Mass Media Mind Control - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Halx · 05-30-2003, 07:38 PM

is that dude foregoing sex for a book?

Shokan · 05-30-2003, 08:06 PM

Books are always better than no eyed, out of focus, slutty dressin girls.

But seriously, I dont see anything. Her shirt looks kinda lifted over one of her tits, but other than that....zip.

ARTelevision · 05-30-2003, 11:00 PM

The guy looks pretty anxiety ridden.

Here he is, booking down hard for some purpose. Whatever it is, the implication is that he hasn't yet "made it" - accomplished his goal in life. He looks pretty concerned. But he is almost there.

The universal goal for guys is presumed to be to get a home for him and his girl to start a life together. The pressure is on.

The girl's strap is down on her dress, she's breathing heavily, and she's got her heel in her crotch while her hand is in the same place. She can hardly wait for this guy to come up with the goods. They are out in a field somewhere. She is hot and he is falling behind in his responsibility.

He knows it is his responsibility to "get a room" or by extension a place to bed down together. "All the solutions you need. All in one place." He needs solutions quick- the message is "C'mon dude, get it together and take care of this hottie or you will lose her. We can help. Get a home loan from us and the object of your desire will be yours."

All this happens in an instant. a mini-drama imperceptible to the conscious mind but available after extended study. ads are made to be apprehended in 2 or 3 seconds - flipping a magazine, driving by a billboard.

I have an MFA in Fine Art and have been trained for many years to analyze visual images. but the messages that are conveyed here can not be perceived consciously in 2 or 3 seconds. The eyes and brain however, catch them instantaneously.

The emotional impact of the image enters the unconscious. Deep-seated fears and urges are unleashed. And the solution to all of this precipitous passion and anxiety is within reach: a Fleet Home Loan...

The most important parts of this type of message are unconsciously perceived. I guess if we at least study this stuff consciously we can gain some measure of awareness of what is or might be going on. Everything we use on a daily basis has been advertised to us by methods like this.

Why did we choose the products we have surrounded ourselves with? Not only that, we pay for the costs of marketing this stuff to ourselves.

~springrain · 05-31-2003, 04:53 AM

Art, i just got a chance to see the picture now, you've described the marketing intent hidden messages beautifully...

Quote:

Originally posted by ARTelevision
All this happens in an instant. a mini-drama imperceptible to the conscious mind but available after extended study. ads are made to be apprehended in 2 or 3 seconds - flipping a magazine, driving by a billboard.
The emotional impact of the image enters the unconscious. Deep-seated fears and urges are unleashed.

i could not agree more... as tried to convey in my earlier post... all these messages we are bombarded with, day after day, whether fleeting or not... do leave an imprint...
and on the emotional level, as i can only speak for myself... in hindsight, i see the way that advertisments pushed my "shame" buttons in regards to my body image.

______

one other thing that i noticed while studying the picture, is that girl/woman in the background... seems to be a "looming" figure... her dark hollow eyes, the blackness of her mouth hanging open... almost "dead"... something to be afraid of... contrast against the somewhat demure white dress... her hand in her crotch, her fallen strap... her desire...
he appears young, looks "bookwormish"... he is afraid of her perhaps... but she is something he is "supposed" to want...

i saw this as another way for the ad to feed the "anxiety" level and jerk the emotional reaction...

Quote:

Why did we choose the products we have surrounded ourselves with? Not only that, we pay for the costs of marketing this stuff to ourselves.

excellent question... makes one think... not only about why did i choose? ... but about the fact that the cost of the subliminal marketing campaigns is imbedded in the cost of the product itself.

ARTelevision · 06-01-2003, 06:26 AM

....................
Sexism with an alibi

Supposedly ironic, even kitsch, ads still keep women in their place

May 31, 2003
The Guardian

Sexism in advertising. It sounds almost quaint. The very words have a retro ring to them, conjuring up, on the one hand, scenes of be-aproned housewives serving casseroles to hungry husbands, and on the other, posters of leggy models in platform boots and hotpants with - and this is a key image in the scenario - feminists in dungarees slapping "this degrades women" stickers all over them.
For sexism isn't just a phenomenon, it's an idea - and once the word stops being used, the idea goes out of fashion. What then becomes passe isn't actually sexism, which is doing just fine, but the concept of sexism, in advertising or anything else. This concept (unlike "racism") has fallen into disuse in recent years, and is now rarely employed in public debate. So our view of the situation it describes becomes locked in the moment when the term flourished: and increasingly our culture presents sexism as a kind of 60s or 70s phenomenon, to be enjoyed as kitsch, rather than as a contemporary problem to be addressed as unjust.

Certainly you would never know from media imagery that women's income lags far behind men's, that domestic violence against women is frighteningly common, and that women still perform the bulk of domestic labour. In today's ad world, women outperform male colleagues in the boardroom and steer Jeeps across rugged landscapes, while husbands with skewed ties struggle over baby formula, and anxious youths worry about spots before dates. What might be termed "social" (as opposed to sexual) ad images - depictions of the workplace and domestic life - have changed beyond all recognition in the past few decades, and airbrushed away the grinding day-to-day sexism women still encounter in reality.

To complain about this would be to berate advertising for being itself: it always idealises, but what is telling is the change in the ideal. "Social" advertising has achieved a gender revolution before the fact, creating an implicitly post-feminist world in which women are powerful and men compliant (or, if not, about to get their comeuppance). It is a depiction of gender relations that fuels sexism, while banishing it: the portrayal of contemporary society as female-dominated generates powerful sexist feelings which, however, cannot "innocently" be expressed in this imaginary present.

So they become channelled on the one hand into what I call retro-sexist imagery, where sexism operates freely within the frame of a period style; and, on the other, into increasingly fetishistic sexual imagery, which depicts power relations as about S&M sex rather than who washes up or chairs the board.

