Empowered or Exploited?

Hi and welcome back!

Social media, who hasn’t heard about it? It is everywhere around us. Follows us everywhere we go.  But are these websites helping us with anything, or simply using us as puppets in the plans of the great industries and advertising companies?  

After watching the Generation Like documentary I have reached a conclusion related to one specific ‘phenomenon’ of social media and the internet that is highly popular between most of the teens. You Tube stars. Also known as You Tubers, these people have become one of the greatest attractions of the Internet, reaching millions of views and subscribers. But let’s take a moment to think about these You Tube stars and how they are exposing their lives in front of people just to be liked, to be seen and known by others. Of course, it is their choice, they are having fun, and yes they can make money if they get popular enough. But is it worth it? Are they empowered by the advertising companies or are they being exploited in order for others to make profit? At the first sight, they are simply talking about what they like or what they don’t like, however, by simply doing this they are advertising willingly or unintentionally a specific product bringing huge amounts of money to the producers. We can be tempted to believe that by doing this they are getting a fair part of the deal and that the companies are empowering them to continue what they are doing by giving items or money in exchange. Well, unfortunately I believe this is not always true. I think that the companies are sometimes taking advantage of the unintended advertising that some of these millionaires in views are generating, because they don’t have to spend extra money for them, and let’s face it, who doesn’t like free things?
You Tubers can promote each other by making collaborative videos, meaning that the viewers of one You Tuber can get to know and like another one very easily. And what could this lead to? Exactly! More advertising. This means that companies could be able now not only take advantage of one You Tuber, but two, having access to both their audiences. Of course, this can go on and on, and the incomes of the producers whose products are being advertised can increase drastically. So is this not exploitation? Personally I think it is. However, I am aware that the number of different opinions and views towards this subject can be as varied as the number of people reading this blog and I respect that.

Print Ad Analysis

Hi,

In this post, I will be analysing the following print ad in order to see its cultural and social contexts as well as values considered important and who is empowered in the advertisement.

As it can be seen, the advertisement consists of two people, one male and one female being close to each other. In the bottom right corner we can notice the product that the ad is promoting. From the point of view of the text present in the ad it can be seen that it consists of few sentences that are meant to impact the audience and most importantly that are short and concise so that the audience could focus more on the image itself. Firstly, it can be stated that the ad is directed mainly towards the Indian culture and the reason would be the choice of the models. To be more precise, the female model has been identified as being Anushka Sharma, known as a famous Bollywood actress. Using a famous actress for such an ad can be considered as having a big impact since it could influence the society’s view of beauty and change its beauty standards. Knowing this brings us to the purpose of the ad. It can now be seen as valuing beauty and especially female beauty. It is noticeable that in the print ad, the female model is placed centrally and most important she is revealing most of her skin with the purpose of evidencing the smoothness that women can obtain by using the Nivea product. Therefore, this reveals not only the main purpose of selling the product but also another characteristic valued by the print ad, soft skin. Indian culture is as mentioned used for the ad’s context, where the empowerment is visibly owned by the female model, the male model only ‘filing the blanks’ of the picture. He is marginalized or ignored at some degree, revealing that, at least for this ad, the beauty and the skin’s aspect of the male is not as important. But what could be the reason? The reason could be the message that is trying to be sent. If we think about it, the ad could encourage young women to use the products in order to obtain a soft skin and therefore becoming attractive to men, this being the only aspect where the ad links to them. The way in which the advertisement is presented with the two models close to each other can reveal another valued aspect which is intimacy. The hint for this is being given by the relaxed and friendly tone of the print ad. Overall, all these elements of the ad can be considered as revealing potential views of the Indian culture towards beauty and differences between the beauty standards regarding men and women.

FOA Activity Reflection

During the FOA that took place, we have created a pitch for Glamping trips in Oregon.  The five main advertising appeals that we decided to use for this were: the need to satisfy curiosity, the need to feel safe, the need for intimacy, the need for guidance and the need for aesthetic sensations. The reason why these were considered the most effective was given by the subject itself. Firstly, when thinking of glamping, we can realise that people who would actually go for it are mostly the ones who would not feel safe or comfortable in a normal tent. Secondly, no matter of the audience’s preferences of safety or comfort, when talking about trips our thoughts automatically fly to adventure, discovery or why not simply relaxation. This means that the audience would either be guided by their curiosity of exploring new places and especially the nature or they will be guided by their need of getting away from stress and from the mass agglomeration of a crowded city. This last one is the result of the need for intimacy. Finally, when people decide to go camping or in our case glamping in the nature, they are most probably expecting to spend time in beautiful places where they are surrounded by a predominant green image made out of grass and trees, flowers, etc. These are contributing to the formation of the aesthetic sensations that the audience is looking for. The need of guidance was considered effective since the audience was more likely to accept an invitation to a glamping trip if they were told that they don't have to do all the work themselves and that they will be guided by others.

