For my sixth analytical blog post I am going to write about the topic on how the media portrays and sexualizes women in the media. After watching the Goffman video in class it really opened my eyes to how much impact the media has on our lives and the manipulation it can use on us. In our society today, the media has a major impact on how we look and feel about ourselves by portraying images of what we ought to be or what we should look like. Over the years we have seen a major increase in advertisements using skinny models and sex appeal to sell a particular product. Over time this affects how people feel about how they look because they are forced to compare themselves to everyone they see and attempt to look just like that. Americans spend a whole bunch of time watching T.V, searching the internet, and reading magazines and it is almost impossible to avoid exposure to feeling judgement about how we look and feel about ourselves. The average fashion model wears around size two to four whereas the average American woman wears around size twelve to fourteen. One could only imagine what impact this would have on women’s attitudes and psychological well-being when being exposed to models every single day and comparing themselves to them. These “false body image” ads are showing bodies that aren’t a true standard of what is around us every day and is not a real representation of the general population. When kids are growing up and are exposed to this media, they will be more likely to believe that this is what is considered acceptable, and this is how they should look. However, the truth of the matter is that these models are causing young women and men to develop eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia which can lead to depression and other psychological disorders over time.

In the video they talked specifically about how women are use in advertisements vs how men are shown. Women are shown in very childlike poses whereas men are represented as being strong, alert and ready to take on anything that comes at them. He talks about the way women tough themselves softly vs the way that men touch things with force. In this picture the women are shown laying down which represents that it is difficult for her to defend herself, or she is submissive and powerlessness. Whereas the man is seen staring at the picture with a look on his face that tells you he is in control of the situation. Men are active, alert and ready to respond in most image situations whereas the woman is much more vulnerable or not even aware of what’s going on around her. She looks “checked-out” in the picture which shows that she isn’t aware of her surroundings. The women in this picture drifts away into her thoughts whereas the man is there to anchor and protect. They talked about how men have to prove themselves into manhood whereas women never leave girlhood and are portrayed in these sexual positions. I do not fully agree with this statement because it is very clear that women have to essentially proves themselves as well into womanhood. Such has having a child and doing other maternal things, so I don’t think that it is fair to say they don’t have to prove themselves.  In this advertisement it shows that the women’s head is tilted up in a submissive position, which mammals do when they are around the alfa. Advertisements do this sexual appeal because it has notoriously been known for sales in recent years. People are drawn towards sex and when it is utilized in the advertisements, it does sell.

For my sixth mini blog post I decided to take a picture when I was home this weekend of a dog park that is in a park next to where I live. This park is very different from other dog parks because instead of having real grass it has turf. Underneath the turf there is has pipe system that drains water to a local sewer. The location is very specific in the park because it is the only field where dogs can play on. All the other parts of the park such as the baseball, soccer, and tennis courts are for humans only. This a place where all dogs, big or small can go play with all their local friends.

         The two-architectural element that I am pointing out in this photograph is the bridge with the bones, and the fire hydrant that has small water jets that shoot out of the ground. The bone bridge is very specific for dog use only considering it has two massive bones attached to it which is symbol for dogs. The fire hydrant is a stereotypical symbol for dogs because we as humans know that most dogs love water, also pee on fire hydrants. This as you can see is not your average dog park considering it cost taxpayers around $500,000 to build and took about two years to complete. The locals in the area call the park Wag-World because it is almost like a doggy Disney World where they can go play and run around with their friends. This area is very appealing to dogs because anyone who would walk up to it would know immediately that this is a dog park and not a playground for children. In my hometown the locals take pride in our park systems and utilize the amenities very often for both their children and dogs to go play and have a good time. If you are ever in Alpharetta and have your dog with you I would highly recommend bringing your dog to Wag-World!

