This Week’s Topics

At the end of this session, students should have an understanding of the following:

  • An understanding of the prophetic and influential ideas presented by Marshall McLuhan in the late 1960s, specifically the theories in his book “Understanding Media” and his quote “The Media is the Message.”
  • Why these ideas relate to the persuasive technology that we interact with on social media platforms and how they are affecting human society.

 

Submit your Research Journal for mid-semester review

Each week you should be adding to your online Research Journal, documenting and critically reflecting on your influences, history, culture, likes, and dislikes.
This practice of being curious about your own design aesthetic is a way to gain experience engaging with critical design theory and preparing for your research project.

Twice during the semester, you will share your Research Journal with your professor (and your classmates only if you wish). If there is anything in your journal you don’t wish to share, you may duplicate the journal, remove the parts you want to keep private and submit it for review.

Due Dates

    • Week 9 – Monday, April 25th, at 6pm

Submission Process

      1. Get your Research Journal ready to share.
      2. If you haven’t already*, create a post with the following metadata:
        • TITLE: Research Journal – Your Initials
        • CATEGORY: Research Journals
        • TAG: Your Name
      3. Write a brief reflection about your experience keeping this Research Journal.
      4. Below the reflection, create text link called: My Research Journal
      5. Select the text, click on the link icon, paste the sharable link into the link box and press return. Your text link should look like this: My Research Journal
      6. If you’d like to keep your post private, so only the professor can see your Research Journal, choose Visibility > Private when you post.
Gutenberg - Content Visibility Private
Set your post visibility to Private if you wish.

NOTE: if you have created your journal post previously, make any updates to your post to conform to these guidelines.

 

 

Activities

1. The Medium is the Message

Last class we looked at the American version of Modernism as corporate identity design and advertising in the 1950s-1960s began to take shape. This week we will move closer to the Postmodern era and examine Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about media as television was becoming the dominant medium. His theories were radical at the time and have been influential in the study and practice of design and media theory. They are especially important now with regard to the persuasive advertising model used by social media.

Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian professor and philosopher. He is known for coining the phrase “The medium is the message”. This statement first appeared in his book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man – The Medium is the Message, which was published in 1964. And in his more experimental text “The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effect“, co-created by McLuhan and Quentin Fiore in 1967.

McLuhan died before the birth of the internet, but many believe that his theories about electronic media were prophetic; that he envisioned the internet decades before its arrival. He spoke about communication technologies as having the ability to create a “global village” and the increasing loss of privacy as a result.

McLuhan argued that we should focus on the medium of communication itself and he defined media as a technological extension of the body. He used the term “media” in a very broad sense including the spoken word, the written word, the printed word, telephone, films, radio, television, etc.

There are many excellent interpretations and critiques of McLuhan’s ideas. Let’s watch a few videos to help us to understand his ideas in the context of today’s contemporary media.\

 

Marshall McLuhan – A film by Daniel Savage

Marshall McLuhan – A film by Daniel Savage

The media has the power to transform human nature and furthermore, no matter how powerful or persuasive the message, it’s the media that has changed our thought patterns and behavior. What does this mean for the “electronic environment” we inhabit? How do we decipher what media is fact and which is fiction? Discerning the difference is crucial now, more than ever.

DANIEL SAVAGE: THE MEDIUM OF THE MESSAGE – ADC LAUREN FESTA

What does “The Medium is the Message” really mean?

The Medium is the Message explained by Dan Olson (2015)

“The idea is that the mediums have a far greater impact on the fundamental shape and nature of society than any message that is delivered through that medium. What has had a greater impact on society and the way that we interact with one another, all the content of every Youtube video ever made or the existence of Youtube itself? All the conversations that you’ve ever had, the existence of your cell phone?… How do the mediums that you use help shape the world?”

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE EXPLAINED BY DAN OLSON

This Is Marshall McLuhan – The Medium Is The Massage (1967)

Created in 1967, this video could be describing the new mediums of today: the internet, social media, online video, video games, virtual reality, etc. Watch from start to 08:23 (or longer if you have time.)