Next, the persuasion techniques used were rhetorical questions, the bandwagon, association, maybe, fear, the big lie, humour, new and flattery. Some of the rhetorical questions used were “do you want to relax?” or “do you want to get away from the stress of your work?” and the reason to consider them effective was that the stress and the need to relax are common for humans in general and therefore the questions did not really need to be answered since the answer was obviously ‘yes’ for any member of the audience. The bandwagon, association and maybe were all three used in the same sentence during the pitch “join the hundreds, maybe thousands of happy people that chose glamping for their vacation”. By mentioning a big number of people that chose glamping and in the same time associating the number with happiness was expected to be effective since the audience would be influenced to believe that if many are already doing it and they are happy it must be a good thing indeed and therefore they should try it as well. However, an important aspect is that an actual count hasn’t been done and therefore the sentence can be considered a big lie that is backed up by the word ‘maybe’ which signals the existence and importance of the ‘maybe’ persuasion technique. Another big lie used was telling there will be no ‘unwanted guests’ (insects) during glamping. By being confident when saying this, it was less likely that the audience would actually realize it is false and same applies to the ‘lie’ mentioned above. This also linked to fear which was supposed to be effective since there are many people who have Arachnophobia or Entomophobia and who would do anything not to come in contact with insects in their vacations. An attempt to humour was used when telling people to “Shut the door in the faces of those uninvited guests” and its effectiveness consisted in making people relax and in the need of some members of the audience to ridicule the fear (Entomophobia).  The 'new' was used by telling the audience of the "new technologies" that are offering the "ultimate comfort" and it was considered effective because comfort and technology are both aspects that are desired by many people. Lastly, the flattery was considered effective because the audience was going to hear what they like to hear, that they are “intelligent and independent and know what they want” this way making them feel good and trust the advertisement more.  

The awareness of the audience and context greatly influenced the content of the advertisement since it had to address people that are adventurous, who love family trips, enjoy nature, and the ones that wish to become closer to nature but finding it difficult to leave the comfort behind.  The advertisement was supposed to appear in Oregon which is a good place for glamping since it is known for the beauty of the forests or other possible places where people could camp. However the audience was addressed using the persuasion techniques mentioned earlier and due to the universality of the problems and aspects treated (Entomophobia, the need to relax, etc), these could impact not only people from Oregon but also people from other countries around the Globe. Some of the most important images in the pitch were the ones of a person surrounded by greenery, the one with the happy family sitting on grass, the process of packing a tent as well as the spider and the images of people enjoying the comfort of a bed or chair. The reason why these were supposed to be effective was that, they were highlighting the main benefits of glamping. The people laughing or smiling in each picture was associating glamping with happiness while the abundance of greenery was emphasizing the connection with the nature and the intimacy. The same could be applied for pictures containing the means that were improving the comfort during camping (such as chairs and the bed). The picture with the spider was supposed to shock and in the same time convince people that with glamping they won’t have to face those kinds of insects during their vacation. Lastly, the picture with the people packing a tent and the aid of telling the audience they can forget about that struggle, was considered effective because it was highlighting the 'guidance' in the trip.

Personally, I think that the activity went well despite of the fact of missing one member during the presentation. From the point of view of my confidence and knowledge of the subject I am happy with my performance and I think that the presentation was effective in sending the desired message to the audience since the prepared points were made clear both verbally and visually (with the aid of the pictures). Overall, I think that this activity’s results will inform me whether or not I am on track of making a good FOA this year by highlighting both the good aspects of the presentation and the aspects that could be improved.

Ethos, Pathos and Logos

Hi

Today I will be analyzing one commercial based on possible intended impacts on the audience. But how can an advertisement of any kind do this?

The three persuasive ‘tools’ as described by Aristotle are Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Ethos is the tool used to influence the audience appealing to an authority as for example a celebrity. Pathos on the other hand is aiming to influence the audience’s emotions and lastly logos, used to influence using logic and reasoning. However, an advertisement doesn’t necessarily have to contain all three in the same time.

