Entry #5 The Demoralizing Effects of New Technologies

Gibson, Jano. “Airports to Trial Virtual Strip Searches.” The Age. Fairfax Media, 2 Oct. 2008. Web.

MDSB62 Media Portfolio Entry #4—Scientific looking & Journalism image & Image from other culture

By: Annie Duong 

The Demoralizing Effects of New Technologies 

Technology and other mediated devices have evolved over time. The purpose and use for these new technologies are unlimited. New technologies can be used for communication, transportation, security purposed, take pictures and videos, etc. The rapid growth of technology is affecting the way our culture functions. For instance, people have the ability to use technology for demoralizing purposes, such as hacking, blackmailing, and harassing an individual’s privacy. In 2007, Australian airports have invited travelers to take part in the ‘virtual strip searches’, which involves the travelers to go through a body x-ray scanner to see what lies under the clothes, revealing the traveler’s genitalia and other private concerns. Australian airports have made it a requirement to go through a body scan, otherwise, they would not be able to board the plane. This issue have caused great uproar among the citizens. Advanced technology, such as the x-ray, is an example of a technology that is being used to invade an individual’s privacy and the potential of causing health risks.

Privacy invasion is a common issue when it comes to technology because technologies have the ability to track and collect data by monitoring one’s actions. The x-ray scanner incident in Australian airports is invasive on a more personal and private level. The act of  going through a full body scan can be demoralizing and embarrassing for the traveler. This type of invasion of privacy is also known as ‘scientific looking’; the act of satisfying one’s pleasure through manipulating the use of science and technology on those you are powerless and vulnerable. Priscilla M. Regan, in Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy, she said, “science and technology have progressed and, as Justice Brandeis anticipated, have given government and other organizations the capability to invade privacy in new and different ways” (2). Just like the Australian airport incident, the Australian government has the power to use such technology in a way that conflicts with an individual’s privacy. The invasion of one’s privacy is a public concern because technology is perceived to be moving faster than legal protections.

          Potential causes of health issues are also at risk when using x-ray scanners. Although the Melbourne airport Australia reassures the travelers that “body scanners at Australian international airports use non-ionising radio frequency energy in the millimeter-wave spectrum,” (“Body Scanners in Australia”), and that they do not pose any real health risks because of the low millimeter-wave spectrum that only reflects off the skin, there is still the risk of skin injuries. Although the experts of health say that “the amount of radiation is almost insignificant,” (“Experts Assess Health Risks of Airport Full-Body Scanners”), people of old age, pregnant, or are already at a health risk, that ‘insignificant’ amount of radiation is still concerning to the travelers.

New advanced technologies are innovative and useful, but at the same time it can become dehumanizing and dangerous. Concerns about the Australian airport body scanners are mainly about the invasion of an individual’s privacy and the possible health risks that come with it.

Works Cited

“Body Scanners in Australia.” Australian Government: Department of Infrastructure

          and Transport. n.d. PDF file.

“Experts Assess Health Risks of Airport Full-Body Scanners.” Medpage Today. n.p.,24

          Nov. 2010. Web.

Gibson, Jano. “Airports to Trial Virtual Strip Searches.” The Age. Fairfax Media, 2 Oct. 2008.

          Web.

Regan, Priscilla M. Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy.

          Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1995. Print. 

Entry #4 The Practice of Flâneur Demonstrated in Gustave Caillebotte’s Painting

Caillebotte, Gustave. Paris Street: A Rainy Day. 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

MDSB62 Media Portfolio Entry #4—Art
By: Annie Duong 

The Practice of Flâneur Demonstrated in Gustave Caillebotte’s Painting

Artworks such as paintings, drawings, videos, photography, and other forms of art are essential to visual culture, whether they are traditional or modern. The importance of art varies between different cultures. They can be interpreted in many diverse ways depending on the context in which it is placed in, as art does not have a final meaning. Most of the time, the purpose of art is to be looked at. Art has helped shape our visual culture today by introducing technology. As art is developing through technological reproductions, it helps divide our perceptions of our culture into different perspectives through multiple fields of gazes, etc. A particular oil on canvas painting about a couple walking down the streets of Paris by Gustave Caillebotte called, Paris Street: A Rainy Day in 1877, the flâneur plays a role in identifying its everyday life consumerism and the aspects of its culture, and the revolution of modernity.

