The Power of the Consumer and Process of Semiotics - Essay Example

– The order is completed, but was late because I was too tired to make sense of the theories last night. It is definitely better for the sleep. If this delay hasn’t upset your schedule tremendously, it would be helpful if you could place an extension on the order. Media Meanings Student name Instructor name Course name Date http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-court/intels-slave-ship-ad-i_b_60615.html The power of the consumer is widely recognized as the only force capable of making or breaking a company. However, today’s consumer has become very adept at erecting defenses to shield out the overt messages brought to them by media advertisers. As a result, these advertisers do everything in their power to subvert these defenses, such as making appeals to our inner natures. Whether we care to admit it or not, there is a great deal of truth behind the statement that we are what the media tells us we are. “Much of what we share, and what we know, and even what we treasure, is carried to us each second in a plasma of electrons, pixels and ink, underwritten by multinational advertising agencies dedicated to attracting our attention for entirely nonaltruistic reasons” (Twitchell 468). This is achieved to great extent through the process of semiotics. Essentially, ‘semiotics’ is a term used to indicate the process of sign analysis in a given culture for indications of meaning at varying levels. “Semiology therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification” (Barthes, 1964). Thus, it refers to any combination of contextual clues, such as language, image, color, shape, expression or placement, that are combined together in order to communicate a specific sense of meaning to a particular cultural group. Understanding the language of semiotics and myth, advertisements such as Intel’s advertisement for its Duo Core 2 processor can be analyzed for their more subtle communicative effects. Primary elements included in any discussion of semiotics include signifiers, signified and sign. The sign is the end product created through the combined forces of the signifier and the signified. The signifier can be described as “the form which the sign takes” (Chandler, 2006). This is different from the signified, which refers to “the concept it [the signifier] represents” (Chandler, 2006). Basically, the signifier is the most basic idea – the physical presence of a flower. The signified takes on the broader meaning – the idea of romantic love conveyed by the red rose. For every image, there is some further meaning which is defined by its appearance with other forms to convey denotative and connotative sign. The denotative message and connotative message combine together to suggest a deeper ideological myth. “Barthes’ notion of myth is that of a socially constructed reality that is passed off as natural. Myth is a mode of signification in which the signifier is stripped of its history, the form is stripped of its substance, and then it is adorned with a substance that is artificial, but which appears entirely natural” (Ryder, 2004). The meanings associated with the final form depend entirely on how closely the cultural myths and understanding of the advertiser (their ideology) melds with the ideology of the audience as well as the advertiser’s skill in combining images to appropriately appeal to that ideological base (Chandler, 2006). By manipulating semiotics, advertisements quickly associate themselves with a particular market audience and reinforce/redefine the values of that audience in making their appeals for consumer interest. Applying these concepts to the Intel ad for the Core 2 Duo Processor, it seems clear at first glance that the advertisement is making its appeal to a white-dominant society even though this is not necessarily apparent in its individual signifiers. The individual signifiers identified in the ad include the six black employees, the white man and the background setting. The six black employees are all obviously highly-trained athletes. Their skin is already gleaming with sweat, indicating they are warmed up and ready to run. This idea is also conveyed in their bent position which anyone in the modern culture knows is the starting position for running competitions. However, they are also very similar in that they are dressed in identical running suits and in what can be discerned of their appearance, such as their bald heads, making them seem as if they are all built to specific standards, like machines. The white man conveys a sense of casually confident success. He is dressed in business attire, but it is relaxed – no tie, no jacket, comfortable shoes and no electronics attached to his belt. His feet are shoulder-width apart, giving him a comfortable and stable stance while his arms are crossed in front of his chest giving him an air of command. The relaxed smile on his face and his casual hairstyle complete the sense of easy command this man wields. The background setting is a typical office group of six low-level cubicles in a neutral earth-toned office space topped with fluorescent lights and visible air-ductwork. However, the office is kept from seeming prison-like by the long, plate-glass windows at chair-rail level across the back wall through which can just be discerned plant life of some kind and the spacious feeling of the upper ceiling area. As innocent as these three elements of the advertisement seem to be, when combined together they are able to create a sign of white male dominance in the field of action that matters. The resulting sign of these signifiers brought together in this way calls to mind the myth of the white overseer of slaves and the importance of victory on the field of battle. The similarity of the black men to each other illustrates the ideas of Karl Marx who claimed that the process of industrialization caused the individual to lose his sense of purpose as well as the all-important sense of humanity, something they have in common with the slaves of yesteryear in this context (Marx, 1974). The white man’s stance in the center of the image demonstrates his dominance in the scene, as does his appropriate dress for the current field of battle as opposed to the clothing of the black men. This indicates that he is primarily responsible for bringing these black men out of the fields and into a closer union with ‘productive’ citizens. “One of [the state’s] most important functions is to raise the great mass of the population to a particular cultural and moral level, a level (or type) which corresponds to the needs of the productive forces for development, and hence to the interests of the ruling classes” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 258). In taking on this role, he adopts the position of the slave owner, master of men, determining their positions in life based on his own needs. His upright stance as compared to the bowed stance of the black men recalls the myth of victory as it elevates his race while clothing differences indicate his elevated social class. Althusser suggested all aspects of society, regardless of class or political affiliation influence the various ideologies of a given time. In 1969, he wrote: “rather than a strict relationship between ideology and the economic base of society, where one class imposes its values on another, ideology is a dynamic set of practices in which all groups and classes participate” (Gray, 2005). Thus, the black men bowing at the white man’s feet are equally as guilty in establishing this power relationship or hegemony, in “which a dominant class wins the willing consent of the subordinate class to the system that ensures their subordination” (Fiske, 1998). In acknowledging their closer affiliation with the physical body rather than the higher powers of the mental mind, these black men submit to the stronger forces of the white race within the field of battle that matters in today’s world, the business office. Through the process of semiotics, the Intel ad for the Core 2 Duo Processor reinforces for all races and classes the concept of the white male dominated society even as it attempts to make an analogy between the high performance of trained athletes and the new processor device they’re selling. While the individual signifiers of the image seem relatively innocent in and of themselves, as this analysis has shown, the combination of images creates an unmistakable sign of racial dominance within the context of the modern ideology. The hegemony of the ad is demonstrated in the positions of the black men as they stand bent down at the feet of the white man awaiting his signal to start. References Barthes, Roland. (1964). Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang. Chandler, Daniel. (2006). Semiotics for Beginners. Wales: The University of Wales. Fiske, J. (1998). Culture, Ideology and Interpellation. Literary theory: An Anthology. Eds. J. Rivkin and M. Ryan. Maiden: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 305-311. Gramsci, Antonio. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Hoare and Nowell Smith (Trans.). London: Lawrence and Wishart. Gray, Jennifer B. (2005). Althusser, Ideology, and Theoretical Foundations: Theory and Communication. The Journal of New Media and Culture. v. 3, n. 1. Marx, Karl. (1975). Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Quoted in David McLellan Karl Marx. New York: Penguin. Ryder, Martin. (2004). “Semiotics: Language and Culture.” Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics. New York: Macmillan Reference. Available March 25, 2009 from Twitchell, James. (1996). The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture. Columbia University Press. Read More