The advertisement that I have chosen is “Drake’s Sprite “Spark” Commercial”. In this commercial, the well-known rapper, Drake, is represented as having a bad moment and finds it difficult to record his song, however he decides to have a drink and immediately after he is good to go. Personally I think this advertisement is mostly making use of Ethos since it is using an ‘authority’ in order to make people buy the product by showing them how the artist becomes inspired and feels better only after one sip of it. Also, the advertisement might be seen as making use of pathos as well since it is presenting a moment that most probably has been experienced by any person at some point in life.  This way it is reaching for the audience’s emotions telling everyone of how they might overcome these moments which let’s face it, are not the most pleasant in the world.

Here is also a link to the advertisement for those who haven’t seen it yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nBxcMImubk

Letter To The Editor

Hi,

For this post I will be writing a letter to the editor of the article “Twtr? It’s majorly bad!”  in order to discuss some disadvantages of texting continuously.

To the editor:

Recently, I have found and read your article “Twtr? It’s majorly bad!” and I was simply astonished by what has been written in it. I just can’t understand how some students can even think of using words and expressions from the well-known ‘world of texting’ in their school essays and answers! It is outrageous! I’ve always been aware of the fact that people make mistakes, and I think it is normal. Mistakes have been a common factor in language since…well, since forever and of course, as the language has evolved, mistakes have evolved once with it, but this? This is too much. Living in the technology era seems to lead us into the wrong direction. Children no longer need to worry about spelling or developing their vocabulary these days and I could understand them. Why bother when you know that a machine behind you will correct every single mistake that you make or that www.dictionary.com will always have the word you are looking for? We live in a world where everyone is under continuous pressure and where writing things such as “gr8”, “m8”, “u”, and so on is viewed as incredibly helpful while in fact it is just deteriorating one’s way of writing and expressing himself. Students and people in general need to wake up and realize that they are trading language, a highly needed skill, for speed and for one extra second that is won for each word they type. This is the mentality of the twitter generation and this type of thinking is ruining the hard work of teachers and parents worldwide of teaching children how to speak properly.  Someone has to make them understand that during a job interview, an interviewer will not care of how “gr8” your text speaking skills are, but you can be sure that he will care of how “majorly bad” both your spelling and vocabulary are. However, I’m afraid this will not stop unless people start taking action and start fighting back the cybernetic attack that has been launched against our beloved language. I would like to thank you for writing this article since this is the first step that has to be made in order to understand the problem that surrounds us and hopefully one day we will be able to overcome it.

Andrei Stefanidi

Interview with Eminem

Hi, and welcome back.

 Today’s post will be a fictional interview between Josh Eells of the music magazine Rolling Stone and Eminem, the rapper whose career has generated many controversies over the years. 

Josh: Hello! Thank you for accepting to come for this interview. Let’s begin, shall we?
Eminem: Ok, let’s start.