When looking at the painting by Caillebotte, we get a sense of life in Paris. According to Benjamin Walter, “the flâneur pointed us towards the staging of specific ways of looking” (Hall, 321). Stuart Hall, editor of Representation, stated:

[Specific ways of looking caused by flâneur] were shaped by the new techniques of consumer display concentrated within the new retail and leisure-based districts of the large metropolitan cities like London and Paris, and by the representation of the city and consumption in visual terms within print cultural forms like periodicals. (321)

Hall talks about the gaze of the consumer in the streets of metropolitan cities.  Walter also described flâneur as the ‘consumerism gaze’, which means to stroll through the city streets. For example, when ‘strollers’ look into stores—called window-shopping—but have no intention of buying anything. Paris streets are commonly known to bear a rich inheritance of wealth and makes for an attracting voyeuristic site. In the painting, we can see the couple’s attention is adverted to something off the page, but we cannot see what they are looking at. The composition of this painting makes the viewer feel as if they were in the streets of Paris because the angle of the subject is placed at eye-level, which makes it easy to put it into perspective.

            Caillebotte’s painting represents modernism and urbanism due to the complexities of the modern city that creates new social bonds with others. The urbanism in the modern city preserves an individual’s individuality. Flâneur is also a meaningful concept in architecture. Street observers are often indirectly and unintentionally affected by the structure and design of the building they are passing. In an essay written by Chris Jenks called, “Watching Your Step: The History and Practice of the Flâneur”, he said:

[Flâneur] is an image of movement through the social space of modernity; not dissimilar, perhaps, to the circulation of Giddens’s ‘symbolic tokens’ of money and signs. The flâneur is a multilayered palimpsest that enables us to ‘move’ from real products of modernity, like commodification and leisured patriarchy, through the practical organisation of space and its negotiation by inhabitants of a city… (148)

Jenks explains how flâneur is like a mobile gaze, meaning we are able to move around in the space. The architectures of the social space of Paris allows the flâneurs to get distracted. For example, in Caillebotte’s painting of the streets of Paris, he captured the well known classical Haussmann buildings. In the painting, there are many streetwalkers—other flâneurs—quietly and anonymously observing Paris.

            Gustave Caillebotte’s painting, Paris Street: A Rainy Day, tells the story that the flâneur plays a role in consumerism, and the revolution of modernity through the renovations of architecture.

Works Cited

Caillebotte, Gustave. Paris Street: A Rainy Day. 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of
          Chicago, Chicago.

Hall, Stuart, Jessica Evans, and Sean Nixon. Representation. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE

          Publications Ltd, 2013.

Entry #3 The Male Gaze and Dominance over Subject in Coca-Cola’s Advertisement

"Coca Cola... YES.." Tribe. Utah Street Networks, Inc., 02 Jul 2010. Web. 19 Mar 2014.            <http://tribes.tribe.net/cocacolalovers/photos/4f0445aa-ad94-443e-8167-42f239d1e149>.

MDSB62 Media Portfolio Entry #3—Commercial advertising & Image from 20th century
By: Annie Duong

The Male Gaze and Dominance over Subject in Coca-Cola's Advertisement

            Advertisements in the twentieth century have increased dramatically as the industrialization expanded the supply of manufactured products. With the effects of higher rate productions, industries needed more consumers, which lead to something called mass marketing. Mass marketing refers to a large target audience. With mass marketing, industries are able to target specific groups of people through the use of certain images and concepts in the advertisement. A Coca-Cola advertisement, “Yes”, in 1946 is an example of mass marketing and target audience. Coca-Cola’s advertisements specifically targets middle-aged men by portraying young women through the male gaze and the sense male dominance over subject in the advertisement.

