Interesting Article on Justifying Culture

Alain de Botton, a contemporary writer and philosopher, writes in The Guardian about justifying our views of culture.

A Point of View: Justifying Culture

Annotating a text (Communication and Cultural course)

Look: It is a leaflet about AQA Communication and Culture. My first impression is this leaflet seems very serious and attractive. The image makes people feel comfortable and the red color fans attract people’s attention.

Read: This leaflet sends by the AQA’s Company and the register is very formal. The purpose is to promote the Communication and Culture course. It says to the teachers and students who want to come and join the Communication and Culture course! The mode of address is to inform people there is a course that is about communication and Culture. I think the leaflet will appear in school’s notice board, education magazines and newspapers. The leaflet doesn’t have too many words. There is only “Communication and Culture” which is in white color type in the middle part of the leaflet. Although some words are in the same size with “Communication and Culture”, they are more difficult to see. Also, there are some small words types in the leaflet, but seems they are not so important. Therefore, I think the topic of this leaflet is about the Communication and Culture course.

Explore/Analysis: There are images and words in the leaflet. Although the image doesn’t have any sharp color on it, some people are holding the red fans, I think this mean that to learn different culture, like the Chinese culture, because red fans are famous in China. Both of the image and words are giving the topic of the communication and culture course.

Review: I think the people that design this leaflet should put more colors on the image. If not, we may only notice the “Communication and Culture” in the middle, but not also the image!

'Be a Loser'

'Be a Loser'

                

In the poster, we can see the twisted meaning. Generally, the meaning of ‘Loser’ is negative. But, in this text, Loser was used in a different way to encourage people to lose your weight if you have Special K cereal. The color of font in the text is red. Basically, the color of symbol of Special K is red. Probably, it is also used to promote to burn your fat behind meaning.

The main image of this poster is the attractive woman, who looks glamorous and healthy. Through this image, it is appealed to attract people to consume the product. And the contents in this poster provide additional suggestions how you can improve your diet.

When we look at this poster at the first time, we can know the purpose of this poster is advertisement to promote sales. And we can usually see this poster in magazine, newspaper, or printed media. Although the text’s contents are not formal because of twisted metaphor, via this poster, we can be inspired by message directly.

This poster’s syntagm is the woman with attractive body. Our first impression of it is sexy, healthy, attractiveness, and stereotype of beauty of women. This text triggers women who care about appearance.

What I felt the first impression of this poster is typical and stereotype. There are many advertisements to use women’s body to appeal their products. For example, when we have a look at cosmetics products, most images have a beautiful woman who has a perfect makeup, smile, body like icon of Greek goddess. Although it is typical and old way to show product’s image, it is still effective. I think that in this poster, the image of woman attracts people’s attention and provide fantasy that you can be like this woman if you have this. It is classic but it is still working.    

Text No.6 -Celia Chan

Look: an attractive text- with different colour of fibers mixing together in the background. A white and large font size of ‘ Culture’ in the middle. 

What is it? It’s a poster saying ‘ Here is holding a exhibition about different culture’ to the people who are interested in culture. It wants us to visit and have a look of the exhibition. The sender is the council.

 

Read: A question is in the middle of the poster. Different colors of fibers are the background. However, some of the colours are very similar/same, like purple, yellow and green. Colour is clearly very bright and sharp.

 

Explore: the dominant signifiers are the words and the fibers.  

The meaning of the colours of the fibers is very essential to the poster. Since each colour means different countries/ culture, the variety of the colours in background represent the distinct cultures. Concerning the similarity of some colours, similar cultures are revealed, for example, light yellow and pale green. On the other hand, some of the colours are used for more than 1 time, they seem to represent the widespread of that culture.

 

A very large contract is seen compare to the background. The words ‘your culture’ is especially in bold. The use of the font style is to highlight the message and draw people attention, forcing on the largest font ’culture’ .

