OUGD501 COP2 Consumerism

Consumerism

Recap of the Lecture on Consumerism

Consumerism                                        -|Manufacturing desire
Desire- False need                                 |Intrinsic part of the system, would
Greed- Need for Commodities           -|work if there was no profit made
                             |                      |
                             |                      |
                   Social Control        |
                            vs                    |
                      Freedom              |
                                                    |
                                                    |
                               Satisfaction Inequality
                                                    |
                                                    |
                                                    |
Dis-guided- Idea of freedom, happy because they can afford/earn expensive cars for example

The idea of mass production is intrinsically linked, to make capitalism expand. Things become meaningless

Big businesses use advertising and brands to sell their products to make them popular.

Freud- Irratonal desires and animal instincts are what he believed humans to be like. The idea of civil society is really incompatible to our desires. 'The Pleasure Principle'

Bernay- Public Relations P.R. Attempt to initially sell, to link this to brands or movie stars and later to Politicians. Had an amazing career. Employed by the CIA at one point, to destabilise his beliefs on certain countries.

Consumer society, to exist we have to desire commodities so the wealth of our country succeeds.

Ways of seeing. J. Berger
pages 129-131

'In the cities in which we live, all of us see hundreds of publicity images everyday of our lives. No other kind of image confronts us so frequently. In no other form of society in history has there been such a concentration of images, such as density of visual messages. 

One may remember or forget these messages but briefly one takes them in, and for a moment they stimulate the imagination by way of either memory or expectation. The publicity image belongs to the moment. We see it as we turn a page, as we turn a corner, as a vehicle passes us. Or we see it on a television screen whilst waiting for the commercial break to end. Publicity images also belong to the moment in the sense that they must be continually renewed and made up to date. Yet they never speak of the future.

We are now so accustomed to being addressed by these images that we scarcely notice their total impact. A person may notice a particular image or piece of information because it corresponds to some particular interest he has. But we accept the total system of publicity images as we accept an element of climate. For example, the fact that these images belong to the moment but speak of the future produces a strange effect which has become so familiar that we scarcely notice it. Usually it is we who pass the image- walking, travelling, turning a page; on the TV screen it is somewhat different but even then we are theoretically the active agent- we can look away, turn down the sound, make some coffee. Yet despite this, on has the impression that publicity images are continually passing us, like express trains on their way to some distant terminus. We are static; they are dynamic- until the newspaper is thrown away, the television programme continues or the poster is posted over.

Publicity is usually explained and justified as a competitive medium which ultimately benefits the public (the consumer) and the most efficient manufacturers- and thus the national economy.It is closely related to certain idea about freedom: freedom of choice for the purchaser:freedom of enterprise for the manufacturer. The great hoardings and the publicity neons of the cities of capitalism are the immediate visible sign of 'The Free World'.

For many in Eastern Europe such images in the west sum up what they in the East lack. Publicity, it is thought, offers a free choice.

It is true that in publicity one brand of manufacture, one firm, competes with another; but it is also true that every publicity image confirms and enhances every other. Publicity is not merely an assembly of competing messages: it is a language in itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal. Within publicity, choices are offered between this cream and that cream, that car and this car, but its publicity as a system only makes a single proposal.

It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.

This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer- even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.

Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour.

-Depressing thought, false needs means we can never actually be happy

-Not just Eastern to Western, for person to person. Natural competition between them to seem better.

-Increases the ideology who can be better which enforces people to buy things. Community and society buy into competition.

-The way people try to be individual and follow social trends.

OUGD501 Communication Theory Task

Apply Shannon & Weaves model to an example of communication. How widely is this applicable? How useful do you find this sort of exercise?

What are the main communicative functions of redundancy? What do we mean by saying the English language is 50% redundant?

Discuss the ways in which convention can be said to facilitate understanding. Think of visual communication that breaks or extends specific conventions. How does this affect the desire to communicate or the audience they reach?

