144
So far...
Advertising’s role in maintaining capitalism. Five stages of advertising: utility, branding, symbol, personalisation, lifestyle. Methods, USP, semiotics
The rise of consumer culture. 19th Century, 1950s, 1980s
http://m98mc.wordpress.com
Reading check-upWeek One
• Understains • Words in Ads • Freedom • Captains of Consciousness• Decoding Advertisements
Watch Century of the Self and Ways of Seeing
Reading Check-upWeek 2
• Lury• Twitchell• Lee• Bocock• Goldthorpe• Papson• Baudrillard
Reading videos - volunteer
The postmodern condition
What do you know?
‘the game of sign consumption is an integral part of the ‘society of the spectacle’ Lury, 1997: 69
Postmodernism 1 – sign not goods consumption
Baudrillard‘all needs are socially created’ Lury, 1997: 68
‘the logic of production is no longer paramount; instead the logic of signification is all-important’ Lury, 1997: 69
‘The audience is increasingly made up of a media-literate generation, its members, rather than seeking the truth, in turn self-consciously mimic the media – they adopt the persona of fictional characters as a way of expressing themselves, they discuss their personal lives as analogies with the story-lines of soap-operas, and talk in catch-phrases of celebrities and the slogans of advertising campaigns. They know when they’ve been Tango-ed’ Lury, 1997: 70
Postmodern Consumption 2 - knowing
‘it makes no sense to criticize people for being insufficiently materialistic; instead, we should submit to the magic of advertising as a playful code’ Lury, 1997: 71
‘Objects are no longer related to in terms of their practical utility, but instead have become empty signifiers of an increasing number of constantly changing meanings. There is an overproduction of signs and a loss of referents’ Lury, 1997: 71
Postmodern Consumption 3 – fluid signified
‘Rather than people using objects to express differences between themselves... people have become merely the vehicles for expressing the differences between objects’ Lury, 1997: 71
Postmodern Consumption 4 – the consumed individual
‘the final triumph of capitalism...meaning is a sham...reality flickers like a television screen’ Lury, 1997: 71
Postmodern Consumption 5 - hyperreality
This week…
Targeting Fluid Identities
Targeting by demographics, psychographics, lifestyle, lifestage. The nature of discourse in the 21st Century
Are you an individual?
I love China
What is the most important thing in the world Ruoxi Chen?
Market Research
Conceptions of Audience
1. Utility
Unknown mass
2. Branding/Product Symbol
Manipulated mass
3.Personalisation
Socially created
4. Lifestyle
Media and socially created
crisis
wants turned into needs
Branding
Meaning
Constantly moving happiness machines
Branding/Product Symbol1890s-1960s
We must get away from the habit of thinking in terms of what the media do to people and substitute for it the idea of what people do with the media
James Halloran (1970) cited in O’Sullivan et al, 1998, p.129
1960s
The audience as active and in control
uses and gratifications (Blumler et al, Lull)
encoding-decoding model (Hall, Morley)
No longer a mass
encoder decodercode
Awareness of sophistication of communication -
shared codes need shared experience.
How knowledge of audience power grew No longer a mass
article
Drugs are bad
The government
Posters TeenagersDrugs
are
cool
Music
Lasswell
Communication must be targeted
Personalisation Stage 1960s-present
People are targeted
Q. How can millions be targeted?
A. Discourse
Because we act/think/dress/walk/talk as types
genderethnicity
classage group
In society, perpetuated, exaggerated and fixed by the media
Discourse - how we can be targeted
Michel Foucault
The positions to which we are summoned
Discourse - how we can be targeted
interpellation
Discourse - how we can be targeted
Louis Althusser
Where is discourse contained?
Dress
Talk
Think
Walk
Objects
Activity
What is the male discourse?