 

Review: A very interesting and colourful text, with obviously colourful design of the different colours of fibers, meaning the differences of cultures. The right hand bottom has the logo of the council, which is the organizer of this exhibition, providing information for the reader if they have further questions. The exhibition is for who are interested in cultural history.   

 

Coursework Preparation work

Figure 6: What’s your culture? (Kris)

 

Look:

My first impressions for this picture are colorful; about identifying your own culture, everyone supposes have their unique

It is a picture with a big title ‘what’s your own culture?’ The sender is Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council.

 

Read:

The image says about ‘culture’. It is presented in administration form, which wants people, who look at the picture, to think more about their specific culture.

It consists of just a few words in form of a big bolded title in white color; and with a bright colorful background, in red, purple, orange and green.

The big title in the middle of the picture makes this text an administration.

 

Explore:

The dominant signifiers are the words and the background. The syntagm is ‘culture’, and the paradigm could be people’s countries background, religion, growing environment or education level. It is presented in semi-formal register.

The significant vocabulary is the word ‘culture’, its mode of address is very direct (telling people to think about their own culture). It doesn’t show any bias as the background is in several different color, it shows culture can have their own color and can be different with others.

 

Review:

A really good text, it shows people to think more about which culture they belong to or if they have their own specific culture. An idea may be included in the text is that people in different cultural background can be mixed together and new picture can be created when different culture are mixed together. In fact the idea of mixing the cultures and people with different culture are now already appear in most of the countries.

It can be says that my review is as what I originally thought about.

Just a little question about the color of the background, why is every color has a significant different with the color next to them but not in color that might be similar to each color?

Sammie Tsang Lok Man---analysis

My first impression of this picture is it is very attractive, because it seems to be an advertisement of food and a woman wearing a sleeveless garment who shows her beautiful body to others.

This message is from Kallogg’s Special K, the content of the message is to attract people to buy their brand’s cereal, and the receiver is the people who want to reduce their weights. The method of sending this message is using a poster to sell their brand’s cereal for breakfast. The word they use in the poster is informal. They want to send this message to people who want to lose their weight, attracting them after eating this food for breakfast everyday, people can lose their weight easily.

In this advertisement, they use red colour and a larger font size to project those three words, ‘Be a Loser’, it is especially attracting people to read the poster continually. The woman who wears the sleeveless garment in the poster owns a big space, it is also attracting people to this advertisement, just like saying to people, if people use this cereal for the breakfast, they will be as sexy as this woman. To be more convincing, there is some additional information saying that if people use this as breakfast, they can enjoy normal meal without caring about weight.

The end of this poster has an idiom, which is negative if you use it normally. But in this poster, you will find that this idiom is positivly asking people to lose weight, which is a very interesting usage of idiom.

Grace: AQA flyer for New Communication and Culture course (pp.156)

LOOK:  The purpose of making this flyer is to introduce the New Communication and Culture course to all the teachers, high school students and their parents. The effect is to let people trust in AQA Teacher support and believe this course is useful.  The sender is AQA Teacher Support.

READ:  The channel is a flyer. The flyer consists words and a picture at the bottom of the page.  Colour is not very bright but well defined and can see the words clearly. Bright red fan gives me a feeling of new, fire and energetic. 

EXPLORE:  From the dark red background, the form of writing in the bold title and subheading, it gives me an impression that this course is formal and professional. The red fans, Asian city background and the fan-dance make me feel like it is relative to different cultures, not just only British culture.  The fan represent ‘culture’ and they are brighter than the people who are holding them, which suggest that ‘culture’ is the main topic of this course.

The course name (“Communication and Culture”) and the company name (“AQA”) are in large size and the colour is white. This shows a connection between the sender and the course. It also highlighted them as the main focus in this leaflet.

The logo of the sender is in formal form. This shows that they are professional and trustworthy. There is an arrow pointing upward in the letter ‘Q’. This design symblises the idea of their company that they will help you increase you skills like rocket. Also it gives you a feeling that they are able to bring you a brighter future by study their courses.

