Blog Post #7

What it is meant by uses and gratifications? Which uses and gratifications do you think are the most important for people nowadays?

Uses and gratifications refers to the reasons people watch television shows or any media artifact. It explores and gives different motifs of why people spend valuable time of their lives sitting in front of a TV watching any type of program. This theory explains why TV shows, such as The Kardashians or Ladies of London, that are considered bad when analyzed by content or as a cinematographic piece, survive in a very competitive industry. I believe that, nowadays, the most important uses of media for people are: To be amused, to see others make mistakes, and to explore taboo subjects with impunity and without risks. Let’s explore this reasoning further...

To be amused. I believe amusement is the most basic use any human gives to media artifacts. We are always looking for ways to have fun and relax. We live in a globalized world where, in order to succeed, you need to work long hours and live in a stressful work environment.  Therefore, media exists as an outlet to escape the “real” world and enjoy a show that was created to entertain us.
To see others make mistakes. I believe that seeing others making mistakes is a very common gratification for users, this has become more prominent nowadays with the creation of reality TV. These programs are being created to show us “real life” people (upper-class elite most of the time) struggling in their daily lives more than the average "normal" person would. This makes the audience feel better about their own lives as well as mistakes.
To explore taboo subjects with impunity and without risks. This is a large part of media use since
the beginning of mass media. Like the saying goes,“SEX SELLS”, it truly does. Humans are always looking to explore the unknown and the forbidden. Media artifacts provide a safe environment where we can explore subjects and experiences that are not possible in our daily lives. This is a well exploited segment of the media and it can be seen across multiple media platforms, like daily news shows, movies, TV shows, books, etc.

Blog Post 6

Miss Representation

Miss Representation is a documentary directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom that explores the under-representation of successful women in America and challenges the way women are negatively portrayed in the media. I personally think that the documentary does a great job of exploring and explaining the limited roles that are given to women in the media. The documentary is it heavily based on interviews on different people, and the director uses them to her advantage. First, it uses interviews of famous and powerful woman to show the behind the scenes of what really happens in the entertainment industry. This makes the documentary more believable and appealing to the audience. Second, the documentary also interviewed teenagers to show what it is the general feeling and point of view of the new generation that grew up in front of a TV.  This help the documentary broaden their scope appealing to a younger generation.  One of the documentary objectives is to bring consciousness of this problem that most American does not know. With the use of interviews, the documentary it is easier to follow and simpler to understand. They also used the film to launch an online campaign on social media to reach a bigger amount of people.

I really like how the whole film is layout. It starts with very general problems and go more in depth with specific problems that the director uses to tell her own story. This makes the film feel warm and personal. She also uses a lot of statistics to back her arguments throughout the film. One thing that threw me off a little bit was the narration from the director throughout the film. It felt fake and sometimes awkward. This made me lose the focus on the film and concentrate more on the bad narration skills

Psychoanalytical Theory - Blog Post #5

            Psychoanalytical theory is a method of analyzing a subject or media artifact using personality threats and behaviors. It is mainly based on Freud’s theory which argues that each person have an Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id represents the secret desires and impulses that everyone has. These are the instinctual urges and primitive thinking to maximize pleasure and minimize pain in life. The Ego is the rational system that uses principles to make decisions. It is heavy reality-oriented and it balances the demands of the Id and Superego. The Superego is all the ideas and values that are passed to us from the society or parents. It works as a conscious to block the unacceptable id impulses or urges.

            Analyzing a popular character will make this theory easier to understand. Let’s analyze Batman. Batman is an orphan who loses his parents in the hands of crime of Gotham city.  This is what drives him later to fight crime. The events of his childhood change his personality behavior and future actions as an adult. Batman Id represent his urges to fight and become Gotham’s vigilante. He have this urge, this unexpected desire, of fighting the evil that in the past kill his parents, and now is consuming the city. This gives him pleasure, and at the same time reduces the pain of the memory of his dead parents. The Superego of Batman is Bruce Wayne. He is the values and principles that his parents and the society passed to him. Bruce Wayne manage the company and act as a public figure for Gotham city. He is the façade that the normal people see and hides his true personality, Batman. The Ego is what brings Batman and Bruce Wayne together. Is the balance between each personality and role Wayne plays. It is portray by both Batman and Bruce Wayne. It is what makes Batman rationalize and don’t kill people (Id urges) and also undermine the values and ideals he have to fight crime outside the law (Superego traits). 

Blog Post #4 - Marxism

            Marxism is the idea of power between ideas communities has. An idea that a lot of people have and believe it could be call an ideology. An ideology could be something religious, cultural, or social that people share. One common ideology in America is the marriage between a man and a woman. For the past decade or more, the LGBT society has fought very hard against this ideology. But there have been a lot of resistance against changing the present ideology. This is called hegemony, when one ideology has dominance or power against another one.

            When we analyze media artifacts, TV shows, movies, news, etc, trough a Marxist lens we are looking for these ideologies, and dissecting them.  In other words, we are digging deeper to analyze how every character believes and actions portrays our society believes, also called ideology. TV shows will use ideologies to appeal better to the audience. Whenever you are consuming media artifacts, think about the social dilemmas that were happening when the movie was on production. This will help you understand better the agenda and ideologies pushed in the show.

