Supermarket Aesthtics

Essay Considerations

1. Using supermarkets as a social frame to understand the methods used to maintain a hegemonic capitalist state.

2. The roles of workers and those who control the means of production.

3. Determines, the political, social and cultural shape of society and its future.

The base and the superstructure.

4. How a society produces its means of existence.

5. Relationship between ones class position and the mode of production.

6. The ruling class must represent their interests as the common interest of all members of society. (Through branding, and ideology).

7. Focus of economical changes, which produced it audience/market. Credit crunch, advertising cheap alternatives to the working class, while the middle and ruling classes remain largely the same. However the ruling class must suggest that it effects them also, in order to maintain control. (6)

Essay Proposal

Proposed essay title or topic
A semiotic reading of branded and supermarket own brand food packaging.
(beans, soup, tined food).

or

A semiotic reading of supermarkets and their intended markets.
(Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Iceland.)

or

Something completely different.


Main issues addressed in essay
- How supermarkets have their food packaging to be aimed at specific markets.
- Class Distinctions (how are the views of the markets shaping the markets, how can these be altered?)
- Language, and visual language. How the branding of the supermarkets aims toward specific class markets.
- How some supermarkets aim their branding at a specific market, rather than by promoting products. I.e. Iceland Vs M&S

Visual material
Food Packaging
Branding material from supermarkets

Theoretic Approaches
Critical Theory, Semiotics

Theorists to refer to
Adorno, Althusser, Foucault, marx


Books
Crow, D (2003) An introduction to semiotics: Visible Signs
Silverman, K (1983) The Subject of Semiotics
Chandler, D ((2002)The Basics, Semiotics
Hall, S (2007) This means this, This means that: A users guide to semiotics
Storey, J (2006) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

A First Look at Communication Theory ~ Em Griffin

Framing in Communication Theory

In communication theory, and sociology, framing is a process of selective control over the individual's perception of media, public, or private communication, in particular the meanings attributed to words or phrases. Framing defines how an element of rhetoric is packaged so as to allow certain interpretations and rule out others. Media frames can be created by the mass media or by specific political or social movements or organizations

Reading Around Communication Theory

Semiotics and Communication: Signs, Codes, Cultures (Part I "Semiotic Theory and Communication Theory")
by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. 226 pgs.

Foundations of Communication Theory
by Kenneth K. Sereno, C. David Mortensen. 372 pgs.

Thought on the Essay pt2

Revisiting my notes from the lectures, it seems that ideas and theories concerning communication theory had far more implications towards graphic design and indeed the design industry, than that of panopticism.

Therefore it would seem wise to think more about this for the essay. Specifically considering the Shannon & Weaver Bell Lab. theories alongside cybernetics and semiotics, with a focus of the language of signs and social frames.

Media Ideology - Reading from Theodor Adorno’s writings on popular music

Theodor Adorno was a Marxist theorist, but not in the usual sense. He applied his theories to popular culture and in this case to pop music.

He identified that there were “two spheres of music,” popular music and serious music. He states that o have a clear judgment on the matter, concerning the relation of serious music to popular music is to identify that the fundamental characteristic of popular music is “standardization.”

For example he points out that the best known rule for pop music is the chorus, consisting of thirty two bars of music and a note range of an octave plus one note. This idea leads to the ultimate reading that standardization of music and its formulaic approach leads to “familiar experiences” and “nothing fundamentally novel will be introduced.” (T. Adorno, P.1.)

His theory on pseudo-individualism follows on from standardization and is referrers to popular music as a “multiple choice questionnaire” where the audiences are kept in line by making them forget what they listen to has already been listened to for them; it is “pre-digested.” (T. Adorno, P.2.)

Here he is talking about the mass repetition and manufacture of bands and groups, which is true today. It is evident all of the time if, if you take a step back from the radio and actually listen, you will hear the same beats, the same motifs, the same effects and generally the same sound from most of the tunes. To be honest I have felt this way about pop music for as long as I can remember and still don’t care much for it, and to an extent I agree with Adorno.

He then mentions “plugging” a term which used to be used with the meaning of “ceaseless repetition” If one particular hit to make it popular. However he uses it in the broader sense of plugging a standard sound of formula, to “break down the resistance” of the listeners so that when they hear a set formula of music they react automatically. Again, I agree here with Adorno, but I do not think it is necessarily a bad thing. On a good night out sometimes all you want to hear is a thumping bass line or a cheesy guitar riff.

This reminds me no Neomi Kleins ‘No Logo,’ she goes on about how advertising corporations brain wash us into buying ‘commodities’. But does not stop to think that perhaps we as the market don’t mind, we actually like buying things…

Adorno also goes on to talk about pop music as a “distraction” from the demands of life and reality. I do not agree however with his idea that pop music is a distraction from reality only for those whose lives put such a strain on them that they need to be “non-productive” and digest some pre-digested commercial entertainment.

This is the point at white Adorno begins to sound very old and dull…

He states that individuals of the “rhythmically obedient” are mainly found among the youth or the so-called “radio generation. They are most susceptible to a process of masochistic adjustment to authoritarian collectivism.” (T. Adorno, P.4.)

He then separates the audience again into the rhythmically type and the emotional type. The rhythmical types do not connect with the music on the same level as the emotional type. They work as a “mechanical’ unit together unified under the beat of the music like “marching battalions.” (T. Adorno, P.4.)

A lot of what Adorno has to say would be more justified had he not been such a bore and high and mighty. Towards his final years in the late 60s his students began to rebel against him, not violently, but in some forms of protest, such as a young lady taking stand on his podium and proceeded to protest bare-chested. His days were numbered…

Thought on the Essay

It has come to that time of the year when I need to be considering a possible subject to write my essay on. I have a nagging feeling that linking graphic design into it is going to cause some head-aches. However I feel confident that if I choose something I have found interesting it should not be a problem.

Out of all the lectures, the one on panopticism was the most interesting to me. However at this stage I do not see how exactly I could relate it to design. After my CST tutorial in a few days I hope to clarify a possible route for this essay to take.

Perhaps I could read into the idea that advertising and marketing are constantly surrounding us, not physically looking at us, but because we are looking at it we are always in its gaze and under it's influence.