This Is Marshall McLuhan – The Medium Is The Massage (1967)

“The electric age is changing you, it’s changing your family, it’s changing your neighborhood, it’s changing your education, your job, it’s changing your government, it’s changing your relationship to others. These little circuits are making our world go. The electric age is having a profound effect on us. We are in a period of fantastic change that’s coming about at fantastic speed. Your life is changing dramatically, and you are numb to it.”

 

Social Media is the Message

McLuhan believed that media (in the broadest sense) is an extension of humanity, of the human body, and mind. How does media affect us? Our bodies? Our relationships? Our understanding of the world? Are we being changed right now?

Tristan Harris, the founder of the Center for Humane Technology, believes social media as it exists now “is a simultaneous utopia and dystopia.” The utopia the user experiences is the dopamine hits and efficiency of on-demand everything, and the dystopia of the giant manipulative matrix that we are living in. How do we recognize the Matrix if we don’t know that we’re in the Matrix?

The Social Dilemma

In the documentary, The Social Dilemma, early leaders in social media, like Tristan Harris, have revealed that the medium of the internet, specifically social media, is becoming an existential threat to human society.

While he didn’t foresee the negative effect on society, consider Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic theories about electronic media in the late 1960’s, specifically how technology is an extension of humanity. Think about the current design of social media and the consequences of our growing dependence on it.

What will become of society if the persuasive technology used for for-profit social media advertising is allowed to continue as it is now? We will respond to this and other questions in our Discussion this week.

Clip from The Social Dilemma (45 secs)

 

92nd Street Y – Interviews with Filmmaker and Tech Experts (1hr 15 min)

Interview with The Social Dilemma: Filmmaker and Tech Experts in Conversation 
92nd Street Y – Interviews with Filmmaker and Tech Experts (1hr 15 min)

Tristan Harris – A New Agenda For Tech Presentation (54 mins)

Tristan Harris – A New Agenda for Tech Presentation

 

 

 

 

Activities

Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.

1. Representation and Context (90+ minutes)

Last week we examined Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about media. We learned that the medium is integral to the message and how we receive it. This week we will look at representation and context by exploring the use of stereotypes in media (print, radio, television, and online advertisements). In your second Research Paper, you will use the terminology and approaches that we cover this week to deconstruct a historical or contemporary advertisement that uses coded cultural message(s) of racial, ethnic, and/or gender stereotypes.

We will return to Saussure (sign, signifier, signified) and Peirce (symbol, icon, index) to refresh our understanding of early semiotics. We will incorporate the terms we learned in the last reading of Barthes (connoted, denoted, iconic messages, linguistic messages) and explore additional terms such as encoding, decoding, polysemic, myth, and naturalization. Lastly, we will look at Jamaican-born cultural studies scholar and activist Stuart Hall who explored how the dynamics of media representation reinforce societal power structures.

Terminology

Before we go any further, let’s make sure we all understand the semiotic terms we will need to deconstruct an advertisement.

Ferdinand de Saussure

  • Sign: A sign is anything that creates meaning composed of a signifier and a signified.
  • Signifier: A word, an image, a sound, anything we see, speak or hear to refer to the sign.
  • Signified: The concept that our mind conjures in relation to the sign.

Charles Sanders Peirce

  • Icon: signifier resembles the signified
  • Symbol: arbitrary learned relationship between the signifier and signified
  • Index: signifier is caused by or linked to the signified

Here’s a graphic to clarify these terms:

Info graphic describing semiotics.
Media Language: Semiotics & Barthes – A Level Media Studies

Roland Barthes

Building on Saussure and Peirce, Barthes argued that when we construct a sign (encoding), its reception (decoding) does not take place in a vacuum. Our individual experience, society, and culture impact its meaning and how it is interpreted. In our reading last week, we looked at Barthes’ close-reading of the Panzani advertisement. Take a look at this breakdown of “Rhetoric of the Image” by Lesley Lanir where he covers some of the following terms.

