Mass Media

Mass media is influencing everything in the world.  Mass media forms the way a person thinks. Mass media makes a person think the way they want them to think. Banksy is a graffiti artist. He is also a political activist. Most of his graffiti has a political statement or social theme. He used a child in one image hugging a missile. His political message was that children do not know what war really is but is force in other countries to be in war. The girl is in a school outfit. That was ironic because it’s like the girl is being taught to love war. Also having the little girl smirking and hugging a missile is bold because kids don’t really associate with weapons. The image triggers and emotion that makes people think and want to go out and do something about it. This mass media image was towards the government to stop putting children in war.

            The claim mass media makes a person think the way they want them to think address learning outcome two. Learning outcome two is, “Show attentiveness of the potential for educational, political, or ideological influence of the media.” Media influence people to think the example I used was a political Banksy image. That image made the audience think of what he was trying to say politically. Other images and mass media makes the audiences think outside the box.  It’s not what your doing its how your doing it. To get a point across to an audience one must do it in a unique way that charges at emotions. To make one emotions spark will get them to think and go out and do something.

The Machine Stops Claim

In the article, Our Media, Ourselves: Are We Headed for a Matrix? by Bob Mondello, he claims that society is attempting to create connections through the evolution of technology, however, the slickness, isolationism, and replacement of old articles, such as books, has led individuals to forget him/herself in the process. Mondello describes this as a “fear of losing ourselves as we lose our stuff” and asks if that just a product of “our experiences with technology.”

It’s obvious to see, through all the sci-fi dramas and movies, that it’s quite possible society could lose its organic composition to technological advancements. In the story, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster, one of his characters, Vashti, claims nothing in her “room” but an armchair and a reading desk. It has no clutter that an individual would see in every day life, such as paper work, pencils, or just photographs. Everything has become automated in this case, but Vashti feels that “the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her.” Her reliance on the Machine is also what Mondello enforces near the end of his article, which he states that The Machine Stops is focused on the “overreliance on devices,” which is emphasized in the character Vashti, especially when she is on the airship in Part I. Because of the lack of clean air that the Machine produces and is not transferred to the airships, Vashti “smelt – not strongly or unpleasantly, but it did smell.” Her overreliance on the Machine has caused her to find air outside of her room unsatisfactory, even if it might be fine air. However, it was not made by the Machine, and that is why Vashti doesn’t like it. She finds that the arrangements made her anxious because they were “old-fashioned and rough,” not slick, clean, and minimalistic like her room. Mondello was able to point out this fact that “Forster was writing decades before TV started creating couch potatoes, almost a century before parents could complain about computer games turning characters into zombies. And still, his character Vashti doesn’t want to leave her little hexagonal cave. Why would she?”

            With Mondello’s last statement, it’s easy to see the convenience of technology, such as Skype to where someone can speak to another person from all over the globe. Vashti was able to speak to her son, Kuno, easily without her having to leave the comfort of her own room. Technology has made communications and connections easier between society and communities. Not only that, but another of Vashti’s concerns can be addressed, which is the slickness, cleanliness, and minimalistic desire that has become a “modern” look in homes, office buildings, and restaurants. Individuals are consumed by the idea of having minimal clutter and maximum cleanliness; they disregard the articles, such as old Polaroid photos or dictionaries, as clutter because why need them when he/she can type in Google what they want to see? Why not just Photoshop edit pictures to make them look like old Polaroid pictures? They don’t see it as things that create them but only as clutter.

However, even Mondello addresses this fact after he quotes Forster during the point when Vashti communicates with her friends. After he quotes The Machine Stops saying that “the clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned,” Mondello says, “Abandoned for chat rooms? Online dating? We’re almost there, right? Everything virtual until you’re actually in the apartment of a new acquaintance. At which point, what do you do? Scan the bookshelves and glance through DVDs, looking for clues. Faulkner? Steven Spielberg? There by the VCR player, is that Sinatra or Sid Vicious?” Mondello points out the fact that people can learn so much from what others deem as “clutter.” Venturing into a new friend’s home, it’s obvious that newcomers will be curious as to what this new friend has in their home. Looking at the “clutter,” one can learn much just from it. “Oh he listens to Nicki Minaj? We’ll get along great!” Simply learning from observing is what places individuals into groups and creates (life-long) friends or even lovers.

The image I chose was The Hoover Company Ad. In the picture you can see a woman lying down on the floor in a long green and white dress looking at her new gift, which is a Hoover Vacuum Cleaner; you can obviously see that she's excited and ready to get started using it. Some colors the stand out are the Sparkly red vacuum cleaner with a big green bow the colors can be assumed to stand for Christmas time because of the red and green colors. The white carpet can stand for how clean she keeps her house, the long dress probably means that she wealthy and again the colors red and green and white stand for Christmas. Something’s I notice about the text is that the color of the text matches the colors scheme. The font of the words is very elegant and girly. The text on the vacuum cleaner that says “HOOVER” on the side makes the vacuum cleaner look very expensive. Something that sticks out about the text is that how its says “Christmas morning (and forever after) she’ll be happier with a Hoover,” I find that very bias because its making it seem like women love to clean and that even after Christmas morning she going to be still very excited about the vacuum cleaner, which can change. This Ad can be towards any economic class but mainly upper class since the woman in the Ad seems very rich. It also can be towards any Race class and only one gender which are females because it is assumed that they love to clean. The time period of this picture is probably in the 1950’s by the way that the woman is dressed. The audience for this Ad can assume to be housewives or women in any economic class. It also can be for Men or the spouses of the housewives looking to get their wives something nice for Christmas that can be very beneficial towards their living environment. You can easily tell that this Ad is for women who stay home and clean because of the text that stated in the Ad. The purpose of this advertisement is to persuade people into buying the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner for their wives because the stereotype of women is that they stay home and clean so their vacuum cleaner can very useful to women. In a lot of ways this advertisement is very persuasive, the tactic and appeal works together very well to achieve the purpose and the words and images works together to achieve the purpose in so many different ways. The text is very persuasive by what it says about: giving her a Hoover and you give her the best (and forever after), P.S. to Husbands: She cares about her house, you know, so if you really care about her….. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to consider a Hoover for Christmas?  The things like that makes the Ad very persuasive and it makes you think. The colors match the Christmas theme from the colors of the words to the colors of the items shown in the picture. The overall meaning of the Ad is that it’s a Woman’s duty to clean the house and keep it clean.