S.A.S.H Event Analysis

On Tuesday, April 21st, I was given an extremely unique experience to attend the S.A.S.H event at Roger Williams University. This event took place in GHH and highlighted all the students projects through the semester. Many of these projects were created for independent studies, and among many, there were a few that really stuck out to me. The first poster that I examined was called, “Addressing Poverty in Rhode Island by Kristyn Fertado and Laura Turner. They focus their research on the fact that “14% of people in Rhode Island had incomes below the poverty line in 2013. To put this number into context, the poverty line consists of around 23,834 for a family of four. They proceed to give statistical evidence about how food insecurity, children living in poverty, and academic performance all have negative effects to the economy. This includes the fact that 1 in every 5 children in Rhode island was living in poverty. Not only do they enunciate the negative information, they also shine a positive light on things being done to end this poverty problem in Rhode Island, such as the “Sunday Mathewson Street Friendship Breakfast in Providence. This charity holds a 3 course meal served by volunteers and homeless members of the society. It serves up to 300 people weekly and is a proven success. The authors leave viewers with the quite, “Alleviating poverty through job creation, training, education and increasing wages would clearly reduce food insecurity, but until we reduce poverty, alleviating hunger requires direct food assistance.” This poster concludes by encouraging viewers to attend attend places like the “friendship Breakfast” to do our part to make the community a better place. This poster really struck me becasue I like to participate in helping out at the food shelter in my home town with my church so I have a deeper connection to the issue at hand.

The second poster that I examined was created by Macy Farnsworth and focused on the topic, “How has the female reporters voice changed in war situations since World War II.” I really enjoyed this poster because I have done a lot of projects in the past on war events including the Mai Lai Massacre, along with my most recent project on the Saigon Execution for our Visual Communications class. Although these did not involve female reporters, I was interested in war topics as well as anything involving female rights. She provided information about main historical events such as the National Women’s Movement in the 1960’s. At this time more women entered the workforce and the United States government approved birth control.  She led us to a positive conclusion that today women are more present in media reports, journalistic style has changed and writers in general are no longer present in the story, and finally that the type of stories woman cover went from being soft stories to hard. When I asked her what encouraged her interest in this topic she explained, ” I am a journalism major and wanted to do a topic involving the treatment of women.” She proceeded to say that she was truly interested in how women were deprived of many rights early on, and liked to see how it has changed over the years. You could tell she was truly passionate about the topic and was eager to inform readers about what insightful information she had found.

The final poster that I observed was entitled, “Ingredients for Sustainable Campus Food” The poster was bright, to the point and extremely informative. It honed in on the RWU Commons and spoke about how 40% of food in the US gets wasted. To end hunger only 5 billion pounds of food would be needed, which is compared to the 22 billion pounds of edible food wasted annually in the food service industry alone. The Bon Appetit Company at Roger WIlliams is committed to using local and sustainable ingredients whenever possible and sponsors the “Eat Local” challenge and “Low Carbon Diet Day” each year. They earn a “B” on the Peta Vegan Report Card, “for going above and beyond to provide all students with exceptional vegan food. Unfortunately, this poster was the one that I liked the most and the author was out sick and could not be there to present it to me today or be in the picture. I really enjoyed the bright color and wanted to give the author the credit they deserved but they also did not place their name anywhere on the report either. I still wanted to give this picture recognition on my blog so it can be seen and admired below.

From this assignment I learned a lot about seeking passion for great causes. Everyone that I spoke with, and every poster that I saw truly emphasized that the author/artist put a lot of effort and did great amounts of research to be ready for this opportunity to present their material. I am extremely happy to see that such hard work is getting the recognition and accreditation that it deserves because many times great work goes unnoticed in a University setting.

The Brain/Pharma Ads

According to Practices of Looking, “Scientific looking does not occur in isolation from other cultural contexts… the discourses of science, like all discourses, change over time, allowing for new subject positions to emerge and new ways of speaking about science to come into being (PL, p.347).” After viewing the PBS website, The Secret Life of the Brain, it is clear that there are many different brain functions that I was unaware of and suddenly I became extremely interested in learning more.

After examining brain features on the website, I was definitely persuaded to change some specific behaviors in order to improve certain functions. For instance, since I have been an athlete my whole life I’ve had about 4 concussions, which has definitely impacted my short and long term memory. The website enlightened me that the long-term memory is concentrated in the hippocampus and in the cortex of the frontal lobes. Besides the hippocampus, the thalamus and hypothalamus also are important to maintaining a healthy long-term memory. Opposed to this, the parietal, upper temporal, and occipital lobes serve as short-term memory banks for hearing and seeing. Now that I am aware of the specific areas of the brain do not function as well, I can work on exercises that will benefit me for my future such as doing brain jogging activities including crossword puzzles as well as other things like getting more sleep at night.