Retro-sexism as a social and stylistic phenomenon can be seen across all the media, from ads and fashion spreads to CD covers, where overtly sexist scenarios are couched in period setting and clothing, and/or presented with 60s/70s typography and graphics. A perfect example is the Saturday-night TV series Boys and Girls, which has just finished its first run. The show has sexism built into its live audience format, incorporating a weekly "totty competition" which, though applied to both genders, is framed entirely in male terms, with members of the opposite sex voted either a "babe" or a "minger". But this almost brutal sexual scoring is wrapped in a cutely tongue-in-cheek retro package: the title sequence employs perky 60s graphics and the theme song is Andy Williams's 1967 Music to Watch Girls By. These stylistic trappings imply that it's knowingly done, self-aware, even kitsch: as if that somehow changed the crudeness of the actual content.

But the grosser the sexism, the more "retro" it now seems - and this process extends beyond media imagery to society at large. Take the rise in acceptability of lap-dancing clubs: the very name "Spearmint Rhino" has a 70s vibe, a combination of spearmint gum (retro wholesome cleanliness - Wrigley's advert) and Rhinestone Cowboy (retro nostalgic male longing - Glen Campbell's 1975 hit). Another example is the supposedly tongue-in-cheek "stripper for stag night" syndrome - usually presented as old-fashioned fun - or the success of men's magazines, with their nods to the old-style Playboy and Esquire. Retro-sexism is sexism with an alibi: it appears at once past and present, "innocent" and knowing, a conscious reference to another era, rather than an unconsciously driven part of our own.

Indeed, retro-sexism seems to hark back to golden days before feminism, an innocent time when it was perfectly OK to think of women as domestic servants or sex objects. But the era its imagery invokes, the late 60s to 70s, was not a pre-feminist era, it was the feminist era - when terms like sexism (originally, male chauvinism) entered public speech. And to signpost sexism today - to make an image look consciously sexist - retro styling is necessary to activate the "period" language in which it had widely understood social meaning.

For by the 90s, feminism and sexism were being treated as over, and issues of "sexuality" rather than gender became the focus of cultural debate - with the bizarre result that, as sexual imagery became more explicit, a feminist critique became less fashionable. This was part of a wider process whereby the political counterculture gradually embraced the objects of its critique during the 80s and 90s - a process whose effects remain with us today. And besides locking "sexism" into modes of the past, it has resulted in a climate where, far from seeming exploitative, highly sexualised images now tend to be seen as cutting-edge and radical. Therefore "sexual" (unlike "social") ad imagery has become an arena in which sexism can operate with very little criticism.

This is partly because, increasingly, men are portrayed as sex objects, too. But the notion of gender "equality" within sexual imagery takes no account of gender inequality in the world surrounding it. Numerous men complained to the advertising standards authority about the Lee Jeans ad where a woman rests her stiletto boot on a man's naked buttock, on the grounds that it encouraged violence against them. Deeply unpleasant as this image is, its relation to actual violence may nevertheless be the reverse of that proposed in the complaints. It could be seen as projecting in fantasy form not only some men's wishes and/or fears, but an eroticised justification for their anger. In the world of sexual ads, the dominatrix, the bitch and the whore wield power over men; in the real world, a British woman is physically attacked by a man she knows every six seconds.

This suggests that, rather than embodying sexual liberation, today's fetishistic imagery provides a language for expressing both sexism and, perhaps, the pain and rage of a sex war which at heart is about social, not sexual power. These ubiquitous images translate the social as sexual: showing gender power struggles nakedly in every sense.

And yet we have deprived ourselves of the language to analyse them as such. Our unwillingness to name sexism in the present has on the one hand encouraged it to develop as a form of nostalgia, and on the other, allowed it to flourish in a sexualised form which we perceive as daringly cutting-edge. Alongside these phenomena we have the interesting fact that mainstream social advertising has concocted an impossibly female-dominated world which makes sexism, both the fact and the concept, appear extinct. The reality of sexism is, however, still with us: it is time to resuscitate the term and renew the critique.

This is an edited version of an article to appear in the summer edition of Eye (eyemagazine.com). Judith Williamson is the author of Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising
...............

If you're interested in pursuing this subject, as am I, there are a lot of resources on the web.

I have a selected list of them on this site:

ANTI-MASS-MEDIA-MIND-CONTROL MESSAGES

~springrain · 06-01-2003, 06:32 AM

ART... i also found this site of interest along the same lines...

http://www.subliminalworld.com/indexsma.htm

will add more thoughts on this later...

ARTelevision · 06-01-2003, 06:40 AM

~springrain, yes, it's among the extensive list of refs, I posted above.

happy sub hunting!

ARTelevision · 06-07-2003, 05:10 PM

The scene is arid, dry, airless.

What kind of way is this to sell cigarettes?
Free associating doesn't come up with many positive associations, in fact the dug-out holes in the ground representing low-tar numbers look more like empty graves than anything else.

What could be going on here?

Smoking may involve a death wish.

People are moved by just a few very deep themes - things like sex and death. We are rendered vulnerable to messages and suggestibility when our primal desires and/or fears are pricked.

suviko · 06-07-2003, 05:25 PM

Only about 5% of radio listening is conetrated (you do nothing else at the same time, you just listen to it). Source: my communications study book. Same goes pretty much for ads and TV. The fact is taht human beings are social and cultural animals and we live in the cultural world, in symbolic reality, as much as in the physical reality. Communication is always both about changing messages and keeping the social system up. It IS about power, too. But there are theorists who claim that the power is not just in the hands of mediamoguls and advertisers. One shcool of thinking mainatins that everybody have power. We can see how the ad is trying to manipulate us to buy what it sells and go against this obvious reading of the text and useit to construct our own view of that product and the values buying and using that would have in the society. Blah blah blah--- My English skills are again failing me to write sharply and instead this is getting really mindless and it's 4:24 in the morning.. I'll go to sleep now.

