Symbols and images have a more than significant impact on one?s views of the world. Since childhood, a person?s brain uses representation of images into meanings to make sense of their world. These images then go on to being either the truth or falsehood and base a person?s views of the world for the rest of their life. All this can be explained through the idea of representation of everyday cultural mediums; such as advertisements and the television.
Representation is the way a person interprets symbols and images of a culture and the way these images explain why the world is the way it is. These symbols and images are seen in everyday cultural mediums so nobody is exempt from representation; even under strict exclusion from society. An example would be of a person brought up on Fifth Avenue who believes that the best clothes are made by the likes of Armani compared to a vagabond who believes that the best clothes are the ones that last him through the night.
Nearly every form of visual media a person comes into contact with is a photograph, which is undisputable evidence of an event. There is the myth of photographic truth, which means that photographs are subjective, yet can be manipulated and taken in different contexts. Take the photographs taken by Nazi?s during the holocaust. The photographs denote that Nazis killed millions of people, but the photographs may also take on many connotative meanings. Connotative meanings are views people hold on images based on their cultures and past experiences. One may have the connotative view that the images are horrendous while another might find justification within the actions of the Nazis.
Of the two connotative meanings mentioned with the Nazi pictures they each hold different ideologies; ideas that form a culture. The ideas of ideology are usually taken in as the views of most of the population of a given culture, therefore ideologies define cultures. An American ideology is the belief in independent freedom while a communist ideology is communal sharing. How are these ideologies passed on in a culture? They start off in schools and places that people gather. Malls are filled with advertisements. There are ads that symbolize skinny brunettes wearing Chanel as the perfect woman, which is what most men and women tend to take as truth. Then there are ads to enlist people into the army, which give a message of a strong country run by individuals.
Rathnasambhava, the Transcendent Buddha of the South and Madonna Enthroned are very similar images that were produced by very different cultures. Both images were produced during the 13th Century. The image of Rathnasambhava, the Transcendent Buddha of the South was produced in Tibet during an interesting period of the country’s religious history. The branch of Tibetan Buddhism is led by a religious and sometimes political leader called the Dalai Lama. It was during the 13th Century during the reign of Kublai Khan, around the time of the production of this painting, that Tibet experienced the first incarnation of the Dalai Lama. One has to wonder if this painting is somehow related to that occurrence. According to one source, the reincarnation system for the Living Buddhas is the main point distinguishing Tibetan Buddhism from other forms of Buddhism.
People tend to views an image based on how society say it should be they tend to interpret the image on those assumption, but never their own assumptions. Susan Bordo and John Berger writes’ an argumentative essay in relation to how viewing images have an effect on the way we interpret images. Moreover, these arguments come into union to show what society plants into our minds acts itself out when viewing pictures. Both Susan Bordo and John Berger shows that based on assumptions this is what causes us to perceive an image in a certain way. Learning assumption plays into our everyday lives and both authors bring them into reality.
An image has the explicit power of telling a story without saying any words, that’s the power behind a photo. A photo tends to comes with many sides to a story, it has the ability to manipulate and tell something differently. There is a tendency in America, where explicit photos of war or anything gruesome occurring in the world are censored for the public view. This censorship hides the reality of our world. In “The War Photo No One Would Publish” Torie DeGhett centers her argument on censorship, detailing the account of graphic Gulf War photo the American press refused to publish. (73) DeGhett argues that the American public shouldn’t be restrained from viewing graphic content of the war occurring around the world. She believes that incomplete
... role in the process of critical thinking, how imagery whether through television, billboards, books or magazines has a profound impact on how we view the world and that we have been bombarded with images, whether positive or negative, to a point where we become oblivious to the underlying messages these images are conveying to us. They suggest that images define who we are and what we do, for example, a beautiful model wearing a designer pair of shoes in a magazine conveys to us that we too can be a beautiful, confident woman if only we had those shoes. Another example, on the negative slope of imagery is an advertisement for alcohol or cigarettes, these advertisements are designed to sell, and we are willing to buy. The editors make it clear that we need to be subjective when viewing these images, to go beyond the immediate and look for the underlying message.
The mass media carries with it unparalleled opportunities to impart information, but also opportunities to deceive the public, by misrepresenting an event. While usually thought of as falsifying or stretching facts and figures, manipulation can just as easily be done in the use of photography and images. These manipulations may be even more serious – and subtle – than written manipulations, since they may not be discovered for years, if ever, and can have an indelible and lasting impact on the viewer, as it is often said, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. One of the most significant images of Twentieth Century America was the photograph of a migrant mother holding her child. The photograph was taken during the Great Depression by photographer Dorothea Lange, and has remained an enduring symbol of the hardship and struggle faced by many families during the Depression Era. This image was also an example of the manipulation of photography, however, for it used two major forms of manipulation that remain a problem in journalistic photography.