            Every character in every show portrays a certain role. These roles become very useful when you do a Marxist lens, because it will help you found out the true agenda of the character. If the main character is a strong independent woman who is very successful in life, the show is demonstrating a gender equality ideology. Director’s uses stereotypes to convey better characters ideas and roles, which will make the user, understand the ideology behind the show better.

Blog Post #3 - Media Consumption

This class has taught how to critically think and analyze any piece of media created. The most notable thing I have been noticing is all the semiotics characteristics used in every show I watch. Before this class, I watched a movie and show and understood the drama and climax of the movie. Which I wasn’t realizing was all the hints the director and creator of the shows were putting in camera for me to pick up and be able to make easily assumption about characters and environment personalities.

Last week, I went to see The Visit (2015) in a movie theater. The Visit is a horror movie that follows the story of two siblings who visit their grandparents to revive the long lost relationship. It was an OK movie, with some inconsistencies in the story. One thing I really like was the twist ending of the movie. I do not want to make any spoilers, but I would like to comment that if you really pay attention to details, you will notice that the director put hints all over the movie that point out to the final piece of the story. It was a great use of semiotics to convey a creepy and horror story.

I also watched Narcos (2015). Narcos is a Netflix original drama series that follows the story of famous drug king, Pablo Escobar. It is a wonderful and very well done series, which ends up being very entertaining.  I would like to comment the heavy use of intertextuality on the series, which brings richness to the story. The story evolves around a true story from the last decade. The directors use real old footage and newsprints of Pablo’s life, which bring a piece of truth to the viewer, making the story more believable. I highly recommend this show to anyone who enjoys drama series.

            

Sherlock Semiotics - The subtlety of taxi cabs.

Sherlock is a BBC British television series that follows the adventures of detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal partner, Doctor John Watson. The first episode of the series, called “A Study in Pink”, uses different semiotic characteristics that guide and help the user understand the characters and the plot better.

One of the things that the show does best is use Signifiers throughout the whole episode to let the audience know that Sherlock is a detective. The first time they introduce Sherlock Holmes, it is a shot from within a body bag, where he is analyzing the dead body. From this shot, we start to notice his fascination and relationship with death. The show also uses Sherlock’s apartment to describe Sherlock’s mind into a physical state. The first thing we notice is the amount of objects and artifacts he has, conveying the idea of a busy and complicated mind, with multiple thoughts and skills happening at the same time. They emphasize the human skull, which represents several aspects of Sherlock’s personality. His loneliness, his relationship with death, and also serves as an intertextuality to the old show as a Victorian era object. We also notice the multiple patterns all over the apartment (wallpaper and rug) representing his fascination of seeing and solving patterns everywhere.

One of the most subtle but interesting things I noticed was the presence of taxi cabs throughout the episode. If you have seen the episode before, and know that the serial killer is a cab driver, you can easily notice how the director subtly introduces a taxi cab in every scene with suspense. Every time Sherlock and Watson are investigating the case or achieve a milestone in the case, a taxi cab is mentioned or physically introduced in a shot. The first time Sherlock and Watson work together and get to a crime scene, they take a taxi cab there, with multiple shots inside the cab.

Another example is the shot when Sherlock and Watson are walking towards a restaurant to face the serial killer, Sherlock is thinking out loud trying to solve the crime and he uses this words ”Who do we trust, even if we don’t know them. Who passes unnoticed wherever they go”. This shot opens with a taxi cab driving by and several taxi cabs parked in the background. We can also notice the presence of taxi cabs on the next shot, where they are waiting for the killer to appear on the location they send on a text message, a taxi cab is the one who parks in front of the destination and the they end up chasing all over London. The director and writers of the show, use the presence of taxi cabs throughout the whole episode to tell the viewer who the killer and suspect is going to be even before Sherlock discovers it.

Blog Post #1 - Lego Ad

Lego has come a long way. We can easily notice that the first concept used in this ad is intertextuality, which is defined as the use of a material that had already been created. Lego Company uses the Stonehenge image in this advertising to convey some interesting concepts that the reader will tie to the company's product. The first thing we notice is the use of Lego bricks imagery as the building stones of the structure.  Stonehenge was built approximately 4600 years ago, it is considered one of the first structures built by mankind. The ad uses the highly recognized Lego brick shape on each stone as a signifier, and signified that Lego bricks have been around since the beginning of mankind. Legos are the basic bricks for building structures, and humans have always used them to build. 

Another important concept in this ad is the text at the upper right corner of the ad. It reads “In the beginning there was the stone”. This phrase, plus the use of Stonehenge imagery, is used to convey the idea of worship, where the deity is a Lego brick. We can easily associate the phrase structure and word choice (“In the beginning”) with religious phrases and books. The use of Stonehenge as a signifier helps convey the idea and signified the idea of a deity. It is believed that Stonehenge was built as an act of tribute to a certain god or deity. Through the change of the stones shapes, Lego advertising makes the reader believe that mankind was worshiping Lego bricks.  We can also notice the use of the “the” before the word stone. It is not a stone, it is the stone, conveying the idea that Lego bricks are the only and best building shapes.