ARTelevision · 06-07-2003, 06:59 PM

thanks, suviko, for your thoughts.
that's my only intention regarding this subject - to get us thinking on these things.
my own views on what is going on are just my own views - and not nearly as important as having the subject discussed...I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything...ever actually.

Cynthetiq · 06-08-2003, 05:35 PM

one of the things that I do while I'm immersed in any media is to check how it's making me feel.

As I watch a TV show, I watch the commercials carefully. First to see what demographic I'm being lumped into. Second, to see what my reactions to the advertisements are. How did they make me feel, and what is my reaction to them. It's interesting to do the first one.. that's the first step to understanding that you are being researched and manipulated as a group and as an individual.

At least with printed material you have time to digest it. TV, I have to tape it, and now that I have Tivo... it's always getting rewound.

ARTelevision · 06-09-2003, 05:33 AM

Cynthetiq, good thoughts, thanks.

Right, what I;m trying to do here is encourage us to pay some extra attention to what the media may be attempting to do to us and how it is affecting us.

In your words:
"...understanding that you are being researched and manipulated as a group and as an individual."

Cynthetiq · 06-09-2003, 05:35 AM

I forgot the ever important number 3rd thing that I do...

am I being entertained? and how is that entertainment affecting my judgement to the first 2.

~springrain · 06-09-2003, 05:48 AM

excellent thread ART... everyone's thoughts and comments further the "thinking field"...

sorry i've not much to add today... bone tired and brain is flat out too full right now to add another thing...

ARTelevision · 06-10-2003, 03:40 PM

Something funny about this picture.

"Who can resist the gentle touch?"

Easytiger · 06-10-2003, 04:30 PM

I heard that Media Studies is not a common subject at US universities- my lecturer tried to tell us that only 2 universities actually run it.
I would love to hear that he's wrong? Any undergrad media students out there?

Also, is media something that you can study in high school in the States?

~springrain · 06-10-2003, 04:49 PM

ART... i almost posted that picture myself... there was another years ago for "Baby Soft" deodorant that was, if you can believe it, more than doubly suggestive and was almost obscene with it's sexual imagery and double entendre' (sp?).

also VERY interesting in possible responses to Easytigers post... this is an issue that i think merits a lot more attention than it is currently getting.

as far as high school... it is not offered anywhere that i am aware of...

Easytiger · 06-10-2003, 05:26 PM

I want to add- I ask because I am a media graduate, media worker and media teacher, and was very surprised to hear that the world's biggest media producer and most media-saturated society isn't big on media studies.

roothorick · 06-10-2003, 10:27 PM

Here's the killer...

A computer does nothing more than take in information in its world and act upon it based on information it has taken in before. The only things that the computer knows without prior information are completely subconscious -- the spinning of fans, electric current running through its circuits, the power and HDD LEDs on the front of the case, etc. In essence, computers do nothing more than process information based on information, which is in turn either based on other information or created by a human being, which is where the root of it is. Here it comes, ready? How is the human brain any different? As soon as we enter the world, we start taking in the world around us, for the sole purpose of providing our brain with information to process. From this information we produce what we think to be our own conclusions, but are really the result of a very familiar process: processing information based on information, which more often than not is furthermore based on information, and so on.

What am I trying to say? Sentience is forged from information. We aren't merely influenced by the media. The output of the media makes up some of the building blocks for our very soul. As much as we are as biological creatures sons of our respective fathers, we are as sentient beings children of the media. With this, I'm forced to conclude that human beings are nothing more than machines designed to process information, perhaps evolve it. Perhaps life itself began in a very similar way...

suviko · 06-10-2003, 10:40 PM

Easytiger:

I am not living in US, but there's no way that can be true?

Some lines are called media studies in universities, but the same sort of issues are brought up in programmes of cultural studies, film & tv studies, communications, journalism, even in sociology & lingusitics (sociolinguistics). You can study media from various aspects in faculties of art or humanities or social sciences.

ARTelevision · 06-10-2003, 11:09 PM

Time to post the close-up of the "gentle touch" in the pic above.

See?
It's not her arm is it?

Easytiger · 06-10-2003, 11:23 PM

Suviko- I admit that you get aspects of media studies in things like English, journalism, film studies, sociology and so on, but you don't get a critical look at the media itself in those fields of study.

I hope I'm wrong. I want to be proven wrong! Won't somebody please prove me wrong!?

suviko · 06-10-2003, 11:35 PM

I am studying communications and tv & film studies and sociology as minors. You can do just the same research and with just the same theries and literature in those. Communications in my university is actually an umbrella term for a large field consisting of organization studies, media studies, journalism, small group communication studies & cultural studies. I don't understand why couldn't you get "a critical look at the media itself". What do you have in mind when you say that? Media as a big lump can't be really studied, all theories have some aspect and stress tha cultural or social or political or economical side of it. In my communications studies, I have read Kellner's Media studies, books on Frankfurt school of thought, Stuart Hall's Identity etc. Are these not critical enough or is the catch in the way you view media?

ARTelevision · 06-11-2003, 02:02 AM

search for "media studies class"

search for "media studies"

There are a lot of specific courses of study called "media studies" in which media are studied as a whole class of "mediated realities."

Cynthetiq · 07-30-2003, 06:15 PM

I have been walking past a 2-3 story version of this picture every day for the past two weeks. After stopping yesterday and today to really scrutinize it, I figured it was a prime target for Art's thread.