J: How did it all begin?
E: I was born in 1972 and I grew up with my mother and smaller brother. I never got to meet my father though. We had big problems with money, you know, but we had to keep moving. We had to move from one house to another. Of course, this brought more problems for us, change people around us, change schools, you know. When you’re the new kid and know nothing about the school or people there, like what they do, what they’re like, you end up being a target, you know, for bullying. I used to be that guy, and it was not easy man. Then, I discovered rap and I began to attend different battles. There was a problem though; I was white. People used to ignore me somehow, to underestimate my abilities because you know, rap is an African-American music. This was the main problem of my childhood. We were living in a neighborhood of African-Americans and I got beaten up many times for being, you know, different. However, at one point people started to admire me somehow and this is where it all started I guess.
J: Why do you think white people are underestimated while coming to rap music?
E: I don’t know. Maybe because white people are associated with wealth, happy lives, you know, no problems, no worries whatsoever and consequently people consider they don’t have that rage and ability to talk about problems.  Well, it’s not like that, not everyone is rich, not everyone has a perfect life. This problem is kind of stereotypical, you know.
J: Is this the reason people talk about authenticity in rap music?
E: I guess so. Authenticity is like the whole thing in rap music you know. If you want your song to be good it needs to be real. You can’t simply put some words there and say you have a song. It has to send a message. It has to be your way of expressing your feelings, your past, your present, your future. This is what all music is about. Feeling.
J: Your authenticity has been generating controversies over the past years. What were some of your intentions when you were writing the songs? What were you hoping to achieve and how did you want to impact people listening to them?
E: I was hoping that I could make myself heard, you know; make people understand my struggles as a child and later as a teenager. I wanted to open their eyes, evidencing the discrimination and the harassment that surrounded me and that surrounds many others. I also wanted to make people see some of the failures of our society as well as making them see the hypocrisy that surrounds us. As for authenticity, I think one of the best proofs of mine is my background. I didn’t start in life having everything I wanted. I built my way to the top from almost nothing. My biggest ambition was to show people that I can become someone and that I can rap. Of course there were lots who said I will not succeed, you know, because of my skin colour. I wanted to prove them wrong. All the rage, all the hate in my songs was real. It was reflecting over a period of my life, you know. Maybe this won me some extra authenticity points. Violence and hate sell well. Especially to people who are just like me, who have to deal with the unfair situations of life. Discrimination is a real problem in our days, you know, having people acting different just because of your skin colour. I understand this, because discrimination is not directed only towards African-Americans. It can be used as a weapon against anyone and I learnt that the hard way. Life is not easy, and discrimination and harassment only make it worse for certain individuals of the society. However, my songs are meant not only to attack different individuals that represent our society but also to give a hint of hope to those that are going through tough moments, those who think than nothing and no one can help them, those ones that are ready to give up. I would tell them to keep fighting, ‘cause no matter how hard it might look like, it is certainly not impossible.
J: So you are saying that your hate and rage are directed towards the people discriminating and harassing others.
E: Yes.
J: But what about the language that you use in your songs? Do you think that it has any impact on the songs and most importantly, do you use the same language at home, around your kids? Taking for example your song “The Real Slim Shady”, what’s one of the messages that you were trying to send?
E: Language that I decide to use is important in my songs. I want people to understand exactly how I feel, no matter if they get offended or not. If I think something I will say it exactly as it is, you know. And this is one of the aims of the song you mentioned. I was trying to make clear that no matter what, I will not be “false or sugarcoated at all”. Sometimes people accuse me of profanity and say that my kids shouldn’t be exposed to this kind of language, and they are right, you know; but the words I use in my songs are not something that I use in a conversation with them. You know, where I lived when I was a kid, words like that would just come out from anybody at any time and I feel like it is important to use them to describe that situation. I am aware that kids nowadays are attracted by these kinds of words in songs but it is not my problem. When it comes to my music there are my rules but one thing should be clear, there is a huge difference between my music and my home. Music is art and my home is no place for profanity.
J: I understand. Thank you again for being here today! It was truly amazing to find all these things about you.
E: Thank you for inviting me.

Bilingual Mind

Hi,
Welcome back to the three text journey!

In the third text, “Bilingual Mind” by Jeffrey Kluger, the author is talking about how interesting and complex language is and about how learning two or more languages can bring some advantages to the speaker. These advantages are not related only to the ability of expressing your thoughts in two or more ways but to the benefits that those extra languages are bringing to your mind’s health. In the beginning, we are informed about the way in which we learn our first language, starting from zero and building our way with approximately three new words per day for a length of time of six years. After this process, we continue learning until we reach a great number of 50.000 words that combined with syntax and other grammar rules help us master the language and become fluent. The text continues with studies that have been conducted by language researchers in order to see if knowing two or more languages can affect the way you are thinking and your perception of the world. One test that has been presented is the Stroop test which implies writing the name of a colour using ink with a different colour. The participants who were asked to say the colour of the ink experienced a “lag” but it proved that the participants who were bilingual, trilingual and so on needed a shorter period of time to think about it. We are also informed about studies which showed how bilingual kids were beginning socializing earlier than monolingual kids, and about how being bilingual can delay the “aged-related dementia” with up to 4.1 years and the apparition of Alzheimer by up to 5.1 years. Some researchers showed that being bilingual had some potential disadvantages as well. One study showed how kids who were raised by bilingual parents in families where the “code-switching” was used had a less developed vocabulary than kids who were raised in families of monolingual parents. However this was proved to be only a temporary problem and those kids would eventually catch up.

Overall, this text contains some common points with the texts that have been covered so far and these points are marked by two key words: language and code switching. First, it is related to language and to be more specific to how it is learnt, how it changes our way of viewing the world around us and the possible advantages of knowing two or more languages and this is the focus of most of the texts that have been covered. One example could be “Bilingual Sestina” in which the author talks about learning a language as a kid, how kids learn by playing and how important it is for them to associate one object with a specific word. Another example could be “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris in which the advantage of learning a new language is represented by the possibility of understanding others. The author describes his experience in a French school where he has to learn French better in order to be able to understand his teacher who is not a good speaker of English.  Second, the text “Bilingual Mind” contains information about code switching and how it can increase the time in which the kid learns new words and becomes fluent in the languages that he uses. This concept of code switching can be directly linked to the text “Bilingual” by Rhina P. Espaillat in which the author talks about how language was changed in the family from Spanish to English and about how “My father liked them separate, one there/ one here (allá y aquí), as if aware/ that words might cut in two his daughter's heart”.