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.

Lecture 4 Notes - Communication Theory

Laxwell

Who says what to who, in what channel, to what effect.

Who is it who is passing on the message, via what context, be it telephone, letter or presentation and what is the result of this.

Traditions of Communication Theory (methodologies)

Cybernetic

Semiotics

Phenomenology

Trasmissional / Constitutive

Rhetorical

Socio-phsiological

Socio-cultural

Critical theory

Shannon & Weaver Bell Laboratories

Information Source > Transmission > Receiver > Destination

....................................................Noise........................................

"During the lecture i noted that this theory was interesting."

It made sense and was applicable to design context.

Client > Designer > Media Outlet > Audience

..............................Noise...........................................

"Graphic Design is the removal of noise"

Cybernetics / Weiner, 1948

Switch between mathematical, physiological, biological and social frames of reference.

> System theory

Semiotics

Signs communication.

Analyzing society as a structure.

Using the language of medicine as an example. The voice of science. They all work together to generate the impression of science, knowledge and cleanliness. (biological reference).

The design of these products follows this language. So what implications does this have on me as a designer?

Using semiotics to analyze and image. The aesthetics of colour, form and context.

> For more on this read into R. Barthes

Lecture 3 Notes

Lecture 2 Notes

Lecture 1 Notes

Panopticism Exemplified

We were asked to think of an example of panopticism in contemporary society and relate is back to a piece of text written my Michael Foucault. I chose something a little more obscure than CCTV or a lecture hall. I decided it might be intereting to consider the implications of hourse mounted police.

I was at a cup match at Wembley early last year and while walking back down millennium walk which leads directly form the train station to the entrance of Wembley Stadium it struck me just how many police there were present, especially after the match. There were probably somewhere in the region of 300 police men and women, over 40 of whom were on horse-back. They were stationed at regular intervals along the road acting as a toll booth-like barrier across the entire breadth of the road. Thousands of supporters were funnel through these small gaps which only allowed for about 2 people at a time to go through, our heads at the same height as their truncheons which rested at their sides. Together they had a clear view of everyone leaving the stadium, no crime, violence or disorderly behaviour would have gone un-noticed. For that reason there was a sense that we had to act a specific way. It certainly was a ‘mechanism’ that was created by the sheer number of police present.

"Inspections functions ceaselessly. The gaze is everywhere: ‘A Considerable body of militia, commanded by good officers and men of substance."

(M. Foucault, ‘Panopticism’ (P 76).

Another quote from Foucaults text on panopticism stood out to me.

"Behind disciplinary mechanisms can be read the haunting memory of ‘contagions’, of the plague, of rebellions, crimes, vagabondage, desertions…"

(M. Foucault, ‘Panopticism’ (P 78).

In years past there have been countless riots, acts of violence and crimes committed after and even before football matches especially. The presence of the horse-back police seemed to bring back the memories and stories that I had heard and seen of such events, and the crowd controlling measures that were used. Yes, with the police there we were safer from and violence against us. But to those people who dislike the police and are inherently violent at these events, the police presence may just be what they are looking for to spark off a riot.

"Whenever one is dealing with a multiplicity of individuals on whom a task or particular form of behaviors must be imposed, the panoptic scheme may be used."

(M. Foucault, ‘Panopticism’ (P 85).

Panopticism

pan·op·tic (pn-ptk) also pan·op·ti·cal (-t-kl)

adj.

Including everything visible in one view.

[From Greek panoptos, fully visible : pan-, with respect to everything, fully; see pan- + optos, visible; see ok^w- in Indo-European roots.]

panoptic [pænˈɒptɪk], panoptical

adj

taking in all parts, aspects, etc., in a single view; all-embracing a panoptic survey

[from Greek panoptēs seeing everything, from pan- + optos visible]

panoptically adv

The panopticism lecture was very interesting. It occurred to me mid lecture, “hang on why is the relevant to me as a graphic design.” But of course I realise it is now. I as a graphic Designer can use the idea of panopticism in my design practise. Controlling the masses with a piece of design or even using the theory as a way of getting people to think more about my designs may or may not be correct, but the idea seems quite to carry some serious implications of what is right and wrong, much like the panopticon itself. It truly does have implications ranging across the entire spectrum of design, from fine art to advertising.

In our follow up seminars we thought further about how panopticism was surrounding us in contemporary society. Even in the lecture theatre itself there was a clear example of it, with the lecturer at the font, with all the student in plain view, not one of use being able to act out of place without it being picked up on.

http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineAndPunish/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism.html

Home Grown Exhibition - Manchester

I thought it would be useful to photograph all of the historical updates which guided you through the exhibition.

I thought these photos were really genuine, all people just enjoying creating the music and experimenting with something new.

This is an awesome example of a duotone double page spread. It is a nice piece of layout as well as reflecting the hip hop culture. Especially interesting as it is directly relevant so my colour and print mudule.

Foil blocking and embossing. Just thought it was anice combination of process, colour and substrate.

Ollie and Dave discussing some photography.

Atari, changed the way hip hop looked from the 80s onward. Still has strong implications on contemporary design.