Ideology

Ideology

Ideology is a set of ideas on which people base their actions. It is a set of beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system. It can be different points-of-view, myth, or belief from different kinds of people. Ideology can be a guide or a model for oneself.

Ideology helps ideas get sent out into the world and the media. Ideology also helps media get huge audience. It helps the audience look for the different implications and ideas about the world. Ideology helps audience view the media from many different perspectives or viewpoints. It has a huge impact on people’s thoughts.

One example of this could be the Public Relations Industry. Public Relations is “the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.” (dictionary.reference.com) The media and public relations industry together gives power to get conceptual ideas of our society to people who control the society.

Another example could be the sexual objectifications we always see on TVs, newspapers, and magazines. Since last few years, sexual objectifications in advertisements have been increasing so much, that we cannot even control it now. These ideological ideas are sent out into the world and the media and gave huge impact on producers’ thoughts that advertisements need sex objects to sell their products.  However, ideology later could be a positive impact on the media since it could change the audiences’ ideas, views, and perspectives anytime, anywhere.

Semiotic Analysis - Midterm Assignment

Semiotic Analysis

These two advertisements provide different iconic representation of the same product. Both these advertisements use lots of signifiers. These signifiers are not actually created until we actually find them.

Ad 7 advertises the SKYY vodka in a sexual way. In this advertisement, one woman with bikini is lying down on a beach. She has blonde hair, silver nails, and blue sunglasses on her head. The beach is empty. This woman and the guy standing on top of her are the only people on this beach. A man with a suit on is standing over the woman. He is wearing a blue suit with vodka and martini glasses in his hands. The ocean is very fresh and blue, and the sky is very clear. Everything in this picture is all blue. I think the person who made this ad intentionally made everything blue to signify that this vodka is fresh and enjoyable to drink. The ‘signifiers’ of this image are the woman, man, and the beach. The ‘signified’ are the linguistically expressed “fresh and cool” SKYY vodka.

Ad 8 advertises this product in a mysterious way. In this ad, a brown and white snake is in a wide vase-like glass with its head looking towards the side. I have no idea what this snake is representing. Behind the vase-like glass, there’s the blue SKYY vodka and a blue curtain. Just like ad 7, a lot of blue is represented in the ad. Again, all these blues signifies the new and fresh taste of the SKYY vodka.

The denotations (what it literally means) of these advertisements could be blue vodka and the glasses. The connotation (how it makes us feel or think) of these ads could be the fresh and blue vodka in our mouths that makes us feel cool.

These two advertisements show two different images that are completely different. However, their connotative signifiers are very similar, which could be the “fresh and cool” vodka.

Since Vodka is sold more to men than women, SKYY’s main target is the men. I think this advertisement is designed to be interpreted from a masculine perspective. In ad 7, a woman is objectified to give men sexual pleasure. In my opinion, vodka advertisements don’t need women. They just need to have something other than woman to signify that this vodka is good. Women are not instruments to advertise vodka. Other things like ice and snow can be used to show that this vodka is good.

SKYY's vodka advertisement is not the only advertisement that uses women as instruments to persuade their target. This brownie ad actually is using men. I agree with this ad that brownies somewhat look like those abs, but I think it would’ve been better if they used real chocolaty brownies to appeal to people’s senses and persuade the targets.

I don’t think sexuality should have a role in advertising, but in today’s society, sexuality plays a big role in advertising. In my opinion, vodka advertisements should just have vodka, not a woman with bikini, and brownie advertisements should just have delicious looking brownies, not a man without his shirt. There are thousands of other ways to persuade people to buy the product without using sexuality. These advertisements are actually made for people’s sexual pleasure. For me, they are not advertisements. They are just men and women appealing their bodies to people. I don’t know since when our society has changed like this. We need to stop using sexual objectification as a way to advertise products.

Representation

Representation

http://thegrandnarrative.com/2010/12/16/lolita-effect-korea-sexual-socialization-body-image/

K-pop influence a lot of people in Korea including people in the middle ages, people in the 20s, college students, teenagers, elementary schoolers, and even kindergarteners. Idol groups frequently show up on TV, which people always watch. Korean girl groups always appear on TV wearing really really short pants or skirts or sometimes just the top. I don't think they are good enough to be singers, but they just emphasize their cuteness and body lines to be singers. To me, they are just sexually appealing to the people to gain popularity. In Korea these days, people think of sexual appeal as an obvious thing to be popular.

These girl groups have caused teenagers to follow the fashion that’s not suitable for teenagers. When I go to Myungdong or Daehakro, I see a lot of people wearing really short skirts or shorts with leggings inside them. Those people, who think they look mature enough to wear clothes like these, looked really young to me. Just by looking at their faces, I could notice that they were middle school students. Not just their clothes, but also their make-ups indicated that they were imitating girl groups’ make-up techniques. What I think is that they are young and young means beautiful. Teenagers are beautiful without the short skirts and make-ups. They are spending too much time on their looks, when they have to spend time on their studies.

Secondly, what these sexual appeals in TV have caused is more sexual abuse in society. When I look at the internet news, at least one news article each day is about sexual harassment. A man rapes a woman walking down the street, father rapes his daughter, teacher rapes his student, and students sexually assault their female teacher. I cannot believe all these can happen in our society. I think sexual crimes increased when there was an increase in the number of girl groups on TV. Men watch these girl groups wearing sexually appealing clothes, become sexually active, and commit sexual crimes. I still cannot believe that K-pop singers have led to such result like this.

My conclusion is that the media needs to have limits on girl groups' clothes. This way, I think teenagers can focus more on their studies and the number of sexual harassment could be decreased.