Viewing the brain anatomy helped a great amount to understand the different functions of the brain more than I did before. Prior to this exercise, I had little to no knowledge about the function of the brain, but I really enjoyed how the website broke it down into different sections, as well as making it a 3D view so readers could help make the connections from information they were reading about to the actual section of the brain. I was shocked that the thalamus was such an important part of the brain to keep “sharp” especially because it is connected to the retina of the eye, to help visual processing. We would not be able to be as successful observing specific photos in our Visual Rhetoric communications class if it we didn’t have a healthy thalamus to function and help us process the information we are viewing.

I think that this is a good idea that the “truth can be made visible” because the brain is so important for processing information and if a persons senses are all functioning correctly, it definitely helps them to decipher the truth. After seeing the different functions that the brain is responsible for, I can now understand how crucial it is to keep my brain in tact and not do things to damage it in the future.

These two simulations are quite similar because they involved traumatic brain injuries and how it affects short and long-term memory. The simulations are different because they offer different treatment for each of the simulations. As stated above, one involved getting more rest to help improve a persons ability to learn and preform complex movements, opposed to the other that spoke about doing brain activities to help increase the brains performance in the short term.

For the second part of this assignment I viewed a pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertisement about involving Concerta. The ad has a unique checklist of the symptoms, highlighting a “typical school day” for a child with ADHD vs. the “typical school day” of that same child that took Concerta. The symptoms consist of: Forgetting homework, interrupting teachers, lack of focus, and eating lunch alone. The symptoms change when taking Concerta and include: Paying attention in class, interacting better with classmates, and having a better focus on homework.

The condition that the drug in the ad is intended to treat is ADHD. There are no side effects located on the photo of this advertisement, but according to the Concerta website, typical side effects involve having headaches, stomach pain, sleepiness, and decreased appetite. Other side effects include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, nervousness, tics, allergic reactions, increased blood pressure and psychosis (abnormal thinking or hallucinations). This list clearly shows that it is longer than the checklist of symptoms.

This advertisement focuses on parents of children diagnosed with ADHD. The advertisement promises to the consumer that the drug Concerta can help their child get on the path to success in managing ADHD. They claim that it improves social interactions as reported by teachers and parents, ensures that Concerta has over 8 years of proven safety, and reassures parents by offering survey information explaining that, “In a survey, 90% of parents reported that their child got in trouble less often at school when on Concerta.” This survey isn’t too beneficial because it gives no information where the survey took place and what types of people were involved in the survey either.

The thinker from the PL reading that best fits this assignment is Raymond Williams who argued that advertising is “a magic system that transforms ordinary, material products into objects that promise a magical transformation.” The reason why he best fits this assignment is because drugs are hard to market because they are very customer-specific and no one will pay attention if it’s just a boring informational commercial. This is why creative advertising is so important because it transforms the boring information to something that will gain viewers attention and make them more interested to learn more, inquire more about the product if they have similar symptoms, and possibly purchase the product.

I learned a lot about the brain from this assignment. I have always been interested in the functions of the brain because having a healthy brain is crucial to having a healthy lifestyle. Now I know little things like how important it is to get the necessary amount sleep before big exams or sporting events. I will keep it in mind for the future for the night before my next communications exam!

Pastiche Assignment

A Pastiche is defined as work of visual art, literature, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. For this exercise I chose to examine the Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo da Vinci and compare it to Marcel Duchamp’s pastiche reconstruction of this painting. The painting re-created by Marcel Duchamp was used as a postcard. Duchamp did not exhibit the original 1919 work in public until 1930, when he posted both versions, side by side, in a gallery. This pastiche is a reworking of the past because it imitates the Mona Lisa panting basically in every aspect but alters it in comical way by adding a mustache and goatee. He also added a pun in French by writing at the bottom of the painting, “L.H.O.O.Q” which stood as an idiom to describe women who sexually tease men. In French, the letter combination stands for “Elle a chaud au cul” which translates to “she is hot in the ass.”

This Pastiche is also slightly a parody because it is meant to mock and make fun of the original Mona Lisa painting. It mocks this painting by hinting to people to not take art like this so seriously by giving this artwork a little comic relief.

For part two of this exercise I examined a few different graphs from graphjam.com. The website “Graph Jam” is a pastiche and re-work of the past because it offers some graphs with false information on less serious topics as a way to poke fun at the original works and uses of these types of graphs.

