*Assignment 2*

For this assignment we were asked to find four images in total and get different people to analyse them in three stages: first, get a group of people to look at three of the pictures and create stories linking the three; second, add a fourth image to try and get people to come up with the same stories; and thirdly, add a word to one of the images to do the same (try and get people to come up with the same story) and then if it didn't work with one word add another word to another image etc etc.

The first of my images was a sunset on the beach, with the pier and the sand

My second image was cupcakes

My third image was cds on a shelf in a shop

I tried to choose a variety of people from different age groups and occupations and also looked at things like how many siblings they had and where they were from, as well as whether they were religious or not and whether they lived in the town or the countryside. I chose religion as people who were religious may have and a different look on things than non-religious people. The amount of siblings I also felt would have an impact, especially because the image of the cakes gives a sort of child-like vibe, and when people look back on their childhood memories their siblings would have probably had a big influence on them. These factors have some sort of influence on a person's mind and how it works and how they might perceive things. This was interesting, as I found that people from the same area came up with very similar stories. I thought this assignment worked quite well and the results were what I had hoped - the result was very similar in most people's stories. It is interesting to see how different people interpret the images differently, and how people's views on them change as the words are added in.

2C:

- Someone went on a trip to the seaside, and on the way they listened to their favourite music and ate cupcakes in the car. Hilary, 20, student, 1 sister. Not religious.

- Went to the music shop for some kids cds for a childrens birthday party then afterwards went for a walk along the beach in the evening whilst the sun set. Michelle, 20, student, sister and brother. Not religious.

- Went to HMV to look for some new cds and bought two as a present for a birthday party in the afternoon. At the party they ate lots of cakes with nice decorative icing, then went to the beach and watched the sun set. Laura, 19, student, 1 brother. Not religious.

- A family make some teddy bear cupcakes to take to a friend's birthday party. On the way they stopped at a cd shop for cds as a present. When they arrived at the party they found out that they were going on a beach holiday to Thailand as part of the person's birthday present. Michael, 22, student. Only child. Not religious.

- Having a day out at the shops looking for cds. When they went to pay for the cds they received a 10% off cupcakes voucher which they then spent, and ate the cupcakes whilst having a stroll along the beach at sunset. Caitlin, 16, at school. 1 sister. Not religious.

- Whilst on holiday at the beach, they had a party, with lots of food and great cupcakes, and listened to music all day. Catherine, 17, at school. 1 brother. Semi-religious.

2D: The story I chose was the last one, as some parts of this were in other stories too. The fourth image I added was of balloons, as I thought this would halp people get the 'party' part of it. If people out of my second group didn't get the story right with this image I put in a fifth image, and this then meant that everyone got it. The stories in brackets show the stories with the five images.

- It was the summer and we were off on holiday. The holiday was because of my 21st birthday and I'm having a huge party with cake, champagne and balloons and plenty of good music. Sarah, 20, student, brother and sister.
- Someone is going on holiday for their birthday. They're going to have a big party with balloons, music and lots of cakes for the guests. Fiona, 19, student, brother and sister
- The person is planning a weekend away for a birthday. They have made all the cakes and need to decide what music to play at the party. Karen, 21, 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Religious.
- There's a party with lots of cakes and balloons. Set in a seaside town where there's lots of fun and music. (There's a holiday to the seaside where the family have a party.) Rachel, 19, 1 brother. Semi-religious.
- On the day of the party, at sunset the music started blaring whilst the cake was being passed around. (Whilst on holiday there was a beautiful sunset. The party was on it's way with music blaring and cakes being passed around.) Jonathan, 19, 1 brother, semi-religious.
- I recently went to a party near the seaside where there were loads of cakes, balloons and plenty of music. (I recently went abroad to a party near the seaside where there were loads of cakes, balloons and plenty of music.) Charlotte, 19, 1 sister, semi-religious.
- There's a party on the beach with cakes, music and balloons. (They are going abroad and are going to have a beach party.) Caroline, 20, brother and sister, semi-religious.



2E:


In this section, I added the word holiday to the beach picture and then after the word party to the cupcakes picture to try and get people to come up with the same story. This did work to a certain extent but not everyone had exactly the same story.






With 'holiday'


- We went on holiday to the seaside, and on the way we ate cupcakes and listened to music. Barbara, 45, classroom assistant, 1 brother. Semi-religious.
- They all went to the music shop to buy cds to listen to on their holidays. They stopped at a cake shop and bought some cakes for the journey too. Andy, 48, farmer, 3 brothers, not religious.
- It was the summer holidays and the family made cakes and then went to buy cds for the brothers birthday. Kenny, 45, farmer, 3 brothers, semi-religious.

- The flight landed for their beach holiday abroad. As they got to the resort, they ran straight into the sea. When they got out they remembered they had leftover cakes from the flight so they ate them whilst lying on the beach in the evening listening to their favourite music from a nearby bar. Wendy, 40, nurse, only child, not religious.