Dress
Talk
Think
Walk
Objects
Activity
Targeting Men
Male + Northern England
1. Codes 2. Style 3. Target
‘We are both product and consumer; we consume, buy the product, yet we are the product. Thus our lives become our own creations, through buying; an identikit of different images of ourselves, created by different products…Advertisements are selling us ourselves’
Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements
Products are part of the discourse
Discourse - how we can be targeted
Demographics
Age
Gender
Ethnicity
Class
What to say, drink, eat where to go, how to think, what to wear
Demographic categories
Ethnicity
What lies behind the way we structure the world is, ‘not directly available to the senses … non observable … unconscious’
Strinati D 1995 An introduction to theories of popular culture London: Routledge p96
In pairs
1.What demographic discourses do you belong to?
2.What are the features of that demographic group?
3.To what extent do you ‘belong’ in this group?
Gender – class – age – ethnicity - nationality
Most adverts reflect discourses through
• Products targeted at them• Signifiers
However...
Foucault - The subject is produced performatively
What products are targeted at women
Althusser - hail
Semiotics
denotation-connotation
signifier-signified
signifiers
pink
soft
red - love
signifiers
blue
powerful
freedom
signifiers
white
pureinnocent
natural
signifiers
Green
natural
signifiers
signifiers
Psychographic targeting
Life-stage targeting
Lifestyle targeting
1980s +
Psychographic Targeting
Based on charting psychological-types
Examples of psychological types
Succeeder
Mainstreamer
Aspirer
Reformer
Individualist
Carer
Gillette 1
Gillette 2
What is the type?
What is the type?
What is the type?
What is the type?
Put your name on a sheet of paper and 4 adjectives which describe your character
Pass it to the person next to you and they choose an animal the adjectives describe
happy
loyal
playful
caring
Animals as psychographics
Independent
Like luxury
Scheming
Quick-thinking
Animals as psychographics
Powerful
Like to be in control
Calm
Competitive
Animals as psychographics
Life-Stage Targeting
Self actualisation – becoming all we are capable of being
Life-Stages
child
teenager
student
worker
singleton
coupledom
parent
empty-nester
pensioner
Life-Stage AcronymsDINKYDouble Income No Kids Yet.
GLAMGreying, Leisured, Affluent, Married.
OINKYOne Income, No Kids Yet.
SADFABSingle And Desperate For A Baby.
SINBADSingle Income No Boyfriend And Desperate.
SITCOMSingle Income Two Children Oppressive Mortgage.
SKI-ingSpending the Kids' Inheritance.
WOOP
Lifestyle Targeting
Targeting by a ‘way of life’
People act in discourses
Increasingly these discourses are media-originated
STUDENT
LIFESTYLE
DRINK TOO MUCH
USE RECREATIONAL DRUGS
LISTEN TO LOUD MUSIC
SLEEP IN UNTIL THE AFTERNOON
THINK POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT
EAT TAKE-AWAYS
LIKE CHEAP
FRIEND DEPENDENT
LISTEN TO POP
WEAR JEANS
‘ZANY’OPERATE IN GROUPS
The Yuppie
4.42
The Earth Mother
Friends Lifestyle
.Plenty of sex/partners
Eat ice cream
SEX AND THE CITY
Skater/Surfer
Hip-Hop Discourse
.
Emo Discourse
Attitude: anti-everything mainstream, appeal of the unusual, self-reflection, melodrama, respecting others’ feelings
Words: rank, techie, panning
Lifestyle: live in a shared house/parents, vegetarianism
‘Following a band that seems like “your little secret”’
Cosmo Girl Loaded Lad
Today's Hottest Gossip
1980s-present
Lifestyle advertising
Lifestyle Adverts
First BT ad
Development
End?
Slice of Life
‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves’
Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements
Adverts give objects meaning
We buy the object we buy the meaning
The meaning transfers onto us
We are the object
We have been sold ourselves
Adverts give products meaning for use in our social identity
Conspicuous consumption
Thorstein Veblen 1953
William H White The Organisation Man
inconspicuous consumption = an anti-social act
I consume therefore I amI consume therefore I am
The postmodern condition
The death of God left the angels in a strange position. They were overtaken suddenly by a fundamental question… The question was, ‘What are angels?’