For my fifth mini blog post I choose an image that makes fun of McDonalds. Like the Adbusters magazine this picture uses the tactic of culture jamming which is an anti-consumerist movement that disrupts media culture by using already existing ads to show us the reality of what’s behind the ad. This act of culture jamming causes destruction of the ads primary goal of selling a product and creates a spin off or a parody of what is hidden in the ad itself.  For example, the picture I used flips the M for McDonalds and uses a W which stands for weight. Underneath the W we see what should be the saying that we all recognize “I’m Lovin’ it” with “I’m Gainin’ it”.  Considering that a Big Mac meal has a total caloric intake of 1,080 out of our regular 2,000 daily intake, it is safe to say that this ad is very effective with the saying of “I’m Gainin’ it”.  By utilizing culture jamming this ad attempts to uncover the methods of dominance of a mass culture to promote progressive change. Culture jams are intended to expose and raise questions about our society’s advertisements and uproot what we fail to see or what is hidden in the advertisement. This advertisement of McDonalds uses these captions to create awareness of issues with McDonalds advertisements to show the negative side of the product. By discussing a brand or a product in a different way than what we are used to seeing, it can promote change in someone’s lifestyle choices, in this case not eating at McDonalds. Another thing that culture jamming does is that it attempts to make links between the message and the issues of the product. Although over the past decade McDonalds has made great efforts in changes for the quality of the food, there are still many other healthier options of fast food that we can choose. Since McDonalds has never been a company that is known for “healthy” options it makes the corporation a huge target for culture jamming. Even though magazines like Adbusters attempt to promote cultural and health awareness for certain products, there is no way that everyone will get on board with staying away from eating at McDonalds. However, culture jamming is still very effective for some people and is necessary in our society to show us the truth about the products we use and consume.

For this Analytic Blog post I choose this image to do a narrative analysis on. When we first look at the image the first thing we notice is a black male sweeping the floor of a train station. When we look around we see white men and women in suits and ties which indicates that they are most likely on their way to work. This image was taken in London in 2000 so we know the time frame of when this image took place. The title of this image says, “The difference in life expectancy between social class I (professionals) and social class V (unskilled manual workers) is 9.5 years for men and 6.4 years for women (Hattersley, 1999).” The upper class is concerned with abstract thought and formal reasoning such as art, literature, and intellectual leisure activities while the lower class focuses on the concrete, necessities of life. When I first saw this image, I thought that it was during segregation era but with further context we know that the image was taken less than 20 years ago. When we see this image, we assume that this is his full-time job and that he is not going to get on the train with the rest of the men and women in suits. We can see a class difference just based on the way that the janitor and the working men and women are dressed. The men who are going to work are in nice dry-cleaned suits while the janitor is wearing a vest with gloves and is not wearing dress shoes. The figurative meaning of this image could be that the men and women don’t even realize that there is a man there cleaning up their mess because they are going about their everyday lives without acknowledging he even exists, but without him it would be a total mess. Whereas the narrative meaning comes from the standpoint of the janitor and that he is cleaning up the mess that these working men and women left behind for him to pick up. He most likely comes in every day and works hard all day to make sure that the men and women don’t step on trash while they are commuting to work. We assume from this image that he might have a family that he is trying to provide for and put food on the table for just like the men and women going to work. The major difference is the amount of money that the men and women make compared to the janitor. Since the image is black and white it makes us feel that it was taken a long time ago, but we know from the caption that it was only taken in 2000. We also know that this image wasn’t staged and was most likely taken on a normal day which gives it more authenticity to the viewers.  

For my fourth Mini Blog post I choose this image because it is recognized by many Americans and we all understand the meaning that it portrays. A visual ideograph uses an abstract concept to advance support for specific political positions. For example, the words freedom, liberty, and justice are the building blocks of ideology. Ideology is a system of ideas which form the basis of economic or political theory and policy. These words inspire collective meaning and feeling in which we all have a similar idea of what it means, but there is no coined definition for these terms. The original image of Uncle Sam’s “I Want You” poster attempts to recruit Americans to join in World War 1. This actually helped a lot and many men dropped everything they were doing and enlisted in the war. Today we see more images like the one I choose which plays with the original meaning and makes it into something completely different. The image I used can be seen around the holiday times and tells people that if they spend a lot of money on gifts their family will love them more. This visual ideograph can be interpreted in two different ways: The first way someone can take the image is that if they spend a lot of money their family will love them. The second way someone can take this image is with a deeper meaning that they don’t need spend a lot of money in order for their family to love them, because they already do regardless. Visual ideographs can be interpreted in many different ways, it all comes down to how you derive meaning from the image. This shows that visual ideographs are culturally bounded and can elicit many different meanings across cultures.

