We live in a society where the web 2.0 generation like ourselves gradually keeps moving up. We have been caught up in the internet since a young age and have witnessed significant changes over the past few yeas that we probably would not have imagined when we first started out with the computer. Where anyone at all can get their media out there on youtube, blogs, among several other sites, we can see the power shift from the once all in control Television networks now to the hands of you and I. It was interesting to talk about the jeopardy traditional journalists are facing when someone’s blog account of the same event might be more accurate, more personal, and a more instantaneous version. I have also noticed how the news is becoming more dependent on a “eye-witness” accounts from a bystander’s cell phone camera or youtube video. With image quality of these devices becoming better everyday, who knows if the traditional field camera crew will become more of a secondary production team some day in the future.
We learned a lot about how we, as media consumers, should be looking more actively at the media around us. Now that I understand the ideas behind encoding messages, I’ve been looking at the media around me with a more critical eye, especially the news both on TV and on the web. We also talked about how unintentional messages can also be sent depending on several aspects of the production not just limited to the script itself. As an video producer for my local public access channel and in some way as a career in the future, it was important for me to understand this critical looking from a producer of the media’s point of view. We can get our messages across in many ways, but need to be careful of biases both intentionally and unintentionally. By looking for the message behind it, we can also get more enjoyment out of films, TV shows, and other media to understand it as the director has intended.
Following up our discussions about Marxism and those who own the means to produce own the message as well, we now have endless options in front of us with the web to get our own message out there. I really enjoyed our work in Illustrator, Photoshop, and Flash - Adobe Pro apps I have not had much experience with. From our magazine designs to the appropriations, it reinforced the idea of how easy it really is with the right tools to create a piece of media with an intended message and get it out there, much like we are doing here with our blog entries.
Glamour is often associated with the images advertising uses to fill our desires. Glamour is the state we see and envy in advertising, such as that perfect bodied model, the latest fashion trend, or even that new car we see swerving around the mountainside in the commercials. Glamour is a state we see and aspire to become a part of, one key factor in a successful ad campaign. In the movie “How to Get Ahead in Advertising” we see the main character suffering a mental breakdown during which his boil speaks to him and even takes on a face and personality of its own, taunting and consuming his every thought. This all began as he begins to question the practices of his advertising business trying to come up with an ad series for a new acne cream. He knows exactly how the system works and how it manipulates people into buying the product. It seems like the talking boil is symbolism for the ad campaign he was working on, and how he may give in and buy the product for himself, against his own will. The way the film seems to be headed is portraying how the glamour in advertising will always end up consuming us, even when we try to resist it.
