COP Essay Newspapers or Magazines

My question for my COP essay is going to be:

'With the high impact of new media and the internet, what is publication today?' 

Within my essay I am going to discuss new media and the effects it is having on publishing, and whether the internet is really killing publishing. Following my tutorial with Richard I need to decide whether I want to discuss newspapers or magazines publishing within my essay, with this I will need one study/example where a newspaper or magazine has turned digital for better or worse.


Possible discussions for newspapers and new media:

- a physical piece of news
- the power of news
- globalisation
- what is news?
- news and it's values 
- what gets selected for newspapers
- news updates (the use of apps)
- tone of voice within newspapers
- news and the internet
- how news is now more accessible
- news is everywhere
- will people actually buy newspapers in the future?


Possible discussions for magazines and new media:

- the competitive magazine industry
- magazines are flourishing both digitally and printed
- something physical and collectable
- lifestyle
- gender roles
- consumerism
- subscriptions
- the news trade
- self online publishing websites (issuu)

My essay could almost form an argument of whether there is a need for newspapers/ magazines anymore. When thinking of which one I would like to discuss in further detail I also need to think about the practical element of my COP project. I am thinking of maybe turning something published purely digital into something printed or possibly the other way around.  At the moment I think I want to discuss magazines in further detail as I am more interested in the magazine industry. 

COP Essay Plan Tutorial

Following writing my essay plan and having a new question I had a tutorial with Richard, this was very useful and it has made me think about my essay in greater detail. Here is some of the advice that I am going to take onboard. 

- an analysis of an existing publication thats made a change
- look at stat's and figures within subscription 
- discuss generations (how the older generation may prefer a newspaper but the younger may have apps) 
- choose either newspapers or magazines to analysis in greater detail 
- look at the semiotics of newspapers
- the relationship of the reader
- apply to one example and reading

this was a very beneficial tutorial and I am now looking forward to moving on with my essay, I am going to think about whether I want to analyse newspapers or magazines and find one example where a publication has been transferred to new media. 

COP Essay Plan

I have re worded my question to 'with the high impact of digitalisation and the internet, what is publication today?' within my essay I would like to discuss whether technology and new media is changing the way we publish. Below is my essay plan, I have found out just how much I can write about, I would like to split my essay up into four sections, history, newspapers, magazines and new media.

Lecture- Globalisation, Sustainability & the Media

Definitions of Globalisation

Socialist
The process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. This process is a combination of economic, technological,sociocultural and political forces.

Capitalist
The elimination of state- enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result. 

George Ritzer

American sociologist George Ritzer combined the term 'McDonaldization' to describe the wide ranging  sociocultural processes by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as the rest of the world.' 

Marshall McLuhan Understanding the media

pg5 1964 
'as electricity contracted, the globe is no more than a village.'

Rapidity of communication

We can experience instantly the effects of out actions on a global scale 

'we live in mythically and internally.. in the electric age, when out central nervous system is technologically extended to involve in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us' this is not true 

Three problems of Globalisation

-Sovereignty 
challenges to the idea of the nation-state
-Accountability
transnational forces and organisations, who controls them?
-Identity
who are we? Nation, group, community 

Cultural imperialism

if the 'global village' is run with a certain set of values then it would not be so much an integrated community as an assimilated one.

key thinkers
-schiller 
-chomsky

US media Power can be thought of as a new form of imperialism 

-local cultures destroyed in this process and new forms of cultural dependency shaped, mirroring old school colonialism. 

Newspaper Ownership

News of the world and The Sun 
-Rupert Murcoch, selected media interests 
- a man of influence and incredible arrogance
-mass appeal 
-power to determine results  
-ownership determines content 

Study task 03- COP Essay Research ideas

My first idea for the COP essay was to base my essay on Branding but more specifically Logo Design. Within this I would like to discuss:

• what makes a good logo design
• logo meanings
• understanding the importance of brand identity
• slogans 

I then had a crit on this idea, and figured that it would be a hard thing to research and there isn't that many academic resources for it, I was un sure of how I would start this as a research brief for my esaay, I was left confused.

