Self Portrait 2

This is my Second image that had, the ipod, cellphone and computer. You are still able to see my face, but it is hard to tell what it is at the same time.

This is my First Self Portrait, that is only with the IPOD.

Self-Portrait

This is My Self Portrait. As you can see these are the things I love. I really enjoy diet coke, that is why I put it multiple times and the same with my ipod. With out my ipod, I would be lost, I cant do anything with out it!

Frontline: The Merchants of Cool

I really enjoyed the Frontline, Merchants of Cool mini documentary. I thought it was extremely interesting piece on” Selling Cool”. As a teen myself watching it, I felt like everything they were saying was true. Teenagers are most defiantly an important factor when trying to sell certain products. If a teenager doesn’t think that something is “cool”, then a product will potentially fail. In today’s generation there needs to be an “It Factor”, if it’s acceptable to the teenagers than it will be acceptable to all people. The first segment talks about how teenagers are the largest generation since the baby boomers. They have more to say and it’s much harder to please them. The concept of “cool” keeps changing so it becomes difficult to target a certain product for a long period of time. One day teenagers may thinking something is great, but the next everyone will have it and it won’t be cool anymore. Today, teens hangout at malls because it’s the “cool” thing to do. Advertisers now have to make a marketing message geared toward teens that would be appealing in places that they hang out such as malls. Teens are surrounded by a “Blizzard of Brands”, and it’s important for companies to catch the attention of teens. If not, then that product will fail and will not have the approval of the young, growing generation. It is also important to get the message in “their” terms, meaning that its crucial to get the message that they approve of and understand. The mini video also had a segment about companies, which have spies, who go undercover and find out what teens like, this is called “Cool Hunting”. They look for teens that seem like “trend setters”, or give off an impression that what they wear is cool.The segment relating to Youth Culture, stuck out to me because it was true. The example they used in the video was the company, Sprite. Sprite used a method of selling a certain image, which was that hip-hop, was cool. Sprite began to transform and became one of the leading products at that time. Then it went to talk about, five companies that also wanted to sell cool. These companies geared toward the teen market. An example that was most frequently used was MTV. This company wanted to target teens because they (teens) were an outlet that would lead MTV to become an unstoppable force. Teens loved the aspect of MTV. From a personal point of view, I remember watching MTV most of my teenage years and loving it. I thought it was “cool” and I always wanted to watch it. MTV had corrupted the teen population. It has a way of making people obsessed and also they relate it to their audience which is teenagers.The rest of the video talked about image and how both boys and girls are trying to capture of the “hot factor”. Girls will use their body as an outlet to get noticed. All in all, the media has geared their aims toward teenagers because they will react. If a teenager approves a certain product than that product will succeed. Advertisers are trying to understand the mind of the generation. It’s a hard task, but it is one of the most important. Without the teenager generation, companies wouldn’t be growing and making profit. It’s crucial to sell cool. This idea of selling cool will always be around. As new generations form, there will be a need and a demand for new and more inventive products. Teenagers are hard to impress and it’s just going to get harderto come up with something that they will like.

Chapter 3 Synopsis

Media Ownership: Concentration and Conglomeration


In chapter three, Media ownership: Concentration and Conglomeration focuses on ownership and control of the everyday media. This passage deals with media ownership in the sense how a shift moved towards concentration and conglomeration when dealing with the structure of many media type industries. When investigating the increased concentration of the media, the concepts of the “public sphere come into play and how it is applied to the internet.
Non-profit, public or private ownership influences the content that the media may portray. The continuum of media ownership can show the differences between the three ownerships. Community based ownership, which could be represented as local radio can be organized on a non-profit level using specific interest groups (pg 89). Not-for –Profit media attracts small audience that have budgets that they try to meet the needs of a community. State ownership has a certain control over television, newspaper and radio. Media can also be privately owned. Media can be owned by families, companies, and also individuals. As the media ownership grows, alliances form with other larger companies, which could potentially causes risks. As concentration increases, it is said that many faults may be hidden within the” media world”. At the same time media ownership is increasing within both concentration and conglomeration (my 92).
Society is filled with many media outlets that depend on the economy. When looking into the aspect of the economy perspective of the media, is had been changing throughout history. The political economy preservative has two main aspects which are the cultural production and the cultural consumption (my 102). Examining the relationship between the structure of ownership and cultural production is very important when tying them together with political economist.
Trying to understand the importance of the changing patterns in media ownership is essential. The reading explored the aspects of concentration and conglomeration and how it has lead to an uproar in the media industry. Throughout history the media had changed dramatically. The main change had occurred in the structure of the media. The media has altered to the channels of “reality” television and has created a entirely new outlook on the media (pg104). It has created more profit for companies and has put a new preservative for new and more inventive twist on the media. As conglomeration increases the media space becomes filled with the ways of advertising and outlets of communication.