Ralvek · 07-30-2003, 07:52 PM

Don't forget that most of thes mediums are owned by a hand full of companies...chances are the radio station you listen to is owed by Clear Channel Communications...listen to what N'sync, listen to brittney, buy more shit from the gap!

Cynthetiq · 07-30-2003, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ralvek
Don't forget that most of thes mediums are owned by a hand full of companies...chances are the radio station you listen to is owed by Clear Channel Communications...listen to what N'sync, listen to brittney, buy more shit from the gap!

Clear Channel is by far the largest radio owner out there, with Viacom's Infinity division a distant second. While there do seem to be only a few players...there really is still a large group of media companies out there.

CJR Who Owns What...

aedenji · 07-30-2003, 08:23 PM

This is quite possibly the coolest thread I have seen on here. I new there were others out there that thought the way I do and could show me doors! You Rule Mr. Art

Cynthetiq · 07-30-2003, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by aedenji
This is quite possibly the coolest thread I have seen on here. I new there were others out there that thought the way I do and could show me doors! You Rule Mr. Art

I'm glad that this one came back up the the top, this is a great discussion. This discussion like many of the long term threads bubble back to the surface every so often. It is a great discourse that has been going on for a long time. There are others, look for them, they have lots of views, and a good amount of posts behind them as well.

ARTelevision · 07-30-2003, 08:54 PM

If I had a dollar for every shaken up and down, stroked, geyser-shooting, liquid-filled, squirting, cylindrical object that was aimed at models at provocative angles in ads - I'd have a lot of dollars...

aedenji · 07-31-2003, 05:10 PM

Hell if you had a nickel for each one you would still be rich. But money can't buy depth and this world has plenty of money.

glad to be here
Ædenji

~springrain · 08-01-2003, 05:45 AM

it's all too depressing for me at this point... if feels like an uphill battle that will never be won.

ARTelevision · 08-01-2003, 07:48 AM

well, I do understand how you may feel that way.
I wouldn't take the time to post here if I didn't think that by educating ourselves and others to the detph and extent of the influences operating upon us can make some headway against it.

Look around and you can see folks who are more clueless about it than you are. That means there's a sliding scale or ladder of awareness. When there's a ladder, we can climb it. When we find ourselves in a hole, we can decide to stop digging...

Cynthetiq · 08-01-2003, 07:58 AM

Art definetely is on point with this. It's just the awareness that breaks the hypnosis. If you don't at least acknowledge the awareness then you will constantly become numb to it.

Recently I've become more aware of the brand impressions. While I walk to work I note them. One of these days I'm going to count them just to see how many adverts and brand impressions I'm being subjected to from a simple 10 block walk to work.

JumpinJesus · 08-01-2003, 08:40 AM

The impact of subliminal (or implied) images goes very deep. How many times have any of us looked at a print ad and been affected in some way that we cannot immediately grasp? There is a definite effect on us yet we cannot quite vocalize it or explain exactly what it is, we just know there is "something".

On a less philosophical note, think about how informed we all believe we are. Where does this information come from? Most of the information upon which we base our opinions - if not all - comes from media of some sort. How well do trust that media?

When living in San Francisco, I worked for a media wire service. Our business was wiring press releases from our clients (which included Microsoft, Starbucks, AT&T, and many other corporations) to print and electronic "points". I would be amazed to read the paper or see our clients' press releases being reported as news by media outlets. I quickly learned that much of what I knew was what those entities wanted me to know. Just how informed was I, exactly? Much of our news turns out to be paid advertising.

I've become extremely cynical towards most media and have tried very hard not to allow myself to be manipulated but it's difficult.

I realize that this post has little to do with the messaging in advertising and I hope this hasn't detracted from your intent, Art. I see all media as equally liable in the manipulation of our minds and thoughts and this is another aspect of how it's done.

Cynthetiq · 08-01-2003, 08:52 AM

very true JJ, I work for a large media company and I have collegues in others. It's amazing just what those PR pieces mean to the news gatherers and reporters. 60 Mins did a piece on Tivo, the company history, the technology, how it's revolutionary, blah blah.... Monday AM the stock was off like a wildfire... Viacom owns CBS which aired the segment. Showtime, also owned by Viacom, owns an interest in Tivo. So was it really a news item or was it just a way to generate some extra cashflow to the fledgling company?

If you watch The Early Show on CBS, you'll notice that they use a piece of technology that allows them to computer superimpose an image directly onto an object in real time. So the side of a building can have an advertisment of something that didn't necessarily have it in real life.

That person being arrested wearing the Nike shirt, did he really wear that shirt or was it superimposed?

asdf4321 · 08-01-2003, 12:55 PM

Wow.. Great thread. I can't think of any particular thing to respond to so I'll go on a history tangent.

When did this begin? When one looks back, say, a hundred years, it seems as if the world was a lot more free from media pressures.. But is that true?

E.g. Religion. Heaven and bliss or death in hell. Patent medecines, promising protection from death and a better time in bed. Popular clothing.

All of written history that I can recall seems to be chock full of advertisements, promises to the worshipers of Ra, good times, protection from famine, etc.

Yay. I can't think of anything else to add, so again, great thread.

MacGnG · 08-01-2003, 01:21 PM

oooh this IS interesting, i knew they controled our minds but they are sooo good at it too.

MSD · 08-01-2003, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sixate
Art, I think I know what point you're trying to make. We are all infuenced by media and our environment. There's no way around it. Some people try harder than others to stray in a different direction.

And the harder you try to free yourself from the influence of the media, the more you're shaping your mind in realtion to it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

ARTelevision · 09-04-2003, 04:50 AM

I see the following article as illustrative of how we are manipulable in subtle ways to "bond" with products in "unnatural" ways...

...................................

Car lovers recognize vehicles as faces

NewScientist.com news service

Men who are fanatical about cars identify vehicles using the same brain circuitry used to recognize faces, new research shows.