In Asian culture, people do fan dance in the morning as an exercise (like morning-run). Therefore, having this fan dance picture on the flyer can suggest that study the New Communication and Culture course can give you a fresh start, like morning run.

REVIEW:  After a deeper study about this leaflet, I think there are more meanings than I originally thought. The reason of having fans on the flyer is to represent ‘culture’, people represent ‘communication’ and red fans show that this course is new and refreshing.

RESPOND:  I think there should have a few more pictures to represent others cultures too, not just only Asian culture. And if the flyer is more colourful, it will be more eyes catching and more attractive to students. 

DOCUMENT D: Dudley MBC’s ‘What’s your culture?’

Critical process

At first impact, I would say the image is colourful, attracting and interesting. In the middle of the image there is a big heading and as a background there are different coloured lines representing the different cultures.

Referring to Lasswell’s model the sender is Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, the message included probably wants us to really know and discover more about our culture and the sender is everyone who might see it. Dudley MBC probably used advertisement as the channel trying to get people attention.

Following the classification of the text, I will now focus on the genre and then consider in detail what in fact we are being offered. First of all, defining the formal structure we can talk about the signifier, which, in this case, is represented by the words and the coloured vertical lines. Besides, we can notice the syntagm in the image with vertical lines, different colours, not perfectly straight. The register is semi-formal English and the vocabulary is direct, explicit and easy-understanding since it tries to trigger a positive reaction in people. The Mode of Address is constituted by a short question and few words, precisely because it is direct to its aim. Furthermore, the message contains also bias and hidden believes: for instance, we can predict that MBC thinks people don’t really know enough about their culture. The main function is making curious and eager of discover, learn and know more about themselves and their past and new traditions and habits. Lastly, the significance of the background is surely connected to the difference of the use of colours, which reminds to the existence of different cultures around the world.

 Besides, it means that everyone has his own ‘background’, which might be mixed with other cultures as well. In fact some colours are in sharp contrast representing the cultures that are completely different and far from being similar; others, referring to the purple one, are slightly shaded to let us intend the existence of cultures that might be similar to others or might have inherited codes from others as well.

Special K Be a Loser advert

No.6 Special K Be a Loser advert

Look: It is eye-catching because of the actress’s appearance; beautiful woman, sexy dress and looks healthy body. It is an advertisement of Special K (cereal) saying ‘Be a Loser’ to health conscious people. It wants us to buy the Special K. The sender is Kellogg’s (producer).Picture of Special K’s box is printed in right-down side, it is not so big, however, ‘K’ is very clear to see.

Read: ‘Be a Loser’ this is written by red colour, it is the same colour of the logo of Special K, therefore it is clear and well defined. Also the text said ‘You’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose’, in this case, it is positive meaning to lose weight. Other texts said that eat this for breakfast, replace to snacks and enjoy other meals as normal. As a result, people can lose weight.

Explore: Much of the intended meaning of the advertisement depends on how much conscious about their weight; for example, people who really want to loseweight, they are interested in buying and trying this cereal, however, people who do not need to worry about their weight or who do not like cereals, they will just see through this advertisement. This picture of actress is wellselected; in generally speaking, blond hair women are symbol of beauty in some countries. Also she is not too thin or fat, everybody feels she looks healthy; this can affect various age groups, sex and the degree of healthconscious.

Review: This text is well-organised; at the first sight, this actress is very attractive and Special K’s logo is easy to see because of the colour (based white and K is red). This suggests us how to lose the weight and in the terms of‘loser’ is basically negative meaning, however, in this case of losing weight is positive meaning. This is clever and ironic way to advertise.

Respond: To catch the trend of health conscious is very clever way to gather attentions. And subconsciously, we are looking at blond beautiful woman, this advertisement use this tendency well. Also this actress is not extremelythin, therefore they can appeal this food healthy food. In addition, they use the term ‘loser’ as a positive meaning, it is also clever way to catch the attentions.

What’s Your Culture?

The third text, titled “What’s your culture” illustrates different colours, they represent diversity of cultures.