Postmodernism: identity
Modernism
THE IDEA OF PROGRESS
Creation of Metanarratives
Rational Thought
History
Voltaire (1694-1778) - ordered history and set it in a time frame and judged it by a fixed morality and scientific laws
ScienceNewton (1643-1727) - science. 17th Century onwards: ‘science became the major aspect of human life…science could only move one way, forward’ SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20
Philosophy
Descartes (1596-1650): I think therefore I am
Pascal(1623-62): ‘men…as one man, always living and incessantly learning’ cited in THE IDEA OF PROGRESS, SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20
All that is solid will melt into airBerman cited in Hebdige, After the Masses, in New Times, Hall S and jacques (Eds),1989: p.76
We are swimming in a sea of signsJean Baudrillard
Postmodernism
Postmodern culture is a fragmented culture John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold p.56
metanarratives 1
Science By understanding the world we will control it
The universe was made by a Big Bang
People evolved from apes
People keep improving life
We exist to make the world better
(progress)
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 2
History Cavemen were wild
Civilisations like The Romans controlled them but were violent and dangerous
Kings established a secure civilised country
Democracy came and gave us power
We live to maintain this progress
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
Metanarratives 3
Church God creates world
People go bad
Jesus dies to save people from Hell
Repent and go to HeavenLife is a trial
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 4
AuthoritySome people have special skills
These people should use them to serve society
We must respect those who serve for our good
Life is about knowing your place in society and serving where you can
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 5
State I am born an Englishman
I like roast beef, drink pints and show no emotion
These values I will fight for my children to have
I exist to maintain the natural way of life of my people
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
metanarratives 6
Marxism We are all born equal
We must take from those with more than they need and give it to those who need it
I exist to ensure that the world becomes fair
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
Some have more than others, some starve
metanarratives 6
Feminism Women are oppressed by men
I exist to make the world fairer for women
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
Women need to rise up and take an equal place
Post-modernism
Lyotard - an incredulity towards metanarratives
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
High Windows
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
A culture with
No progress
No common ideology
No common meaning
We are free.
We are lost.
The loss of metanarrativesPostmodernism 1: Metanarratives
The loss of meta-narratives
Dick Hebdige
3 Negations
Against totalisation
Against teleology – designed for result
Against utopia
As if (1950s) As if (2000s)
Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives
‘Consumers use these symbolic meanings to construct, maintain and express each of their multiple identities’
Elliot 133
Postmodernism: identity
‘The self is conceptualised in post-modernity not as a given product of a social system nor as a fixed entity which the individual can simply adopt, but as something the person actively creates, partially through consumption’
Elliot p.132
Postmodernism identity
‘the individual endeavours to construct and maintain an identity that will remain stable through a rapidly changing environment’
Elliot p.131
Postmodernism identity
Amir Khan
British - accent
Northern - down-to earth
Muslim - prays to Allah Pakistani - supports
them at cricket
Male - watches football
Teenager - wears a baseball cap
Sporty - Adidas
Postmodernism identity
Amir Khan
Who am I?
rural
green
rich
Who am I?
I am powerful
I am sporty/be the best
I am independent/art above science
Who am I?
Educated and liberal
Fashionable/active
Young and sociable
‘The individual is offered resources to achieve ‘an ego-ideal’ which commands the respect of others and inspires self-love’
Elliot p.131
Who could you be?
Who could you be?
A pool of possible selves
10. ‘Culture and commerce are now fully intertwined’
Davidson M, The Consumerist Manifesto, 1992, London: Routledge, p.191
‘The self is a symbolic project, which the individual must actively construct out of the available symbolic materials’
Elliot, p.131