Is print dead?

After going back over my mind maps and ideas I decided to re-think. I also have a keen interest in print and designing for print. I am curious to whether print is dead and if there is any need for print? 

after a quick google search I came across this interesting article that raised some good points

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jun/03/who-says-print-is-dead

New media

• smartphones and apps mean you get news updates instantly, will there be any need for newspapers in the future?
• digital publications are getting better and are on higher demand
• rise of blogs and social media 
• new media enables us to share information with a large audience 

Print 

• something permanent 
• fresh's parts of business that are all new media 
• gains extra marketing 
• physical side 
• different experience
• better quality 

the question I have so far is,

is print dead? with the rise of new media is print dying and is there a future for print? 

I took out a book from the library to research further 'media semiotics an introduction'...

Magazines 

• 'ideal readers' of different magazines pg.57
• the difference between subscribers and single readers 
• adverts and consumerism 
• gender identity 
• about 15-30% of readers of womens magazines are men

Newspapers

• what is news?
• sales and price
• news value

I had another crit on my question and I got some useful feedback

• my question is going to have to change 
• print and the ora of print 
• social implications
• collectables and one off's
• users having control 
• wearable tech
• the change and development of editorial 
• asses how is has developed to emerging tech
• the internet and society 
• communication is out job 
• technology and adapting 
• the movement of editorial 

what I discover in my research and writing the essay should inform my practical. The crit has been really useful, I think I am going to carry on researching and focusing on editorial and new media and how they complement and compete with each other. 

Lecture- Ethics- What is good?

first things first manifesto- ken garland
this manifesto in short basically argues that visual communicators and creatives were wasting their talents by taking jobs that contribute little to the world. 


the manifesto was then republished in adbusters, two very different presentations of ethics 

Culture jamming- 
the practice of criticizing and subverting advertising and consumerism in the mass media, by methods such as producing advertisements parodying those of global brands.

A meme in advertising- a unit of information that leaps from brain to brain to brain. Memes compete with one another for replication, and are passed down through a population much the same way genes pass through a species. 

Victor Papanek
'most things are designed not for the needs of the people but for the needs of manufactures to sell to people'   He thought that creative thinkers really can help solve a lot of problems in the world 

how do we determine what is good? 

subjective relativism 
-there are no universal moral norms of right and wrong
-all persons decide right and wrong for themselves 


Ethical Theories

-subjective realism
-there are no universal moral norms of right and wrong

cultural relativism 
-the ethical theory that what's right or wrong depends on place and/or time

Divine Command theory


Kantianism (deontological ethics)  
Deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical position that judges the morality of an action based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules. It is sometimes described as "duty" or "obligation" or "rule"-based ethics, because rules "bind you to your duty."


Utilitarianism, or Consequentialist ethics (John Stuart Mill)

-Principle of utility
-an action is right to the extent that it increases the total happiness of the affected parties
-an action is wrong to the extent that it decreases the total happiness of the affected parties 
-happiness may have many definitions such as: advantage, benefit, good, or pleasure 

Rules are based on the principles of utility
-a rule is right to the extent that it increses the total of happiness of the affected parties 
-the greatest happiness principle is applied to moral rules

Toolbox of moral/ethical theories 

whether presented with problems that are easy or difficult to solve, the four workable ethical theories 

-kantianism 
-act utilitarianism
-rule utilitarianism 
-social contract theory

could provide us with possible solutions to many of the problems that are raised by the 'First things first' manifesto. 