             The picture above shows a protest against President Nixon’s war effort and shows how the American people don’t think that we should even be in war. On the other hand, the American government believes that we should be in this war and it is right for us. This is a great example of how representation can change the way we respond to images in many different ways. Representation connects meaning and language to culture. This essentially means that representation utilizes language to say something meaningful or to represent something in our immediate environment. This can negatively change the way we look at images if the representation is portrayed in a negative view. However, on the other hand, representation can be used in a positive way by showing us the good that an image can hold. Realism has a major impact because it attempts to represent something truthfully in a naturalistic manner. Realism doesn’t attempt to hide anything from the viewer because of the artist’s message he/she is trying to portray. A sketch can be hard to get a realistic sense from because we see it as something artificial, whereas a photograph allows us to “put” ourselves in the situation and feel like were living it. With that being said both photography and a painting can represent the same object but offer us a totally different perception. Photos can show us things in a much clearer way than painting or a sketch could ever. There are many “realistic” painting in the world but we do not get the same feel from them as we get from photographs. I think that this is the case because a photograph can’t technically be of something fake or not real. What I mean by this is that when someone takes a photograph of something it is physically in our world. As a viewer when we see that we can put ourselves into that situation or images meaning because we know it is something real. Whereas a painting can be of things that are unrealistic like a utopian society. I am not saying that all paintings are not of real things, but I think that photographs can have a much bigger impact on how a person can perceive and internalize an image. The claim that images only persuade at an emotional level can go either way based on the situation at hand. In most situations people respond based on their emotions and feel the need to rationalize their actions with reason and logic. An image that is completely based on emotion will set off triggers for certain people to feel connected and apart of the situation.  The human race solely depends on emotions when going through day-to-day activities and as they fluctuate we make decisions. If images didn’t evoke any emotions when trying to persuade a consumer, there wouldn’t be any feeling to understand what the artist is trying to reach or sell. The distinction of language=rationality and image=emotion is a good thing to consider when talking about an image. In language we use reason and logic to depict a situation or image because words can only tell us what it is. Images can give us an emotional sense from viewing it without any words attached. Language consists of literal meanings of speech whereas an image can elicit many emotions and speak many words without any context.  For the most images that persuade by using emotions are ethical. Take for example a commercial that encourages safe sex, or getting people off drugs, both of these commercials rely on emotion or else the ad wouldn’t be effective. For these circumstances using emotion to persuade is ethical but there are images that can be seen as unethical. For example, a commercial that encourages you drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes would be considered as an unethical way of using emotions to persuade a consumer. Image events can become propaganda when the common goal or call to action shifts toward an opposite viewpoint. This can happen due to disagreement or perspective of how that image event is portrayed and can negatively alter people’s emotions about how they feel.

A visual enthymeme is defined as a syllogism with an absent premise that is supplied by the audience. There are two parts of a visual enthymeme: objectives and benefits. The objectives is the image itself and can be shown as proof that something is happening; Whereas the benefits are the force behind the image and meaning. Enthymeme’s rely on common world knowledge and they make sure that everyone can see the underlying meanings behind a message or image. The image that I used was from President Trump’s campaign “Make America Great Again.” The hidden premises in this message is that if you vote for Trump, America will be great again, and if you don’t vote for Trump America will be bad. The conclusion of this enthymeme is that by voting for Trump, America will be great again, which is hasn’t been for many years. Furthermore, we assume as a public that if this man is elected, things will be better again. Another hidden message is that it never says when America was ever great, everyone seemed to have a common knowledge of when America was actually “great” but never had a specific date or time. This campaign slogan was very effective because everyone wants to reminisce on the past and think about how great things use to be and imagine a better world.

Self-stigmatization affects many people that live in our world around us. Self-stigmatization happens when a person believes and internalizes prejudices and myths about mental conditions, diseases like HIV, and many other things that society might frown upon. These stigmas about certain things can cause people to feel more depressed than they already were and may lead them to detach themselves from society. People who engage in self-stigmatization take social stereotypes about a particular condition that they may have and internalize these negative stereotypes to be a part of them. This can affect many personal characteristics of a person’s self-esteem and how they view themselves as an active member of society. In the HIV community we can see prejudice and negative attitudes directed at people who are living with this condition by looking at statistics. According to UNAIDS foundation, in 35% of countries with available HIV data, 50% of people had discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV (UNAIDS, 2015). This stigma on HIV actually makes people more vulnerable to getting HIV because of their perceived beliefs of what it looks like to have HIV. In our community many people assume that these people live in isolation and can’t touch anyone. They picture them as if they are lying in bed for 24 hours a day and could die any second. Stigma arises from people’s ignorance to being fully aware and educated about a topic, if more people looked deeper into issues rather than what they perceive to know, then this stigma can be erased. People who are living with HIV are afraid of this societal stigma on their condition and will often not share it with anyone. Although the HIV rates have gone down in recent decades there are still thousands of people living among us with this disease. It is important to us that we look deeper at the issue and educate ourselves before we believe myths and prejudices about diseases, mental illnesses, and any other thing that can be stigmatized. In the article written by Dan Brouwer he mentions in the first paragraph that a man named William F. Buckley wanted to get everyone tested for HIV and if they tested positive they should receive a tattoo to let everyone know they tested positive. If this was carried out the stigma on HIV would be far worse than it is today. This would cause people to feel depressed by always reminding them that they are living with a condition and that everyone can know. Furthermore, the fact that many people agreed to wanting people who have HIV get a tattoo shows the ignorance and lack of education we had about HIV in the 80’s. In conclusion the main way to avoid this self-stigmatization is to educate our society about the truths and real-life examples of people living with diseases.