            Pretty women were frequently featured in Coca-Cola’s campaign advertisements in the twentieth century. Coca-Cola’s ‘pin-up gals’ are often represented in a seductive way through their body language and the clothes they are wearing. In a particular Coca-Cola ad called, “Yes”, the young woman appears to be lying on the beach in her bathing suit facing towards the audience and smiling up at the person offering her a bottle of Coke. It is clear that the hand of the person offering the woman the bottle of Coke is a male figure. The hand is much larger and appears to be more ‘masculine’ than the woman’s appear to be. The composition of this print advertisement allows the spectators (mostly males) to place themselves in the advertisement as if they were the one handing the woman a drink. By not being able to see the face and body behind the hand, we assert ourselves in its position. This relates to Freud’s psychoanalysis and the concepts of identification, scopophilia, and narcissism. Sean Nixon, the editor of “Exhibiting Masculinity” in Representations, described the psychoanalysis concepts as, “particularly suggestive for our purposes in that they foreground the organization of gender identities within representation and play up the acts of looking and spectatorship which shape this process” (312). The role role identification, scopophilia, and narcissism have within an individual affects the individual’s ego and desire of the acts of looking and spectatorship. The concept of identification has a distinction between two kinds of desire according to Freud. The two kinds of desire are the “desire to have the other person (which he calls object cathexis) and a desire to be the other person (identification)” (Nixon 312). The image of the Coca-Cola ad has a connection between Freud’s theory of identification in terms of the advertisement implying the desire to be the other person.

            The subject in Coca-Cola’s advertisement also has a representation of power and discourse. By having the woman posed in such a way (with her sitting on the ground, looking up), she is represented as fragile and powerless. The big, bold text that says ‘Yes’, suggests that the subject of this advertisement is allowing herself to be controlled by the person handing her a bottle of Coke. She is conforming to the needs of a male figure, becoming the ‘subject’ by subjecting herself to its meanings of being controlled (by saying ‘yes’). Stuart Hall, the editor of “The Work of Representation” from Representation, he explained:

For example, pornography produced for men will only ‘work’ for women, according to this theory, if in some sense women put themselves in the position of the ‘desiring male voyeur’ – which is the ideal subject-position which the discourse of male pornography constructs – and look at the models from this ‘masculine’ discursive position. (40)

The subject of Coca-Cola’s ad is positioned within the ‘desiring male voyeur’. She is positioned in the center in which her body language depicts her acceptance of being seduced, which is a method of luring in male consumers.

Target audience is a marketing technique that requires the marketing team to thoroughly analyze and apply the consumers’ desires and psyche in order to achieve successful advertising and commercial campaigns. The Coca-Cola advertisement took advantage of the male gaze and used the ‘desiring male voyeur’ to attract and target the male audience and the subject in the ad proposes that one can get the girl to conform to their needs with a bottle of a refreshing drink, Coke.

Works Cited

"Coca Cola... YES.." Tribe. Utah Street Networks, Inc., 02 Jul 2010. Web. 19 Mar 2014.  

          <http://tribes.tribe.net/cocacolalovers/photos/4f0445aa-ad94-443e-8167-
          42f239d1e149>.

Hall, Stuart, Jessica Evans, and Sean Nixon. Representation. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE
          Publications Ltd, 2013.

Entry #2: Racial Advertising against Blacks in 1930s

"22 Shockingly Racist Ads." Neat Designs. N.p., 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. <http://neatdesigns.net/22-shockingly-racist-ads/>.

MDSB62 Media Portfolio Entry #2—Image from 20th Century no later than 1980s & Commercial advertising
By: Annie Duong

Racial Advertising against Blacks in 1930s

          Advertisements from the 1930s are seen today as extremely appalling and unspeakable due to anti-racism. As years passed by, discrimination against race has changed drastically. We no longer see racism depicted in advertisements, although stereotypes of certain characteristic traits still exist in the media. In the 1930s, there were advertisements for “blackface make-ups”. These were to be used for theatrical purposes. Blackface make-up are usually made from burnt cork or black grease paint that are applied to the face and body and their lips would be thickened with red or white paint (Padgett). The “Nigger Make-Up” is deemed racist for many reasons, such as the choice of language that was used and the man’s physical characteristics.