The images that infiltrate our lives appear to focus on maintaining the status quo or the norms of society. They are designed to show what is expected in life. Berger states, "Images were made to conjure up the appearance of something that was absent"(107). Berger argues "images" are "conjured up" or imagined to represent what is "absent" or what the individual wants to see as reality. There used to be a tendency to over exemplify the way in which women were thought to be, but "today, that opposition no longer seems to hold quite as rigidly as it once did (women are indeed objectified more than ever, but, in this image-dominated culture, men increasingly are too)" (156). Regardless of so...
Have you ever seen an advertisement for a product and could immediately relate to the subject or the product in that advertisement? Companies that sell products are always trying to find new and interesting ways to get buyers and get people’s attention. It has become a part of our society today to always have products being shown to them. As claimed in Elizabeth Thoman’s essay Rise of the Image Culture: Re-Imagining the American Dream, “…advertising offered instructions on how to dress, how to behave, how to appear to others in order to gain approval and avoid rejection”. This statement is true because most of the time buyers are persuaded by ads for certain products.
Culture is an aspect of everyone's life. It helps others to understand another person's beliefs and actions. There are multiple cultures in the world which are opposed to their own kind seeking help for a mental illness. There is an infinite number of cultures that are represented in the United States. “Many cultural and religious teachings often influence beliefs about the origins and nature of mental illness, and shape attitudes towards the mentally ill.” (1). One's cultural beliefs can make them think about whether or not they should seek to get help for a mental illness. Among the cultures around the world and particularly in the US, many Asian cultures do not want the community members to be receiving help for their mental illness. In these cultures mental illness is seen as shameful, because these cultures influence the “conformity to norms, emotional self-control, and family recognition through achievement.” (1). There are many cultural factors that play a role in whether or not a person will receive therapy. These factors include: language, level of acculturation, age, gender, occupational issues, family structure, religious beliefs, and traditional beliefs about mental health (2). Language limits the access of therapy. If a person living in the United States does not speak English very well, it could influence them to not seek therapy. There is a large focus on “in-group/out-group” in many Asian cultures, as in everyone who is in the family/community around them are in the “in-group” and everyone else who is not like them are in the “out-group.”
In this essay I will describe an image taken from an advert and use visual methodological approach to analyse and depict the different set of meanings produced by this image. In order to explicate my ideas I will provide a brief outline of the picture. Then, I will describe a number of coded and non coded meanings and how the advert is employing a range of signifiers to communicate messages to the consumer and reinforce the brand identity. (Barthes 1972)
In her essay “Seeing”, Annie Dillard focuses on showing how different people have different perceptions. Dillard gives multiple examples to support her main idea, which is that preconceived and inherited notions influence our perceptions. Dillard discusses the different ways of seeing, how people with different backgrounds have different experiences with seeing, and many more. While Dillard’s idea about perceptions is definitely relevant and accurate, but are certainly not complete as there are multiple things that influence our perceptions.
The motivations behind why photos were taken will be explored, such as propaganda, as well as reactions to them. Research into events being photographed, their intentions and who requested them will be made, also assessing its effect on the public determining success. B. SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE Battle field photography was not developed for the sole purpose of recording events as would a newspaper or painting. Battlefield photography brought intense images directly from the field to the public, bringing the horrors of war to families so far from their husbands and sons (Niller). The photography institution brought the reality of war to the public in manners newspapers were incapable of (Harvey 73).
...o shape interpretations through presentation of meaning and experience, it must be accepted that popular culture artifacts have agency ranging from the individual level to the level of international politics.
Images are a powerful force in advertising as they are the ones that promote different perceptions and attitudes towards products. They are also the ones that create stereotypes. They are very manipulative, for they will never focus on the negative things that are associated with their products, only the positive ones. Advertisements are ambitious which gives them power, and engage customers for their approval.
Stereotypes is a big issue within the media industry. Representation within the media is to show someone or something, using a process of depicting, descripting and symbolization. Stereotypes, as described by Stuart Hall, is the “production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language which enables us to refer to either the ‘real’ world of objects, people or events, or indeed to imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people and events”. In his research Hall has suggested that there is two systems of representation, the first system regarding direct associations of events, people and objects that have certain mental representations and concepts that people have in their minds. Meaning is therefore
I was interested particularly in doing graphics design and the visual communication that I was inspired by combining images phrases and ideas to illustrate to the target and audience so that they would impact and react on those kind of illustrated for e.g. the billboards, poster, the product packaging and lots of more advertisement there. There are lots of elements on different types of media that I have already mentioned but there are also examples like Logos which really encourage people and make those people to think about logos. There are also lots of books designs and magazines advertisements thinking from these graphics design use of socially, morally ethical thinking mainly it happens when people do mostly think about positively and negatively so it would affect people’s mind and they would think more in detailed meaning which is called graphical visual communication, to demonstrate the recycle logo which would be advertise the recycling of ‘trees hunger and suffer do recycle paper’.