The piece of Graphic design I decided to compare to Shannon & Weaves model was a piece of work done by Creative Spark for Welcome to Yorkshire for The Yorkshire Film Trail. The brief was to help them promote the wealth of Hollywood movies and TV programmes that had been filmed in the Yorkshire area. The aim was to create a film-buff's tourist guide to Yorkshire. It was up to Design Spark to to come up with a different way of showing it. Welcome to Yorkshire wanted it to be fun, but still keep a real commercial appeal. So Design Spark idea was to create an old theatre style film that featured a 3D visual map highlighting iconic objects from the films and shows. They also created a 'fly through' movie that was a teaser for the campaign. All of this was supported further by a giant A2- Size map that folded down into a pocket size users' guide.

http://www.creativespark.co.uk/work/the-yorkshire-film-trail 20/10/13

From the previous session we learnt and that within this piece of Graphic design the Information source is the Client and brief. Transmitter (encoder) is the Designer. Chanel is the piece of work being created. Receiver (decoder) is the audience receiving the message and the destination would be the audience understanding the message. 

The designs below have been successful as they are what the client had asked for and more. They are fun quirky yet still give off the feel of a coast. However the only thing that shows Yorkshire or a stereotypical view of Yorkshire isn't there. The silhouettes within the logo don't represent Yorkshire they just represent the coast which in my opinion lets the design down as without the lettering underneath that says 'Yorkshire coast' you wouldn't have any idea it was about Yorkshire. The map and front cover however do fulfil the brief a lot better in which it appeals to the film maker audience that it was applying to, it has the film symbols along with certain symbols that represent Yorkshire. the fact that the symbols look as if they have been stuck onto the page makes it look a lot more engaging and interactive, as if that any minute they are going to move around the page.

I would say that the design is primarily redundant in that it is stereotypical and obvious in what it is representing. Adding the film maker snap board and lights. Adding in the sheep which stereotypically would be seen as a Yorkshire motif. I would say that the fact it is made for film makers about films made in Yorkshire, emphasis on the Film, would make me question as to why it looks so animated and cartoon like would make me believe that in that sense it would be seen as to have an entropic communicative act.

OUGD501 COP2 Communication Theory

COP2  13/10/13

OUGD501 Communication theory

The Shannon- Weaver Mathematical Model 1949

Employed by the american army, worked for Bell Telephone Labs, they wanted to refine there communication systems to make them more sufficient. To work out when communication broke down how specific it was and where. Shannon Weaver did research into army communications, radio and telephone was her main focus. Initially is limited to that. It has been taken as a model for communication in a social and wider sense, visual it is applicable. 

If you are going to understand any communicative act its important to understand the stages saying A is trying to communicate with B isn't that easy. 5 stages to communication at each of these stages communication could break down.

Info source which sends source to transmitter it travels to a channel by signal, signal is revived by a receiver(decoder) then in a message to the destination. The information source is speaking which goes to the message through an electric signal. 

With partners can you try describe the process of making a piece of graphic design.

-Information Source - > Client and Brief

-Transmitter (encoder) - > Designer

-Channel - > Piece of work created

Receiver (Decoder) - >Audience receive message 

Destination - > Audience understanding the message 

Understanding what could go wrong in the process to make communication efficient

Discuss what could go wrong that would affect communication being smooth, or to stop the message that starts finishing correctly.

Information Source - > Client might not keep communicating what they want or what they had envisaged clearly. Might even keep changing their mind making it harder to understand what they want.

 Transmitter - > Designer mis-interprets what the client wants/ asking for

Channel - > Piece of work. Design may not reflect what the client wanted. Might not be appropriate to the brief.

Receiver - > The design might not be applicable to the right audience that it was intended for, so the message would be interpreted wrong

Destination - > Wouldn't be a clear message, or if there even is a message. Design is rendered useless.

All sorts of design in the world, if we say good design is about communication it needs to be targeted to the audience and there destination. To understand how they understand it.

A lot of people like to focus on the design at the beginning stages but more importantly it is about the destination and the message, you almost have to go backwards start from the destination and work backwards towards the information source.

Noise can happen at any stage of the process, example noise interns of the channel is noise on the line because of electrical fault then you can't hear everything that has been said. 

In terms of design the noise at the information stage would be the readability, wrote in bad handwriting, personal life of the designer getting in the way. Too much information given to the designer. If the designer has to speak to people higher up in a professional sense and the client keeps changing there mind.