CD COVER

Magazine Cover

This is the original magazine cover that I chose. Just by looking at the photograph, the viewer understands what is going on in the picture and has a good understanding of what the magazines content will be.

I thought, what is more is the totally opposite type of image that would be on a VOGUE cover, and I thought an Elephant. As you can see, the image of the elephant is random. I changed the words on the cover to say, " African Elephant, in its new movie". If people were to look at it, that would be thrown off and may laugh at the image.

This is a Magazine cover I duplicated from the Original. I decided to take a picture of my friend and I. As you can see it changed the meaning of the image, when I chose a different picture than the original. One can see that the words don't match up to the image being presented.

Mid term Synopsis

In Chapter 3 from the Practices of Looking, the main points that were articulated throughout the chapter focused on gaze and spectatorship. Even though the reading was difficult, I tried to focus on the words on those to main words. As I tried to come up with an understand of why these words have so much power, I found a quote that struck me. “When we look at images, we look within a field that includes much more than just our own gaze and the image. This field includes, among other things, the medium through which we see the images and the architectural, cultural, national and institutional context in which we see the image” (Pg 93). This statement reminds me a lot of our last passage that we had to read, The Medium is the Message, by Marshall McLuhan. The Medium, which could be represented through multiple forms, such as newspapers, radio, cell phones, televisions, computers and many more have been used to express messages in so many different forms that it has left society wanting more. This quote is true, because we gaze and analyze the objects around us.
When reading the chapter, Modernity, it focuses on our senses and how we use them to grasp the attention of our surroundings. “Spectatorship allows us to talk about this broader context in which looking is enacted in an interactive, multimodal and relational field” (pg.93).. “The concepts of gaze and spectatorship remain important cornerstones of visual studies because they provide a set of terms and methods through which to consider some aspects of looking practices that the concepts on the view do not really allow us to consider in depth (Pg 102). I felt like this meant that these concepts are extremely important to use because they help people interpret, their surroundings, with both their conscious and unconscious mind. While reading it talked about how people “gaze” at certain types of medium, such as paintings and photography and how it creates the process of a person trying to see themselves in the picture at the point in time that in image is trying to capture. “In reacting to images of other human subjects, do we experience the person in the image or on the screen as a object of our desire? Or do we fanaticizes ourselves in the place of the person on the canvas or screen” (pg. 122). The term gaze may help people respond and allow people to become part of the subject. Allowing people to interpret their surroundings and have a reaction to what they are seeing creates the ability for having the feelings of being a part of the object they are looking at.
As the reading looks back on history, from the Enlightenment to today’s advertisements and big screen movies, it gives me as the reader a sense of the change over time that has shaped society into what it is today. The reading focused on how people as “spectators, view the subjects and objects that surround us everyday through multiple forms of media.
The concept of being a spectator requires people to engage and gaze at the objects that are in front of them. The understanding of the terms gaze and spectatorship will give the ability to grasp the depth of objects by truly stepping back and looking. As we practice looking we will connect with the world around us.

Mid-Term- Advertisements

The first advertisements I chose is the image for the single person representing a company. This shows a Gap advertisement. I could tell just by looking at the photograph that their motive was to have a celebrity to represent the "GAP" company. When this ad, first came out, it clearly stuck out in my mind. I was like, "That's John Mayer, I love him". This picture that it portrays, represents him as the object. He in the main focus in the advertisement it's not so much the clothes, that Gap is trying to sell, its the image that the celebrity is try to portray . When you look at the ad, one can tell that he is wearing the clothes, the clothes aren't wearing him. The way that this ad, expresses Gap's vision is clear, that the people can be confident in what they are wearing. When Gap, came out with multiple advertisements that had celebrities in them, they tried to send a message to their buyers, that Gap has reinvented themselves. The look that the series of ads. resembles is a mature and satisfied look, with a cool edge to represent Gap, as a new innovated company.

For the advertisement with two people, I decided to choose Absolut Vodka, because I have always enjoyed their creative twist that they put on their ads. As one looks at the advertisement one can see that the picture can catch a person eye very quickly because of the image that is being shown. The Absolut Vodka tag line is, "In an Absolut World", which means that in an "ideal" world, the advertisement shown, would be "ideal" in the world that we live in. Ironically, its not. The picture shows, a man carrying a baby, while the woman sips on her drink and is being carefree. The man's facial expressions is mad and angry, while the woman's is happy. In the world that we live in today, this situation is not what is being expressed in the ad, it is the opposite. The people are the subject in the ad, but the slogan is a reflection of the purpose that the Absolut Vodka company is trying to portray. Even though the people are the subject, viewers know the product trying to be sold. It is clearly represented through the slogan and the picture.

Medium Collage