“HIV Stigma and Discrimination.” AVERT, Avert, 9 Apr. 2018, http://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-social-issues/stigma-discrimination#footnote1_ldij7me.

Throughout the course of history, we have been surrounded by images that have the power to tell stories, elicit emotions, and change perspectives on how people see the world. Images have the capability to tell stories without using any words. Images can bring a strong emotional connection to our environment and the people around us.  We can look at images that are thought of as staged acts of protest that connects a similar emotion for a whole community. These staged acts of protest are called image events which John Delicah and Kevin Deluca think of as a subcategory of visual arguments. Furthermore; Deluca and Delicah define image events as “Staged acts of protest designed for media dissemination that offer a powerful way to appeal to audiences” (Deluca and Delicah). Image events foster public discussion by offering additional new ways to look at issues at hand by providing original claims and contradictions that fuel discusses in our world. When I think of image events I think of the picture from the Tiananmen Square protest in China where the man is standing in front of the tank. This image is so symbolic because it shows a man standing in front of something he clearly has no chance against. This shows the man’s determination to the protest and his passion for standing up for what he believes in. Image events have the ability to connect mass groups of people and allow them to take a minute and really think about the power that an image can hold. Today these image events have the power to spread from one person to another with the endless capacity of the internet. The internet has allowed us to connect mass groups of people for public debate in seconds with an effective campaign image. One campaign that comes to mind is the Greenpeace image campaign which attempts to draw public attention to climate change issues by showing the severity of human impact on our earth. Bob Hunter who was the co-founder of Greenpeace said, “People need to stop worrying about their cars, jobs, and taxes, and start thinking about the future of our planet and the human race.” (Oved, 2015). Hart coined these powerful images as “mind bombs” which pushed people out of complacency and open their eyes to the bigger picture. These mind bombs can allow people to resonate on images and think about the future impact of our world and environment. Mind bombs can be thought of as images like a sea turtles with a straw stuck in its nostrils or polar bears starving due to climate change. These images sit in people minds because it shows the bigger picture of human harm to wildlife due to our own selfish needs. Greenpeace is a significant model that demonstrates how to exploit the immense possibilities of television and radical change by providing the ability to share ideas and arguments rapidly to a mass group of people. Technology allows us to see what is going on in the world immediately after something that was traumatic happens. The major fault in this is that people rely on the media to provide them with information that can be false based on many factors such as the angle of the camera, the rhetoric that went into the protest, and many other factors. Image events in my opinion are only going to decline in their power in the future because people are too focused on themselves and their own successes. In the world we live in today they are so many controversies and disagreements that it would be almost impossible to get everyone on the same frequency. In the past the only form of image events was in newspapers which took a long time to circulate to everyone. Today with the range of the internet we have an overwhelming amount of information and people can get stuck on a particular issue and not be aware of what is going on in the world around them. This leads people to become ignorant to many problems that need to be brought forth and talked about. This doesn’t mean that in the past that there were more or less issues than today, it means that there are more opinions and voices being heard today which leads to a wide range of public debate. In conclusion image events and mind bombs have an incredible ability to change public opinion and bring about discussion on critical issues. These image events over the past decades have sparked public discussion in hopes to change laws and attitudes. These images resonate with people and change our perspective when we look at powerful images like the Tank Man or polar bears starving. As a society we need to be careful with the power of the internet by thinking about the bigger picture of things instead of being close minded about a particular issue. Image events can change the world and the people around us, but it is up to us to decide what is important and what we should do about the bigger issue at hand.

Oved, Marco Chown. “Environmentalist Used ‘Mind Bombs’ to Create Change.” Thestar.com, Toronto Star, 3 Apr. 2015, http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/04/03/environmentalist-used-mind-bombs-to-create-change.html.

Fosen, Chris. “ENGL 338, Environmental Rhetoric.” ENGL 338 Environmental Rhetoric, comphacker.org/comp/engl338/2013/04/17/delicath-and-deluca-image-events/.