  • Encoding: creating a message for transmission (i.e., creation and distribution of an advertisement)
  • Decoding: the process of interpreting a message (i.e., watching and interpreting an advertisement)
  • Connotation: symbolic or cultural meaning (a coded message)
  • Denotation: Literal meaning (a message without code)
  • Linguistic message: words used to convey meaning
  • Non-coded iconic message: an image with literal meaning
  • Coded iconic message: an image with a coded message
  • Polysemic: a sign that has multiple meanings
  • Myth: a widely accepted meaning of a sign
  • Naturalization: in a society, the repeated use of signs shapes its meaning

Here’s a 9+ minute video that takes us through some of these semiotic terms from a film perspective. Advertising takes a similar approach.

Semiotics for Beginners

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall was a Jamaican-born British sociologist, cultural theorist and political activist. He looked at the power of mainstream media (advertising, TV, film, etc) to understand the representation of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and religion. Here are some of the theories and terms associated with his work.

  • Reception Theory: This theory asserts that advertising and media are encoded and decoded. The creator encodes messages and values into media which are then decoded by the audience. Audiences will decode the media in different ways and not always in the way the creator intended.
    • Dominant, or Preferred Reading: how the creator wants the audience to view the advertisment or media.
    • Oppositional Reading: when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning. This can happen when content is controversial or when the audience holds different beliefs or is of a different age or culture.
    • Negotiated Reading: a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings. The audience accepts some of the creator’s view, but also has their own views.
  • Representation Theory: There is not a true representation of people or events in media. Designers/creators try to ‘fix’ a ‘preferred meaning’ through ideology or stereotyping. Historically, this is driven by people in power.

This 6+ minute video explains Hall’s Reception Theory:

Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory Explained

This 3-minute video breaks down Hall’s Representation Theory:

Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory – Simplified

This 7-minute video gives a bit more detail and context to Hall’s Representation Theory:

Representation Theory Explained

In this 55 minute documentary from 1997, Stuart Hall offers an extended meditation on representation. Take a close look at 36:00 he speaks about representation in advertising. Note that this video was created is prior to social media and the internet era that we live in now. Consider if the power structure has changed and why/why not? Make sure you are logged into CUNY SSO (single sign-on) to view.

Placeholder image used to link to video.
citytech.kanopy.com/video/stuart-hall-representation-media – 55 minutes

2. Stereotype in Advertising Media (1+ hours)

The use of stereotypes to communicate meaning and sell products has a long history in advertising media and visual communications.

As we observed in our readings on the lack of diversity in design, leadership in the field of advertising media and design was (and still is) dominated by white, heterosexual men. And as we see from our recent study of media and the message, and representation above, mainstream media is a powerful force for intentionally or unintentionally reinforcing biases in society. It’s changing, but women and BIPOC designers in advertising are historically limited. That lack of diversity in creative leadership has allowed widely-held biases to continue to flourish.

Here are some sources to get you started in your research for Research Paper 2. If you have already chosen a historical 19th or 20th-century print advertisement that uses obvious and/or documented racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes to sell the product, review the sources below to support your research. If you haven’t yet chosen an advertisement, browse the references below to find some.

History of racial, gender, ethnic, cultural stereotypes in advertisements

3. Assignment: Research Paper (3+ Hours)

Follow the assignment guidelines and prompts for Research Paper 2 – DUE Sunday, November 14th, at 11:59 pm

Working off of your reading response and research from last week on Roland Barthes’ 1977 essay, “Rhetoric of the Image,” select a historical 19th or 20th-century advertisement that uses obvious and/or documented racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes to sell the product.

In your paper, you’ll critically examine and deconstruct your historical advertising image in a manner similar to Barthes’ approach and include references to Saussure, Peirce, and Hall’s theories covered in today’s agenda.

Refer to Assignment: Research Paper 2 for guidelines.

Resources

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