- It was summer and time for holidays. Most of the holiday days were spent lying on the beach, relaxing, sunbathing, listening to music and laughing. The local bakery was close by so after visiting it to buy some cakes, night started to fall and they watched the sun set. Callie, 17, at school, 1 sister, not religious.

- About someone who likes to hold on to memories. They like to remember their holidays and when they were younger. They are collecting their thoughts. Ross, 22, student, 2 brothers, not religious.

With 'holiday' and 'party'

- Went to a party at a friends house. Picked up a cd for her as it was her birthday. We ate lots of cakes, and on the wall was a picture of a beach which was where they had just been on holiday.

- Whilst we were on holiday, we decided to throw a party, so went to the shops to buy cds to listen to and cupcakes to eat.

- While on a holiday, it was a friends birthday, so they had a party. The friend got lots of cds for her birthday.

- There was a massive party on the beach while they were on holiday, so they got lots of cds from the shop to listen to, and ate loads of cakes.

- They were on holiday for a wedding abroad on the beach. When they arrived they decided to have a pre-wedding party so they went to the nearest bakery and got cakes. Next door was a music shop,, so they picked up some cds of their favourite music to get into the spirit.

- It was summer again and time to head off on holiday. It was the daughters birthday whilst they were away, so they threw a lovely party on the beach with games and music all day long.

I found that this assignment worked well. In the first section all the stories I got from people were very different but I found that through adding one image or one word they got more similar, and by adding two words or pictures the stories were almost all the same, especially when two pictures were added. This really helped me to understand Barthes' essay as it was showing you first hand how adding text to an image or another image alongside it helps people interpret it, and it also helped me to understand polysemy further and how people's understanding of images differs from others, and also how it develops.

Disneyfication

Today we got our lecture by Hamid Van Koten on 'Disneyfication'. I found it really interesting and made you think about how much of an effect on our lives that this huge company has. Disney is a multi-million dollar company, and in 2003 was bringing in a profit of $1.3 billion and had a turnover of $27 billion. Everyone has grown up with Disney films and stories, from Bambi and Pinocchio in the 1940s, to the Aristocats and Robin Hood in the 1970s, to the more recent films of the 1990s such as Toy Story, Mulan and Pocahontas. 'Disneyfication' or 'Disneyization' (Alan Bryman, 2004) is the term used to describe the way that our culture and our world is influenced by Disney, even in ways which we do not realise. But has this gone too far? Or are people simply making too big a deal and looking too far into what is essentially just a children's fairy tale?

One strong point which was put across in Hamid's lecture through a video we were shown was the story of Beauty and the Beast. One of the women speaking in the video describes the story as having horrific domestic abuse, both physical and verbal. For example when the beast refuses to let Belle eat unless she will eat with him, and when he imprisons her and does not let her out. When looked into and analysed this much, the story does show a lot of domestic abuse, but I feel this is all underlying. As a child, watching Beauty and the Beast, I never once got from this what was apparently being put across to the children watching, which is that if a man abuses you, you must look past it, forgive him and see the good, or the 'handsome prince' inside. Speaking to some of my friends, none of them ever got this message from the story either. I do agree that if you look into the storyline it does give this message to a certain extent, but I feel that this is a children's story, and children do not look into things this much. They may be a bit scared by the beast and glad that he has a softer side, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they will grow up thinking that this is ok behaviour for real people.

I do, however feel that the image of woman and femininity is put across maybe not wrong but slightly unrealistic. The way Disney princesses and females in general are portrayed does give a very strong image of what women should be like. As children, we look at Disney characters and Barbies as what we would like to be like when we are older. The image of the 'perfect' body, beautiful voice, good looks, gracefulness and flirtatiousness is what not only Disney but a lot of childrens cartoons put across as the perfect woman. With this in mind, is it any wonder that young girls are striving for the perfect body and looks more and more, and with plastic surgery and dieting becoming more popular and well known about, this could start to become dangerous.

I do feel that Disneyfication is quite a widespread thing and I agree that it may be a large part of our culture, and especially the American culture and part of the acheivement of the American Dream. But at the end of the day, Disney creates great stories and films for not just children but adults as well, and hopefully will keep doing it for a long time!

The Rhetoric of the Image - Roland Barthes

This was hard to read!! When they said it wasn't exactly an easy read I didn't realise it would be this hard! It took a lot of re-reading and note taking, but finally I think I am beginning to understand it...just. I do think reading this helps to understand Assignment 2 better and the ways of going about it though.

The hidden messages in pictures can sometimes be hard to see, but reading this essay helped understand how to subtract different messages from an image. The section 'the linguistic message' was interesting - thinking about different types of images in books...some images are there simply to back up what the text is saying, the text adds more information to them, and other images don't need much text to be interpreted - they tell the story and get their point across without it. Interesting when usually you would read a book and look at the pictures - not necessarily analyse them. But now I realise that pictures can also add more to the text, not just help you understand it...maybe there should have been more pictures in this essay! Images now are very powerful and used in many texts to do just this - help the reader understand better. And images themselves often have their own text, providing the interpretation so the reader doesn't have to look more into it. As Barthes points out - even as time goes on we still need to use text, images and pictures are not enough for us to completely understand something - they just help. And the text helps the image - short messages prevent people from misinterpreting it and getting the wrong message - it helps the viewer to choose the right way of looking at the image. You rarely see an image which relays the message alone.