          In the advertisement, words such as “nigger”, “burnt”, and “blacking” are racist slurs because it separates white people from black people. The language that were used also conveys a sense of white supremacy in a way that white people are able to “change” their appearance or skin colour to look like a black person as a form of mockery. Whereas, if a black person were to change their appearance or skin colour to look like a white person, it is unacceptable and is punishable, especially in the era of 1930s. For example, “[w]hen black women actresses like Lena Horne appeared in mainstream cinema most white viewers were not aware that they were looking at black females unless the film was specifically coded as being about blacks” (Hooks, 119). Hooks explains that in order for Lena Horne to be accepted as a black woman playing a white character is if the audience does not know that. Since racial segregation still took place in the 1930s, it is unlikely that cinemas will tolerate black characters pretending to be white or even black characters in general.

          Another point that makes the advertisement racist is the fact that the physical characteristic traits are exaggerated. The “Nigger Make-Up” comes in the form of a mask instead of using burnt cork or black grease paint in order to prevent the skin from “blacking”. In the ad, it suggests that the mask can be “slipped on or off in a minute” and it also comes with a top hat, which draws on the element of stereotyping the way black people dress. The man in the ad is wearing a mask that exaggerates the dark skin tone and the whiteness of the teeth and eyes, depicting the character as abhorrent and unattractive. Stuart Hall argues that “[s]tereotyping deploys a strategy of ‘splitting’. It divides the normal and the acceptable from the abnormal and the unacceptable. It then expels everything which does not fit, which is different” (247). The blackface mask in this advertisement establishes the strategy of splitting by creating a distinction between what it looks like to be black compared to being white. The mask acts as a division between the normal and the abnormal. 

Works Cited

Hall, Stuart, Jessica Evans, and Sean Nixon. Representation. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE
          Publications Ltd, 2013.

Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.

Padgett, Ken. "History of Blackface." Blackface. N.p., 01 Nov 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.                      <http://www.black-face.com/>.

"22 Shockingly Racist Ads." Neat Designs. N.p., 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 
           2014. <http://neatdesigns.net/22shockingly-racist-ads/>.

Entry #1: The Media’s Approach towards the LGBT Community

Screenshot of http://www.google.ca homepage on February 6th, 2014

MDSB62 Media Portfolio Entry #1—Graphic and typography & Journalism
By: Annie Duong

The Media’s Approach towards the LGBT Community

          Having the 2014 Olympics held in Sochi this year has created great uproars and complaints from around the world and the media about Russia's anti-gay laws. Some Olympic teams have gone through the extent to dedicate their 2014 Olympic uniforms to supporting gay rights and protest against Russia's anti-gay laws. For instance, the Germany's Olympic team will be wearing colourful uniforms as their way of making a political statement about anti-gay laws in Russia. The trend of this incident has reached media and the online community in a profound way. Users online are constantly sharing news about Germany's flashy outfits and on-going debates regarding this incident on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and other social media blogs and websites.

          With the Olympic Games and the protest against Russia's anti-gay laws going on, Google stepped up their game to show their support. On February 6th, 2014, google.ca changed their homepage logo to a colourful theme and images of the Olympic games with the following statement written on the bottom of the page, "'The practice of sport is a human right. every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.'--Olympic Charter", which signifies Google's attempt to eliminate discrimination against the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community. To catch the viewer's attention, Google has made use of colours and visual representations.

          Colours can have different meanings when they are placed in certain contexts. In this case, Google have used colours to portray the idea of supporting the LGBT community because colours of the rainbow are commonly known as symbols of gay pride. Campbell et al. pointed out that, "[c]olour choices have great impact on image. We consciously respond to color everyday, and we are constantly making aesthetic choices related to color" (55). Google has appropriated Campbell et al.'s point by corresponding colours of the gay pride to take a stand for gay rights.

          Google's pro-gay doodle has demonstrated a visually effective image. Google is commonly known to change its homepage doodle to match special occasions such as the celebration of holidays, birthdays, and current events. Google has always been up to date with its doodles. The images of six Olympic sports show Google's excitement and celebration of the 2014 Olympics at Sochi. The composition of the doodle is also very appealing because the images of the Olympic games are placed right in the centre of each colour block, which conveys the message that there should be no discrimination in the Olympic spirit. Berger argued that "when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status, taste, etc." (11). The way Google's pro-gay doodle is presented is a form of art that establishes the beauty of the Olympic games--a place where nations gather around each other to play and compete in sports.

Works Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1972.

Campbell et al. Media in Society. New York: St. Martin’s, 2014.


Submitted: 12 February 2014