Transmitter - > Technical faults. functions didn't work, mac broke etc. 

Channel - > Is the thing that carries the message example billboard so for example if, wherever you wanted the piece of Graphic design to go fails or changes in any way then it will affect what you have done. Billboard that has lots of things around it then it may drown the design out so it gets ignored.

Receiver - > May not have a specific audience, the company you could be designing for has had bad press so it may have lost the majority of its audience. Actual noise, other billboards, lessen the expense to which the receiver sees the design.

Destination - > Audience de testing the advert for example advertising shoes and people or the audience are slating the product in which you have designed for. Other pieces of graphic design adverting something very similar so you have rivals. Other messages coming from different things.

Level A- Technical Problems

How accurately can the message be transmitted?

Level B- Semantic problems

How precisely is the message conveyed?

Level C- Effectiveness problems

How effectively does the received meaning affect behaviour?

Majority of Shannon Weavers research was done at Level A

Take any of the problems discussed and try and fit them into the categories above and what you can do to rectify them.

Clarity of what the client wants would be Level A and B

Technical issues at Level A- Print issues, how the print looked, an error in the print. to rectify the situation, planning properly incase something went wrong. Designing with the understanding that the flaws can be incurred. Safe guarding measure

Production issues would be Level B Typo's, Readability, Legibility to rectify this you would should ask for opinions develop ideas, check that every thing is correct, create mock ups.

Destination problems Level C If for example the area in which your design was supposed to go has a lot of distractions around it the message wouldn't be perceived correctly could get ignored. To rectify the situation think about the design make it more out standing to overpower the things that are around it. Check where the design is going to go, to making it appropriate for the audience in that destination. For example creating a design in french when your in the middle of London. The message would then be illegible as it wouldn't be understood.

Flaws within the Shannon Weavers mathematical model is that it is too Linear. The communication process is not just like that to more accurately define a process within graphic design you would need something that would could back to rectify the issue for feedback etc. If you do something wrong at some point you would need to go back and break down what the issue is.

Noise

Anything unintended added to the signal between transmission and reception.

With Zines the noise becomes a feature to the design of them. Aesthetic of the design. Desirable outcome, the designer wants to be the noise inserted into an already system.

To operate as the noise you need to understand the mathematical noise.

desirable and interesting.

Redundancy vs Entropy

apart from noise and understanding noise this is the key point 

two concepts that are important with the mathematical model. Words are largely taking from the fields of electronics. Putting them in a social situation Redundancy is basically the path of least resistance. If you have a telephone line that communicates something 100 percent accurately that line is redundant as it doesn't interfere with the communication. As an act of visual communication is totally predictable, for communication to function accurately a redundant piece of communication has to b socially obvious and has a low amount of information to carried. reduce all possibility to have anything go wrong. Phatic Communication- Jakobson for example putting out your hand to someone in the street to shake there hand, everyone would understand that. predictable gesture because of that contains low information. If on shaking my hand and you got an electric shock then the it would become entropic, it has created a radical amount of information. 

Entropy is moments of bleeding out of the channel or line, if you have a gas pipe thats loosing gas you would have entropy. Adding entropy the message is then lost. the audience centred visual communicator by ethos aims for redundancy. A fine artist or niche graphic designer aims for Entropy as they are less interested in communication. the more you think about redundancy language although complex the way it is socially used is almost redundant. Words are redundant you don't need to use language to be productive and still understood.

As designers we are more concerned about building systems of redundancy into our designs as we are more concerned about our audience, we need to understand the Shannon Weaver model.

Questions Task 1...

Apply Shannon and Weavers model to an example of communication. How widely is this applicable? How useful do you find this sort of exercise?

What are the main communicative functions of redundancy? What do we mean by saying the English language is 50% redundant?

The ways to apply this to the world and not just the design process, example from the mirror in 1981.

Image on the back - The message is strange and hard to understand. The editor has added in to redundancy to communicate rioting black people. framed with confrontation. the text would have to back up the image. You think the image is one thing however the text gives you a whole different feel.  The editor is trying to tap into the audience view in a context that would understand that wouldn't shock there world view. However the editor is racist.