Forty men, half of whom were proven automobile aficionados, were fitted with sensors to monitor electrophysiological activity in part of the brain linked with facial identification. They were then asked to identify faces and cars, individually and then together.

The car lovers had greater difficulty in recognizing vehicles from isolated details, suggesting they recognize them "holistically". This method is normally associated with facial identification.

The researchers, Isabel Gauthier of Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Tim Curran of the University of Colorado at Boulder, say their findings contradict the theory that at one part of the brain is used solely for facial recognition.

Automobile aficionados also found it more difficult to identify an image consisting of parts of both faces and cars. The researchers say this "traffic jam" in the brain indicates that the same neural process is used to process both types of image.

Extreme interest
The monitoring of subject's brain activity showed that attempts to identify cars and faces simultaneously occurred at the same time. Both signals were recorded less than a fifth of a second after the image was seen, leading the researchers to conclude that they represent an early stage of image processing.
"This indicates that it is a basic perceptual process, not something that happens because auto experts attend to, or reason about, cars in a different way," Gauthier says. "At least some of the same neural circuitry must be involved in identifying faces and other objects of extreme interest,"
Andy Calder, at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University, UK, agrees that the work indicates that the region of the brain used for facial recognition has a discernable effect on the recognition of other things.
But he says alternative interpretations of the electrophysiological signals are possible. Even in the short time available, some suggest that the subjects' brains could be performing a more complex perceptual process, assigning a sociological meaning to the images seen.

...........................

I don't think it's a stretch to see the hooks that advertisers can use to pull our strings regarding identifying with their "inanimate" products in "animate" ways. We can easily be made to develop actual love for this stuff we buy.

05-30-2003, 07:38 PM	#41 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	is that dude foregoing sex for a book? __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

05-30-2003, 08:06 PM	#42 (permalink)
Shokan Addict Location: Canada	Books are always better than no eyed, out of focus, slutty dressin girls. But seriously, I dont see anything. Her shirt looks kinda lifted over one of her tits, but other than that....zip. __________________ Legalize it.

05-30-2003, 11:00 PM	#43 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	The guy looks pretty anxiety ridden. Here he is, booking down hard for some purpose. Whatever it is, the implication is that he hasn't yet "made it" - accomplished his goal in life. He looks pretty concerned. But he is almost there. The universal goal for guys is presumed to be to get a home for him and his girl to start a life together. The pressure is on. The girl's strap is down on her dress, she's breathing heavily, and she's got her heel in her crotch while her hand is in the same place. She can hardly wait for this guy to come up with the goods. They are out in a field somewhere. She is hot and he is falling behind in his responsibility. He knows it is his responsibility to "get a room" or by extension a place to bed down together. "All the solutions you need. All in one place." He needs solutions quick- the message is "C'mon dude, get it together and take care of this hottie or you will lose her. We can help. Get a home loan from us and the object of your desire will be yours." All this happens in an instant. a mini-drama imperceptible to the conscious mind but available after extended study. ads are made to be apprehended in 2 or 3 seconds - flipping a magazine, driving by a billboard. I have an MFA in Fine Art and have been trained for many years to analyze visual images. but the messages that are conveyed here can not be perceived consciously in 2 or 3 seconds. The eyes and brain however, catch them instantaneously. The emotional impact of the image enters the unconscious. Deep-seated fears and urges are unleashed. And the solution to all of this precipitous passion and anxiety is within reach: a Fleet Home Loan... The most important parts of this type of message are unconsciously perceived. I guess if we at least study this stuff consciously we can gain some measure of awareness of what is or might be going on. Everything we use on a daily basis has been advertised to us by methods like this. Why did we choose the products we have surrounded ourselves with? Not only that, we pay for the costs of marketing this stuff to ourselves. __________________ create evolution Last edited by ARTelevision; 05-30-2003 at 11:25 PM..