The advert itself has hidden signs wrapped up in the composition of the still life, and each sign has its own meaning. Different people will extract different messaes from images, depending on the way their brain works. Some messages will be more obvious to some than to others. This is what I will be looking at in the next part of this assignment.

*Photographs to go with previous blog*

*Photographs - Assignment 1*

For this assignment we were asked to look at photos of someone else growing up, analyse them and then discuss what we thought was happening and see how right we were. It was strange at first trying to look into someone else's life and figure out things about them that you didn't know, especially when you were trying hard to get things correct, but once I got into it I didn't find it as hard. Overall I found that this excersise was an interesting one.

Picture 1 - This shows him as quite a young child, maybe around 7 or 8? It looks as though this was before he went to some sort of club, maybe the beavers or some other sort of kids club. The photo looks like it was probably taken at home, possibly before his first day going. He was probably quite proud to be wearing the uniform at that age but also perhaps a bit nervous. It was probably taken by a parent. This was taken before he went to boys brigade, but not for the first time. He was around 8 at the time as it was just before he left.

Picture 2 - This is taken when he was a bit older and judging by his hair and clothes probably round about late high school age. It is taken in either a garden or a park on a sunny summers day and with what is probably a much loved family pet. It is hard to tell what his feelings are but judging by the closeness between the dog and himself they have quite a close bond. This was a guide dog that lived with the family for the last week of it’s training as a sort of test to see if his dad was allergic to dogs before they got one. He was about 14 and it was taken in the park while they were on a family picnic.

Picture 3 - This was again taken when he was older, maybe around the same age as the previous photo or a bit younger. Judging by his top he dresses quite casually and probably following loosely what was in fashion at the time. The pose on his face shows he really wasn’t happy about having his picture taken this day. It was also probably taken at home by a parent or sibling. This was about right it was at a family party or Christmas and he was about 15 at the time this was taken.

Picture 4 - This is taken at a family birthday with probably his Dad and younger brother? It looks like it is his Dad’s birthday and another family member took the photo. The décor and lighting round about shows the house is probably a warm family home. It looks like he is wearing school clothes, so it was probably taken after he came home from school and his Dad was home from work. The way the two boys are leaning in and smiling suggests they have a close relationship with their Dad and have a good family life. The fact that they are celebrating a birthday altogether also suggest this. This was also about right, it was his dad’s birthday with his brother and he was about 14. They had just moved into a new house.

Picture 5 - This looks as though it was taken on the first day they got a new family pet. It was maybe taken in their garden, judging by the trellis in the background. There is trees in the background so maybe it was taken either in the countryside or in a house on the outskirts of a town or village which backed on to the countryside. It was obviously a warm day as he only has a t-shirt on. The expression on his face shows he really likes the puppy and is most likely quite excited. He was maybe about late primary school age in this photo. This was when he went to pick up his puppy that he got for his 15th birthday so he was 14 away to turn 15.

Picture 6 - This looks like it was taken on a holiday, and judging g by the age of him it was probably a family holiday. He was probably around 15 ish. From the sun loungers and umbrellas around him, and also the wall in the background which looks as though it would go around the area, it is probably a holiday to a hotel or apartments as opposed to a villa. He seems to be sitting by the pool or in the pool area reading a book and listening to an ipod. The ipod suggests he is into music and also maybe technology and new gadgets? He looks very relaxed and content. This was taken in Portugal when they were on a family holiday to the Algarve. He was about 15 or 16 and was just relaxing and sunbathing by the pool.

Picture 7 - This picture was taken when he was very young (maybe 3ish). It looks like it is with his Dad and by looking at the clothes they are both wearing (dressy and very smart) it is at some sort of big and important occasion - maybe a wedding or a big party. The occasion was maybe in some sort of big garden or grounds of a big house or castle. His Dad was maybe looking after him at this point. This was at his auntie’s wedding and he was the page boy. He was about 3 and it was in the gardens of a big fancy hotel.

Picture 8 - This photo again looks like it was taken on a family holiday, and by looking back at the previous holiday picture it could maybe be the same one as he looks about the same age and his hair also looks similar. It was taken with maybe his brother or a friend but if it was a family holiday probably his brother. They are at the beach in the sea and it looks like it is hot and sunny wherever they are. The boogie boards suggest it was a fun family holiday and him and his brother did things together, and also have quite a close relationship. The closeness of them also suggests this. This was also the family holiday to Portugal. They were having a day at the beach for a change from the pool. Him and his brother did a lot together when they were on holiday as a family.

I thought that Jonathan analysed my photos quite well and most of what he thought was right about me. I found that most of what I though was also right, besides a few details.