M98MCWeek 4

New Media, New Audience, New MethodsJohn Keenan

John.keenan@coventry.ac.uk

So far

• 5 stages, 3 appeals, semiotics• Consumer culture• Targeting: demographics, psychographics,

lifestage, lifestyle

Problematise Complexity

• The sign• The audience• The methods

This week

• New audience• New media• New methods

Today..

1. Theoretical Account

i Identity

Ii Metanarratives

Iii Simulacrum and hyper-reality

Iv Trust

2. Style:

i Refusal of meaning

ii irony

iii bricolage

iv pastiche

v intertextuality

Postmodernism is both an aesthetic style and a theoretical accountJohn Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.58

Also today

• Write the campaign• Record video explanation of one of the

readings

pre-modernist times

Postmodernism

Modernism

THE IDEA OF PROGRESS

Creation of Metanarratives

Rational Thought

History

Voltaire (1694-1778) - ordered history and set it in a time frame and judged it by a fixed morality and scientific laws

Science

Newton (1643-1727) - science. 17th Century onwards: ‘science became the major aspect of human life…science could only move one way, forward’ SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20

Philosophy

Descartes (1596-1650): I think therefore I am

Pascal(1623-62): ‘men…as one man, always living and incessantly learning’ cited in THE IDEA OF PROGRESS, SIDNEY POLLARD LONDON: MIDDLESEX, 1968, P.20

doodle

High Windows

When I see a couple of kidsAnd guess he's fucking her and she'sTaking pills or wearing a diaphragm,I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--Bonds and gestures pushed to one sideLike an outdated combine harvester,And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder ifAnyone looked at me, forty years back,And thought, That'll be the life;No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hideWhat you think of the priest. HeAnd his lot will all go down the long slideLike free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep blue air, that showsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

The death of God left the angels in a strange position. They were overtaken suddenly by a fundamental question… The question was, ‘What are angels?’

Postmodernism: identity

All that is solid will melt into airBerman cited in Hebdige, After the Masses, in New Times, Hall S and jacques (Eds),1989: p.76

We are swimming in a sea of signsJean Baudrillard

Postmodernism

Postmodern culture is a fragmented culture John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold p.56

Post-modernism

Lyotard - an incredulity towards metanarratives

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

metanarratives 1

Science By understanding the world we will control it

The universe was made by a Big Bang

People evolved from apes

People keep improving life

We exist to make the world better

(progress)

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

metanarratives 2

History Cavemen were wild

Civilisations like The Romans controlled them but were violent and dangerous

Kings established a secure civilised country

Democracy came and gave us power

We live to maintain this progress

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

Metanarratives 3

Church God creates world

People go bad

Jesus dies to save people from Hell

Repent and go to HeavenLife is a trial

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

metanarratives 4

AuthoritySome people have special skills

These people should use them to serve society

We must respect those who serve for our good

Life is about knowing your place in society and serving where you can

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

metanarratives 5

State I am born an Englishman

I like roast beef, drink pints and show no emotion

These values I will fight for my children to have

I exist to maintain the natural way of life of my people

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

metanarratives 6

Marxism We are all born equal

We must take from those with more than they need and give it to those who need it

I exist to ensure that the world becomes fair

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

Some have more than others, some starve

metanarratives 6

Feminism Women are oppressed by men

I exist to make the world fairer for women

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

Women need to rise up and take an equal place

High Windows

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

A culture with

No progress

No common ideology

No common meaning

We are free.

We are lost.

The loss of metanarrativesPostmodernism 1: Metanarratives

The loss of meta-narratives

Dick Hebdige

3 Negations

Against totalisation

Against teleology – designed for result

Against utopia

As if (1950s) As if (2000s)

Postmodernism 1: Metanarratives

‘Consumers use these symbolic meanings to construct, maintain and express each of their multiple identities’

Elliot and Wattanasuwen 133

Postmodernism: identity

‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves’

Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements

Adverts give products meaning for use in our social identity

Conspicuous consumption

Thorstein Veblen 1953

William H White The Organisation Man

inconspicuous consumption =

not consuming is an anti-social act

I consume therefore I amI consume therefore I am

‘The self is conceptualised in post-modernity not as a given product of a social system nor as a fixed entity which the individual can simply adopt, but as something the person actively creates, partially through consumption’

Elliotand Wattanasuwen p.132

Postmodernism identity

‘the individual endeavours to construct and maintain an identity that will remain stable through a rapidly changing environment’

Elliot and Wattanasuwen p.131

Postmodernism identity

Amir Khan

British - accent

Northern - down-to earth

Muslim - prays to Allah Pakistani - supports

them at cricket

Male - watches football

Teenager - wears a baseball cap

Sporty - Adidas

Postmodernism identity

Amir Khan

Who am I?

rural

green

rich

Who am I?

I am powerful

I am sporty/be the best

I am independent/art above science

Who am I?