06-01-2003, 06:26 AM	#45 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	I want a girl just like the girl who sallied from old ads .................... Sexism with an alibi Supposedly ironic, even kitsch, ads still keep women in their place May 31, 2003 The Guardian Sexism in advertising. It sounds almost quaint. The very words have a retro ring to them, conjuring up, on the one hand, scenes of be-aproned housewives serving casseroles to hungry husbands, and on the other, posters of leggy models in platform boots and hotpants with - and this is a key image in the scenario - feminists in dungarees slapping "this degrades women" stickers all over them. For sexism isn't just a phenomenon, it's an idea - and once the word stops being used, the idea goes out of fashion. What then becomes passe isn't actually sexism, which is doing just fine, but the concept of sexism, in advertising or anything else. This concept (unlike "racism") has fallen into disuse in recent years, and is now rarely employed in public debate. So our view of the situation it describes becomes locked in the moment when the term flourished: and increasingly our culture presents sexism as a kind of 60s or 70s phenomenon, to be enjoyed as kitsch, rather than as a contemporary problem to be addressed as unjust. Certainly you would never know from media imagery that women's income lags far behind men's, that domestic violence against women is frighteningly common, and that women still perform the bulk of domestic labour. In today's ad world, women outperform male colleagues in the boardroom and steer Jeeps across rugged landscapes, while husbands with skewed ties struggle over baby formula, and anxious youths worry about spots before dates. What might be termed "social" (as opposed to sexual) ad images - depictions of the workplace and domestic life - have changed beyond all recognition in the past few decades, and airbrushed away the grinding day-to-day sexism women still encounter in reality. To complain about this would be to berate advertising for being itself: it always idealises, but what is telling is the change in the ideal. "Social" advertising has achieved a gender revolution before the fact, creating an implicitly post-feminist world in which women are powerful and men compliant (or, if not, about to get their comeuppance). It is a depiction of gender relations that fuels sexism, while banishing it: the portrayal of contemporary society as female-dominated generates powerful sexist feelings which, however, cannot "innocently" be expressed in this imaginary present. So they become channelled on the one hand into what I call retro-sexist imagery, where sexism operates freely within the frame of a period style; and, on the other, into increasingly fetishistic sexual imagery, which depicts power relations as about S&M sex rather than who washes up or chairs the board. Retro-sexism as a social and stylistic phenomenon can be seen across all the media, from ads and fashion spreads to CD covers, where overtly sexist scenarios are couched in period setting and clothing, and/or presented with 60s/70s typography and graphics. A perfect example is the Saturday-night TV series Boys and Girls, which has just finished its first run. The show has sexism built into its live audience format, incorporating a weekly "totty competition" which, though applied to both genders, is framed entirely in male terms, with members of the opposite sex voted either a "babe" or a "minger". But this almost brutal sexual scoring is wrapped in a cutely tongue-in-cheek retro package: the title sequence employs perky 60s graphics and the theme song is Andy Williams's 1967 Music to Watch Girls By. These stylistic trappings imply that it's knowingly done, self-aware, even kitsch: as if that somehow changed the crudeness of the actual content. But the grosser the sexism, the more "retro" it now seems - and this process extends beyond media imagery to society at large. Take the rise in acceptability of lap-dancing clubs: the very name "Spearmint Rhino" has a 70s vibe, a combination of spearmint gum (retro wholesome cleanliness - Wrigley's advert) and Rhinestone Cowboy (retro nostalgic male longing - Glen Campbell's 1975 hit). Another example is the supposedly tongue-in-cheek "stripper for stag night" syndrome - usually presented as old-fashioned fun - or the success of men's magazines, with their nods to the old-style Playboy and Esquire. Retro-sexism is sexism with an alibi: it appears at once past and present, "innocent" and knowing, a conscious reference to another era, rather than an unconsciously driven part of our own. Indeed, retro-sexism seems to hark back to golden days before feminism, an innocent time when it was perfectly OK to think of women as domestic servants or sex objects. But the era its imagery invokes, the late 60s to 70s, was not a pre-feminist era, it was the feminist era - when terms like sexism (originally, male chauvinism) entered public speech. And to signpost sexism today - to make an image look consciously sexist - retro styling is necessary to activate the "period" language in which it had widely understood social meaning. For by the 90s, feminism and sexism were being treated as over, and issues of "sexuality" rather than gender became the focus of cultural debate - with the bizarre result that, as sexual imagery became more explicit, a feminist critique became less fashionable. This was part of a wider process whereby the political counterculture gradually embraced the objects of its critique during the 80s and 90s - a process whose effects remain with us today. And besides locking "sexism" into modes of the past, it has resulted in a climate where, far from seeming exploitative, highly sexualised images now tend to be seen as cutting-edge and radical. Therefore "sexual" (unlike "social") ad imagery has become an arena in which sexism can operate with very little criticism. This is partly because, increasingly, men are portrayed as sex objects, too. But the notion of gender "equality" within sexual imagery takes no account of gender inequality in the world surrounding it. Numerous men complained to the advertising standards authority about the Lee Jeans ad where a woman rests her stiletto boot on a man's naked buttock, on the grounds that it encouraged violence against them. Deeply unpleasant as this image is, its relation to actual violence may nevertheless be the reverse of that proposed in the complaints. It could be seen as projecting in fantasy form not only some men's wishes and/or fears, but an eroticised justification for their anger. In the world of sexual ads, the dominatrix, the bitch and the whore wield power over men; in the real world, a British woman is physically attacked by a man she knows every six seconds. This suggests that, rather than embodying sexual liberation, today's fetishistic imagery provides a language for expressing both sexism and, perhaps, the pain and rage of a sex war which at heart is about social, not sexual power. These ubiquitous images translate the social as sexual: showing gender power struggles nakedly in every sense. And yet we have deprived ourselves of the language to analyse them as such. Our unwillingness to name sexism in the present has on the one hand encouraged it to develop as a form of nostalgia, and on the other, allowed it to flourish in a sexualised form which we perceive as daringly cutting-edge. Alongside these phenomena we have the interesting fact that mainstream social advertising has concocted an impossibly female-dominated world which makes sexism, both the fact and the concept, appear extinct. The reality of sexism is, however, still with us: it is time to resuscitate the term and renew the critique. This is an edited version of an article to appear in the summer edition of Eye (eyemagazine.com). Judith Williamson is the author of Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising ............... If you're interested in pursuing this subject, as am I, there are a lot of resources on the web. I have a selected list of them on this site: ANTI-MASS-MEDIA-MIND-CONTROL MESSAGES __________________ create evolution

06-01-2003, 06:40 AM	#47 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	~springrain, yes, it's among the extensive list of refs, I posted above. happy sub hunting! __________________ create evolution

06-01-2003, 06:32 AM	#46 (permalink)
~springrain Banned Location: central USA	ART... i also found this site of interest along the same lines... http://www.subliminalworld.com/indexsma.htm will add more thoughts on this later...

06-07-2003, 05:10 PM	#48 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	The scene is arid, dry, airless. What kind of way is this to sell cigarettes? Free associating doesn't come up with many positive associations, in fact the dug-out holes in the ground representing low-tar numbers look more like empty graves than anything else. What could be going on here? Smoking may involve a death wish. People are moved by just a few very deep themes - things like sex and death. We are rendered vulnerable to messages and suggestibility when our primal desires and/or fears are pricked. __________________ create evolution

06-07-2003, 05:25 PM	#49 (permalink)
suviko Banned	Only about 5% of radio listening is conetrated (you do nothing else at the same time, you just listen to it). Source: my communications study book. Same goes pretty much for ads and TV. The fact is taht human beings are social and cultural animals and we live in the cultural world, in symbolic reality, as much as in the physical reality. Communication is always both about changing messages and keeping the social system up. It IS about power, too. But there are theorists who claim that the power is not just in the hands of mediamoguls and advertisers. One shcool of thinking mainatins that everybody have power. We can see how the ad is trying to manipulate us to buy what it sells and go against this obvious reading of the text and useit to construct our own view of that product and the values buying and using that would have in the society. Blah blah blah--- My English skills are again failing me to write sharply and instead this is getting really mindless and it's 4:24 in the morning.. I'll go to sleep now.

