I have been reading the book "Ways of Seeing", by John Berger, after watching his series of the same name.
The method Berger uses to analyse art and advertising is very interesting and relates to how I want to write my essay: Focusing on specific characteristics of an image, he understands the meaning of those symbols and its cultural context, raising several broad questions about society. I will post here some notes and excerpts that I want to keep in mind when analysing my cultural text (I'm still not sure of exactly how to talk about the issues I'm worried about focusing on a specific object, but I'll do some more research further on). -"In no other form of society in History has there been such a concentration of images, such a density of visual messages." -"One may remember or forget these images, but briefly one takes them in, and for a moment they stimulate the imagination by the way of either memory or expectation". -"We are now so accustomed to being addressed by these images that we scarcely notice their total impact." - the same applies to screens! -Publicity is not merely an assembly of competing messages: It is a language itself, always making the same general proposal - that we transform ourselves, our lives, by buying more. " Showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. -STATE OF BEING ENVIED = Glamour - the created reality, the illusion. IMPROVED ALTERNATIVE -The spectator/buyer is meant to envy himself as he will become if he buys the product. MARGINALLY DISSATISFIED -"The publicity images steal people's love as they are, and offers it back for the price of the product". -"Publicity is the culture of the consumer society - It propagates through images that society beliefs in". -"Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy - the choice of what we consume takes the place of significant political choices". -Publicity helps masking all that is undemocratic within society - INTERPRETS THE WORLD -The two worlds coexist. -Without publicity capitalism couldn't survive. -"Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible." FALSE STANDARD OF WHAT IS AND WHAT'S NOT DESIRABLE
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