Educated and liberal

Fashionable/active

Young and sociable

‘The individual is offered resources to achieve ‘an ego-ideal’ which commands the respect of others and inspires self-love’

Elliot and Wattanasuwen p.131

Who could you be?

Who could you be?

A pool of possible selves

‘Culture and commerce are now fully intertwined’

Davidson M, The Consumerist Manifesto, 1992, London: Routledge, p.191

‘The self is a symbolic project, which the individual must actively construct out of the available symbolic materials’

Elliot, and Wattanasuwen p.131

Advertising and the post-modern condition

Hyper-reality

Jean Baudrillard

‘Our society is image saturated…In one hour’s television viewing one of us is likely to experience more images than a member of a non-industrial society would in a lifetime…we live in a postmodern period when there is no difference between the image and other orders of experience’

John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.56

Postmodernism: hyper-reality

There is no authentic reality for us to experience

New York

Postmodernism: hyper-reality

image=reality; reality=image

Postmodernism: simulacrum

Images escape referentiality

a copy of a copy of a copy - no original

Simulacra = the image has no relation to any reality whatsoever

Today..

1. Theoretical Account

i Identity

Ii Metanarratives

Iii Simulacrum and hyper-reality

Iv Trust

2. Style:

i Refusal of meaning

ii irony

iii bricolage

iv pastiche

v intertextuality

Postmodernism is both an aesthetic style and a theoretical accountJohn Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.58

Postmodernism: refusal of meaning

2. New styles of advertising : Intertextuality

Think

‘Postmodern images…not only escape referentiality and ideology, also escape textual discipline exerted by organising concepts such as genre, medium or period. They can be and are culled from any genre, any medium, any period’ John Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.57

2. New styles of advertising: bricolage

2. Postmodernism: pastiche

The shift is not one of significance but spectacleJohn Fiske, Postmodernism and Television, Chapter 3 in Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition (1996), London: Arnold, p.58

Next 30 minutes

Work on campaignCreate 10 minute video

New MediaNew Methods

Source: Ofcom 2005-10

5 years

1. The digital age

1981

=

1. The digital age

=0011001010

E.g. cd

=

1. The digital age

Optic-fibre cable

1. The digital age

4G

Advertising is dead….

Long live advertising

1. Go Global2. Focus on PR3. Go below the line4. Go online5. Direct marketing6. Sponsorship7. Buzz8. Viral9. Banned10.Don’t advertise11.Go guerilla

‘One sight, one sound, one sell’

Coca-colaization(Hannerz, 1992:p.217 cited in Howes D, Cross-Cultural Consumption,1996,London: Routledge, p.3)

1. Global branding

Global branding

GilletteGillette

Global branding

‘Differences between Brazilian and Arab sensibilities to scantily clad men and women playing on a beach require shooting different versions of the commercial so that each version will fit local cultural values’

O’Barr, 1994: p.200

..

Global branding

Now a brand manager has an entirely different responsibility. Their job now is to create and maintain a whole meaning system for people through which they get identity and understanding of the world. Their job now is to be a community leader

Douglas Atkin, The Persuaders, PBS

Helping people build a better world

WOMAC

Global branding

Corporate social responsibility - CSRhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/business/cif-green/2010/nov/09/niger-delta-shell-crisis

Corporate memory

Nike – ‘irreverance justified’

Global branding

And the conclusion was that people whether they are joining a cult or joining a brand do so for exactly the same reasons they need to belong they want to make meaning we need to figure out what the world is all about and we need the company of others.

Douglas Atkin, The Persuaders, PBS

Global advertising communities

Roland BarthesMythologies

When you listen to brand managers talk you can get quite carried away in this idea that they actually are fulfilling these needs we have for community and transcendence but in the end it is a laptop and a pair of running shoes and they might be great but they are not actually going to fulfil these needs

Naomi Klein, The Persuaders, PBS

The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR

72point.com

2. PR

Travelodge

Ann Summers

Above the line

Traditional mass media

Below the line

Leaflet folder brochure catalogue timetable postcard stationery diary pelmet dummy pack wire stand clock trade figure display stand crowner sticker sample coaster ashtray shelf edging sky writing sky banner airship projection calendar CD DVD carrier bag t-shirt sweatshirt cap pullover scarf umbrella tie jacket sash towel flag playing cards matchbooks paperclips badge sticker

3: Move Below the Line

4: Move online

http://www.emarketer.com/BrowseResearch.aspx

5: personalised adverts

Sponsored link

Rich media interactive billboards

Banner ad

Loyalty card

‘The time has long passed when buying and selling was an unmediated activity that took place in a market..we are now accustomed - and often jaundiced - to commercials … homogeneous messages may be on the wane. More narrowly focused messages that are better fitted to our consuming profiles are on the rise’

O Barr, 1994: p.200

TextTill receipt

ATM

Facebook/MySpace

Google stores all the information. Acxiom uses information

6: sponsorship

Buzz marketing

2-step flow

The Alpha Pup - P-O-X

7: Buzz advertising

8: Viral Marketing

9: Get banned

10: Don’t advertise

11: Go guerilla