06-07-2003, 06:59 PM	#50 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	thanks, suviko, for your thoughts. that's my only intention regarding this subject - to get us thinking on these things. my own views on what is going on are just my own views - and not nearly as important as having the subject discussed...I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything...ever actually. __________________ create evolution

06-08-2003, 05:35 PM	#51 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	one of the things that I do while I'm immersed in any media is to check how it's making me feel. As I watch a TV show, I watch the commercials carefully. First to see what demographic I'm being lumped into. Second, to see what my reactions to the advertisements are. How did they make me feel, and what is my reaction to them. It's interesting to do the first one.. that's the first step to understanding that you are being researched and manipulated as a group and as an individual. At least with printed material you have time to digest it. TV, I have to tape it, and now that I have Tivo... it's always getting rewound. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

06-09-2003, 05:33 AM	#52 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Cynthetiq, good thoughts, thanks. Right, what I;m trying to do here is encourage us to pay some extra attention to what the media may be attempting to do to us and how it is affecting us. In your words: "...understanding that you are being researched and manipulated as a group and as an individual." __________________ create evolution

06-09-2003, 05:35 AM	#53 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	I forgot the ever important number 3rd thing that I do... am I being entertained? and how is that entertainment affecting my judgement to the first 2. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

06-09-2003, 05:48 AM	#54 (permalink)
~springrain Banned Location: central USA	excellent thread ART... everyone's thoughts and comments further the "thinking field"... sorry i've not much to add today... bone tired and brain is flat out too full right now to add another thing...

06-10-2003, 03:40 PM	#55 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Something funny about this picture. "Who can resist the gentle touch?" __________________ create evolution

06-10-2003, 04:30 PM	#56 (permalink)
Easytiger Insane Location: Tigerland	I heard that Media Studies is not a common subject at US universities- my lecturer tried to tell us that only 2 universities actually run it. I would love to hear that he's wrong? Any undergrad media students out there? Also, is media something that you can study in high school in the States?

06-10-2003, 04:49 PM	#57 (permalink)
~springrain Banned Location: central USA	ART... i almost posted that picture myself... there was another years ago for "Baby Soft" deodorant that was, if you can believe it, more than doubly suggestive and was almost obscene with it's sexual imagery and double entendre' (sp?). also VERY interesting in possible responses to Easytigers post... this is an issue that i think merits a lot more attention than it is currently getting. as far as high school... it is not offered anywhere that i am aware of... Last edited by ~springrain; 06-10-2003 at 05:02 PM..

06-10-2003, 05:26 PM	#58 (permalink)
Easytiger Insane Location: Tigerland	I want to add- I ask because I am a media graduate, media worker and media teacher, and was very surprised to hear that the world's biggest media producer and most media-saturated society isn't big on media studies.

06-10-2003, 10:27 PM	#59 (permalink)
roothorick Upright Location: Wisconsin, US	Here's the killer... A computer does nothing more than take in information in its world and act upon it based on information it has taken in before. The only things that the computer knows without prior information are completely subconscious -- the spinning of fans, electric current running through its circuits, the power and HDD LEDs on the front of the case, etc. In essence, computers do nothing more than process information based on information, which is in turn either based on other information or created by a human being, which is where the root of it is. Here it comes, ready? How is the human brain any different? As soon as we enter the world, we start taking in the world around us, for the sole purpose of providing our brain with information to process. From this information we produce what we think to be our own conclusions, but are really the result of a very familiar process: processing information based on information, which more often than not is furthermore based on information, and so on. What am I trying to say? Sentience is forged from information. We aren't merely influenced by the media. The output of the media makes up some of the building blocks for our very soul. As much as we are as biological creatures sons of our respective fathers, we are as sentient beings children of the media. With this, I'm forced to conclude that human beings are nothing more than machines designed to process information, perhaps evolve it. Perhaps life itself began in a very similar way... __________________ You shall not listen to me, and you shall not ignore any nonsense before me, nor make any idols representing my nonsense, for I AM THE NONSENSE, and there is no other nonsense besides me.

06-10-2003, 10:40 PM	#60 (permalink)
suviko Banned	Easytiger: I am not living in US, but there's no way that can be true? Some lines are called media studies in universities, but the same sort of issues are brought up in programmes of cultural studies, film & tv studies, communications, journalism, even in sociology & lingusitics (sociolinguistics). You can study media from various aspects in faculties of art or humanities or social sciences.

06-10-2003, 11:09 PM	#61 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Time to post the close-up of the "gentle touch" in the pic above. See? It's not her arm is it? __________________ create evolution

06-10-2003, 11:23 PM	#62 (permalink)
Easytiger Insane Location: Tigerland	Suviko- I admit that you get aspects of media studies in things like English, journalism, film studies, sociology and so on, but you don't get a critical look at the media itself in those fields of study. I hope I'm wrong. I want to be proven wrong! Won't somebody please prove me wrong!?