Almost this full site offers examples of pastiches with parody because all of the images and graphs are done as a comedic imitation of an original work. One image in particular that I examined was focused on the topic of Facebook. Facebook is a major website that is actually more popular for adults in the range of 30 and above instead of my age group who is more heavily influenced by sites like Twitter and Instagram. The graph described the topic, “When people announce that they’re deleting people from their Facebook. There were two option categories, one that read, “Do it because that’s really what they’re going to do” and the other that read, “Are THINKING of deleting just ONE person and are hoping that 50 people comment begging not to be next.” There is no statistical numeric information yet the color coordination assume around 98 percent reside in the category of just “thinking” about deleting it as a way to create attention and get commentary from their friends, while the other 2% are actually serious about deleting people. This pokes fun a lot at my generation because a lot of my age group thrive to get attention in any way that is possible and although they really never have the intention to delete people, they want to know that people care enough about their friendship in order to beg to not be deleted. This work is a questioning of the status of the original because some people take Facebook friendships so seriously and they believe having a Facebook “friend” connection is more important than an actually real life friendship bond. It is mocking this serious online connection and adds a humor effect to this media relationship that is taking over society.

The PL thinker that best fits this assignment is Richard Dryer who speaks a lot on the topic of comparing pastiche to imitation in his writings. He offers that many pastiches come from work of multiple sources and not just one solid source. In his book entitled, Pastiche, he explains that while pastiche can be used to describe works, which contain montage or collage, it can also be used to describe works, which are a kind of imitation of previous works. This perfectly parallels the Duchamp pastiche of the Mona Lisa because it is an imitation of Leonardo da Vinci’s previous work, altered to add a Dadaist effect and comical reconstruction as a way to lighten the serious connotations of the original work.

I learned from this assignment that a pastiche can be used with serious connotations that are to pay homage to original work, or it can also be used as a parody to mock original work. I enjoy the parody versions better because it makes the work less serious and more fun to examine and comment on since I am a goofy person as well.

Cultural Jamming

The term “cultural jamming” refers to “a metaphor for stopping the flow of spectacle long enough to adjust your set.” It issued as a way for artists artists and activists use the signs and symbols of commercialism to highlight current issues. For this assignment I chose the Victoria’s Secret campaign advertisement portraying nine different Victoria’s Secret models all the same size and body type, and basically the same skin color as well, with the words in large font going across their bodies, “A body for every body.” This is a well-known ad because everyone knows and loves the Victoria’s Secret models and so many girls, especially of my generation aspire to look like them. The problem is, they have nothing to their bodies besides bones and a think layer of skin over it, and it is obvious that the ladies body image does not match up with the campaign’s motives. Although they are promoting the “Body” by Victoria bra, it is also hinting to the body types since they are barley wearing any clothes in this advertisement. Most people’s eyes viewing the advertisement will be captured by the bare skin the ladies are showing off before they look at the bra that they are promoting. This is giving a false message and it contradicts the fact that this advertisement is standing for “everybody’s body type”.

In order to change this advertisement to give it an oppositional reading, I changed the writing to “Every body has a unique body”, with the writing under it to read, “Perfect is in the eye of the beholder, find your perfect fit.” I decided to change the wording to this because it offers a more positive and realistic approach to selling this bra style. Body image is a very controversial subject because so many people believe they are overweight and develop diseases such as anorexia in order to try to attain a body image such as the models in this ad. The problem is, everyone is born with a different genetic composition and some cannot control the size or shape of their body. As long as they are at a weight that is considered healthy then it should be perfect enough for them, and Victoria’s Secret should have a bra size for each and every one of these shape types. It is their job as a clothing company to make the woman purchasing their clothes to feel comfortable in the skin they’re in and enjoy wearing their “Body” by Victoria bra.

I connected the copy and design choices to these two choices by keeping everything in the advertisement the same besides the big writing going across the ladies bodies, as well as the smaller quote that is placed below it. If I were to completely change this advertisement I would recreate it with girls of all different heights, sizes, shapes, and color, to help reach a more realistic approach. This would be more similar to the Dove True Beauty campaign, but I decided to keep it the same because since it is promoting Victoria’s Secret bras, it is only right to have their models in the advertisements they are using. Hopefully this new message would inspire girls to not starve themselves in order to look good in a bra, yet love the skin they are in and love to show off any bra they wearing.

The PL thinker for this assignment would be Guy Debord, a major influence of cultural jamming that argued that past humans dealt with life and the consumer market directly but now in “modern” life, there is a more indirect approach. He supported the idea of cultural jamming and saw it as a way to fight against the misleading information that the media was instilling into the viewers minds.

I learned from this assignment that marketing departments would create advertisements that will do the best to capture a viewer’s attention in any way possible. This ad in particular tries to do so by showing a bunch of pretty, and half-naked women. Viewers need to realize that their main motive is trying to sell their bra line, and their customer set does not exactly match up to the ladies who are wearing their bras in the ad. Ladies realize this and instead of feeling insecure that they don’t look like the girls in the ads, they need to feel happy that they could wear such a comfortable bra no matter what shape or size they are. This goes for any advertisement; people should always see past their initial expressions and try to understand what the advertisement is really trying to tell them.