if we have a background knowledge of the informer, i.e. perhaps the informer is not a reliable source or he is well known for his lies. Apart from that, we will accept and believe all that we hear and see without even investigating the slightest bit of truth. We can say that it is part of our unconscious mind that is receiving passive informations.

This is proven in many advertisements. Most consumers believe what they see in advertisements and the moment the latest advertisement comes out on TV or Magazine, they will rush to the shops to grab the latest product in the market. Among many other products , Slimming pills is a top selling product in the market among women worldwide which can cause side effects to the health and yet people still purchase the product without second thoughts. We hardly hear about consumers consulting doctors before purchasing these products. This shows that consumers believe every single word and advice that is written on the product. To relate this issue to my earlier argument, i will now examine the truth behind slimming products and use a case study to show that Slimming pills has caused people’s health to deteroriate and to some extent it has caused death.

Before that here are some rhetoric advertisements of slimming which enhance the ideology that women should “look slim” in order to “feel sexy”. If we focus on the text it emphasises that it is all “women’s dream to look slim”. Here are examples of images of how being slim is portrayed through the Media.

Fig.3

Ideology of what a women’s dream is.

Here is a case study on a Singaporean Actress who became ill because of eating Slim 10:-


Back in the year 2002, Andrea De Cruz, an actress from Singapore was admitted to the Hospital because she suddenly became unconscious. After a thorough check the doctors confirmed that she had a liver infection and this was due to the slimming pills called Slim10 that she has taken few months back. Her boyfriend also an actor was willing to donate part of his liver to her and this saved her life. Ever since this happened there was a lot of controversy about Slimming Products and Slimming Products started to be banned in the country. (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article)

However, despite this case that has been a major controversy especially in China where the product was manufactured, this did not change the perception of Asian women towards slimming products. They do not not even fear the least of the danger that slimming pills is likely to cause. Instead, they fall for the advertisement of Slimming products and are ready to try out new slimming products available in the market.

The ideology of “slim” women being sexy is created by human beings. When advertisements portray sexy models on the media, women have the perception that being slim is associated with being beautiful, pretty and suitable for becoming a model. This ideology has become a global culture where majority of the society accepts this as the norms. Even the opposite sex perceive slim women to be beautiful.

Let us examine this photograph used to advertise slimming products.

Fig.4

This picture shows a before an after effect of eating a particular slimming pill product

When we look at the picture above Fig.4 it gives the consumers the perception that anyone who takes the slimming pills will definitely loose weight and will transform into the slim lady represented in the left picture. For Andrea Cruz’s case, she is not overweight, however, she possesses this aneroxic mindset that she has to lose weight so she decided to purchase the slimming pills offered to her by her colleage. However, it turned out to be the worst nightmare she could ever imagine. And now, her doctors told her that she can only live until 50 years old after all the transplant has been successful. Slim 10 contains an ingredient called “Fenfluramine” which contains ingredients that can cause damage to the liver. In the same year, another fellow Singaporean, Selvarani Raja who took the same slimming pills Slim10 died due to liver failure after consuming the same product for a few months. ( http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article)

CONCLUSION

Nevertheless, perception is after all how a person is made to see things and after analysing how a person creates his own perception, it is clear that perception comes from ideologies as well as their perception relies on their own cultural background as well as their social background. Both factors effects a perception of an individual because it gives them the ideology of what something is suppose to be or look like. For example, Once a woman has her own perception of what “slim” is in her culture, there is nothing to stop her to believe otherwise. Women will indeed do anything to get a body of a supermodel even if it will cost their life. And this is proven in the slimming pills advertisement where the advertisement creates a sense of awareness among the women that it will help them to loose weight, hence the women starts purchasing the slimming pills with the hope of becoming slim just like the woman that they perceive in the posters despite all its negative effects. The negative effects are just ignored by the consumers. People easily believe anything that is represented to them by the media. As I stated earlier, media is the most important social institution that helps to shape an individual’s perception towards things. Thus I conclude it is not possible to judge one’s perception or whether an individual’s perception is right or wrong however, it is important to know that an individual’s cultural background and social background helps to shape an individual’s perception as well.

NOSTALGIA

Nostalgia is understood to be the happy moments and bitter sweet memories of the past. Nostalgia is a “cultural artifact” which is said to be all the good things that has been extracted in the past which is represented to an individual. Almost everybody has experience good memories which they consider to be nostalgic moments. In this visual journal, I will demonstrate how nostalgic moments play an important part in an individual’s life and how advertising companies use nostalgia to create a good impression of their product in order to make the viewers perceive what they see to be true.

Postcards of Visit Malaysia from Malaysian Tourism Board presenting good images of Malaysia

Here, we can see that the post cards distributed by the Tourism of Malaysia shows a reflection of how beautiful Malaysia is. Anybody who have never been to Malaysia will think that Malaysia is the perfect paradise and will be longing to go there. In one of the postcards, it shows the slogan “Fall in love again and again.” This slogan tries to manipulate the mind of the people who has seen the post card. Again it depends on individual’s interpretation but for me it is saying as if , if we visit Malaysia, we will fall in love again and again with the country and everything there. It also builds a perception for the individual that Malaysia is a lovely place to visit.

However, we are not aware that there are many omitted informations about Malaysia in the postcards. For example, we all know that Malaysia is well known for the overpriced taxi, as well as the dangers in Chow Kit Road. But if an individual who sees the postcard has never experience this incident, their perception of Malaysia will be totally different from a person who has bad experience in Malaysia. The person who has only seen Malaysia portrayed through the postcard will perceive Malaysia as a wonderful place to visit and will be longing to go there for a holiday. However, the person who has bad experience might not want to go to Malaysia again. Here, it is evidential that a person is only able to perceive if the individual has got an experience to relate it to. Cultural and historical factors also play a huge influence towards the ability of an individual to perceive.

REFERENCES:

Jamieson,H. (2007). The perceptual connection. Visual communication : More than meets the eye (pp.13-27). Bristol : Intellect Books.


Retrieve on 2nd September 2010 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article)


Petterson,R. (2002). Information design : An introduction (pp.223-234). Retrieved 30th August 2010, from Universii Brunei Darussalam Ebrary Books Website.


Sturken, M. And Cartwright L.(2009). Practices of Looking : Image, power and politics.Practices of Looking: an introduction to visual culture (pp.10-44). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd Edition.


Barnard,A. , Burgess,T and Kirby,M (2004).Sociology. (pp.38-45).Cambridge University Press,2nd Edition.


Davis, D.K. & Baron, S.J. (1981). A History of Our Understanding of Mass Communication. In: Davis, D.K. & Baron, S.J. (Eds.). Mass Communication and Everyday Life: A Perspective on Theory and Effects (pp.19-52). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.