06-10-2003, 11:35 PM	#63 (permalink)
suviko Banned	I am studying communications and tv & film studies and sociology as minors. You can do just the same research and with just the same theries and literature in those. Communications in my university is actually an umbrella term for a large field consisting of organization studies, media studies, journalism, small group communication studies & cultural studies. I don't understand why couldn't you get "a critical look at the media itself". What do you have in mind when you say that? Media as a big lump can't be really studied, all theories have some aspect and stress tha cultural or social or political or economical side of it. In my communications studies, I have read Kellner's Media studies, books on Frankfurt school of thought, Stuart Hall's Identity etc. Are these not critical enough or is the catch in the way you view media?

06-11-2003, 02:02 AM	#64 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	search for "media studies class" search for "media studies" There are a lot of specific courses of study called "media studies" in which media are studied as a whole class of "mediated realities." __________________ create evolution

07-30-2003, 06:15 PM	#65 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	I have been walking past a 2-3 story version of this picture every day for the past two weeks. After stopping yesterday and today to really scrutinize it, I figured it was a prime target for Art's thread. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

07-30-2003, 07:52 PM	#66 (permalink)
Ralvek Crazy Location: MN	Don't forget that most of thes mediums are owned by a hand full of companies...chances are the radio station you listen to is owed by Clear Channel Communications...listen to what N'sync, listen to brittney, buy more shit from the gap! __________________ Ban country music, it promotes inbreeding.

07-30-2003, 08:23 PM	#68 (permalink)
aedenji Crazy	This is quite possibly the coolest thread I have seen on here. I new there were others out there that thought the way I do and could show me doors! You Rule Mr. Art __________________ "This ground is not the rock I....had thought it would be." MJK

07-30-2003, 08:54 PM	#70 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	If I had a dollar for every shaken up and down, stroked, geyser-shooting, liquid-filled, squirting, cylindrical object that was aimed at models at provocative angles in ads - I'd have a lot of dollars... __________________ create evolution

07-31-2003, 05:10 PM	#71 (permalink)
aedenji Crazy	Hell if you had a nickel for each one you would still be rich. But money can't buy depth and this world has plenty of money. glad to be here Ædenji __________________ "This ground is not the rock I....had thought it would be." MJK

08-01-2003, 05:45 AM	#72 (permalink)
~springrain Banned Location: central USA	it's all too depressing for me at this point... if feels like an uphill battle that will never be won.

08-01-2003, 07:48 AM	#73 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	well, I do understand how you may feel that way. I wouldn't take the time to post here if I didn't think that by educating ourselves and others to the detph and extent of the influences operating upon us can make some headway against it. Look around and you can see folks who are more clueless about it than you are. That means there's a sliding scale or ladder of awareness. When there's a ladder, we can climb it. When we find ourselves in a hole, we can decide to stop digging... __________________ create evolution

08-01-2003, 07:58 AM	#74 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Art definetely is on point with this. It's just the awareness that breaks the hypnosis. If you don't at least acknowledge the awareness then you will constantly become numb to it. Recently I've become more aware of the brand impressions. While I walk to work I note them. One of these days I'm going to count them just to see how many adverts and brand impressions I'm being subjected to from a simple 10 block walk to work. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

08-01-2003, 08:40 AM	#75 (permalink)
JumpinJesus Junkie Location: Chicago	The impact of subliminal (or implied) images goes very deep. How many times have any of us looked at a print ad and been affected in some way that we cannot immediately grasp? There is a definite effect on us yet we cannot quite vocalize it or explain exactly what it is, we just know there is "something". On a less philosophical note, think about how informed we all believe we are. Where does this information come from? Most of the information upon which we base our opinions - if not all - comes from media of some sort. How well do trust that media? When living in San Francisco, I worked for a media wire service. Our business was wiring press releases from our clients (which included Microsoft, Starbucks, AT&T, and many other corporations) to print and electronic "points". I would be amazed to read the paper or see our clients' press releases being reported as news by media outlets. I quickly learned that much of what I knew was what those entities wanted me to know. Just how informed was I, exactly? Much of our news turns out to be paid advertising. I've become extremely cynical towards most media and have tried very hard not to allow myself to be manipulated but it's difficult. I realize that this post has little to do with the messaging in advertising and I hope this hasn't detracted from your intent, Art. I see all media as equally liable in the manipulation of our minds and thoughts and this is another aspect of how it's done. __________________ "I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

08-01-2003, 08:52 AM	#76 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	very true JJ, I work for a large media company and I have collegues in others. It's amazing just what those PR pieces mean to the news gatherers and reporters. 60 Mins did a piece on Tivo, the company history, the technology, how it's revolutionary, blah blah.... Monday AM the stock was off like a wildfire... Viacom owns CBS which aired the segment. Showtime, also owned by Viacom, owns an interest in Tivo. So was it really a news item or was it just a way to generate some extra cashflow to the fledgling company? If you watch The Early Show on CBS, you'll notice that they use a piece of technology that allows them to computer superimpose an image directly onto an object in real time. So the side of a building can have an advertisment of something that didn't necessarily have it in real life. That person being arrested wearing the Nike shirt, did he really wear that shirt or was it superimposed? __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

08-01-2003, 12:55 PM	#77 (permalink)
asdf4321 Upright Location: Houston	Wow.. Great thread. I can't think of any particular thing to respond to so I'll go on a history tangent. When did this begin? When one looks back, say, a hundred years, it seems as if the world was a lot more free from media pressures.. But is that true? E.g. Religion. Heaven and bliss or death in hell. Patent medecines, promising protection from death and a better time in bed. Popular clothing. All of written history that I can recall seems to be chock full of advertisements, promises to the worshipers of Ra, good times, protection from famine, etc. Yay. I can't think of anything else to add, so again, great thread. __________________ Rar-poop! Combination dinosaur noise and the sound of.. well, you know.

08-01-2003, 01:21 PM	#78 (permalink)
MacGnG Know Where!	oooh this IS interesting, i knew they controled our minds but they are sooo good at it too.