The noticeable thing from the text would probably be the question asked about our culture, the author wants to find out how much we know about our culture, because our culture determines our relationship and communication with others.

Colours like yellow and purple appear in two different forms. They mean that although people have their various traditional backgrounds. Many cultures seem to have similarities or are inter-woven to each other, but differ with major or minor differences.

The text can also be interpreted as showing different aspects of our culture, with colour red representing attractiveness, yellow shows the sacred and imperial feeling of our culture, purple signifies the royalty and wealth of our cultural sophistication, and colour brown shows the durability of our cultural heritage.

The different cultures also represent different barriers to communication. In order words, people experience limitations while communicating, due to the fact that everybody has a different culture, compared to others.  Until people cope with other cultures, difficulties will be encountered by both parties involved.

It demonstrates a wide variety of cultural interests which we all possess. This shapes our personality and determines how we relate and communicate with others. This goes as far as distinguishing the type of people we associate ourselves with, our moral standards, codes and ethics.

 The colourfulness of the image shows the beauty of our diverse cultures, when we interact in togetherness. The colours display our emotions and the way we respond to things, ideas and the society at large. The colour red is a sign of passion and love. Moreover, it signifies danger. Yellow symbolises wisdom, joy and happiness.

The process of all colours of different shades coming together is the definition of communication and culture.

Analysis

I see a poster, rather an advertisement of a cereals “Special K” by Kellogg's. A big image of women which is standing in the underwear is attracting people’s attention. Firstly, I paid my attention on the picture of women, and only then started to read an advertisement.
The ad speaks about an attractive way to lose weight. It consist of a picture and a motto, which looks very encouraging and interesting. Everything is written clearly, and the whole contrast is also selected very properly. Also there is a data, when products have been completed.
As for the structure, it is easy to notice the domination of the women on the poster. Undoubtedly, text and the picture are selected very harmoniously; there are no excesses, just the main information to inform the reader, and the picture, to attract his attention. The result of combination of two very incompatible concepts, like cereal and women in the underwear is quite simple - it will works independently of whether you are a woman or a man. The idea of comparing two completely different things looks very smart and appropriate. But we have to pay attention to a very important detail, that makes whole ad very ambiguous, the phrase – "Be a Loser" provokes the reader also as women in the underwear. This device plays here a role of a great provoker; it induces the reader to find out why and for what this word is written here. However, the true value of this word here was picked up greatly. "Loser" is not for a person, who lose the game or don't have a power, it's for a person, who try to lose the weight.
Analyzing this poster I have discovered for myself that the key for successful advertisement is to compare two different things, even if they aren’t connected with each other. Of course, to find original and unique duo, requires a great skill. Originally, I thought that this kind of idea can be useful but now I’m convinced that it is not only appropriate, but also very effective.
As I said in the previous paragraphs, my reaction on this advertisement is very positive - I liked the main idea and the execution was also on the high level, but I think, the motto should be bigger and needs to be written with different color than the text in the whole advertisement. In my opinion, people have to see the motto instantly, because it makes a large part of success.

Coursework Outline

University Foundation/Pre-Masters Programme

Subject Pathway Coursework

Communication and Culture Studies

In the process of doing the coursework for this module, you will have the opportunity to use your analytic skills to examine a range of texts. 

Relation to course objective:

·        You will be able to use the process and semiotic approach to carry out own in-depth analysis of texts, using practical examples and case studies.

Part One

See pages 160 – 161 of your coursebook 'AS Communication and Culture'

Respond to the three questions asked for each document H, I and J. 

For each of the documents:

·        Question 1 is worth 4 marks

·        Question 2 is worth 6 marks

·        Question 3 is worth 10 marks.

Total = 60 marks

Words = 1000 words minimum.

Part Two

See pages 172 and 173 of your coursebook 'AS Communication and Culture'

Analyse the two texts featured on these pages using the process developed in class.  You should write about what you think about them and consider how else the texts could be interpreted.

Total = 30 marks

Words = 500 words minimum.

Overall number of marks available = 90 marks.