Lecture- Consumerism: Persuasion, Society, Brand, Culture

Today's Lecture 

-Analyse the rise of US consumerism 
-Discuss the links between consumerism and our unconscious desires
-Sigmund Freud
-Edmund Bernays
-Consumerism as social control 

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
-New theory of human nature
-Psychoanalysis
-Hidden primitive sexual forces and animal instincts which need controlling

Freuds model of personality structure 

1930- Civilisation and its discontents

-Fundamental tension between civilisation and the individual 
-Human instincts incompatible with the well being of the community
-The Pleasure principle 


WW1 1914-18
Freud thinks this is what we should expect to happen, a global release point. Hidden based desires, sense of identity

Edward Bernays (1891-1995)

-Press Agent 
-Employed by public information during WW1
-Post war- set up 'The council on public relations'
-The birth of PR
-Based on the ideas of Freud (his uncle)
-Crystallising Public Opinion (1923)
-Propaganda (1928)

He set up his own company advertising business, gaining quite a lot of success, his business was about public perceptions.

What launched his career cigarette business', he targeted the fact that for women to smoke was frowned upon. 

1929 Easter Parade

Women lighting up 'torches of freedom' as protest. Contemporary display of women's freedom and independence, then cigarette smoking became increasingly popular for women.

It was about women having: -status
-freedom
-independence

1924

-product placement
-celebrity endorsements
-the use of pseudoscientific reports

'more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarettes' 

a ridiculous advert advertising the fact doctors smoke, advertising that camels is the best cigarettes to buy when in fact cigarettes kill you. An ironic poster showing someone who is suppose to help your health killing themselves. 

Fordism

-Henry Ford (1863-1947)
-Transposes Taylorism to factories of Detroit
-Requires large investment, but increases productivity so much that relatively high wages can be paid, allowing the workers to buy the product they produce 
-moving assembly line
-standard production models built as they move through the factory 

acceleration of production, possible crisis of over production 
people only have a need for so many things, yet more and more things are being put in the world, this is where the idea of branding comes in and becomes increasingly important, persuasion becomes important, there are many technique that they use, they try and give the product and identity, make it more personal to the consumer


Bernays introced the idea of car advertising and cars making you more sexual desirable, men being the head of the family and driving them around, men driving women around

we shift from a NEEDS to WANT a desire culture 

NEEDS Chanel perfume

WANT Chanel perfume with the aid of celebrity endorsement 

Marketing hidden needs- BOOK- the hidden persuaders, Vanace Packard 

-selling emotional security 
-selling the reassurance of worth 
-selling ego-gratification
-selling creative outlines 
-selling love objects
-selling sense of power
-selling a sense of roots 
-selling immortality

1920

the new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd
'manufacturing consent'

Conclusion 
-Consumerism is an ideological project
-we believe that through consumption our desires can be met 
-The consumer self
-the legacy of Bernays / PR can be felt in all aspects of 21st century society 
- the conflicts between alternative models of social organisation continue to this day

Making Connections Seminar

Deconstruction- Jacques Derrida observed a tendency in western philosophy and critical theory to 'create dualistic oppositions and install a hierarchy that unfortunately privileges one tern of each dichotomy (presence before absence, speech before writing and so on)' (Reynolds IEP) 

Derrida created 'deconstruction' which is a mode of questioning these assumed hierarchies

'Design, Writing, Research' Lupton and Miller 1996 
Ellen Lupton explores aspects and methods of deconstruction and how it had an impact on graphic design practice 

one of the oppositions that factors significantly in Derrida's discussion is that of speech/writing where speech is privileged over writing 

we are born into language and the signs are already there 

'if writing is but a copy of a spoken language, typography is a mode of representation even further removed from the primal source of meaning in the mind of the author.' 

'Design and typography work at the edges of writing, determining the shape and style of letters, the spaces between them, and their placement on the page. Typography, form its position at the margins of communication.'

typography, which is seen as exterior or in opposition to the written text is actually embedded within it. Graphic marks other than the alphabet cannot be seen as 'signs' and are excluded in traditional semiotics. However deconstruction shows us that typographic adjustments can impact greatly on the meaning of the written word. 

House of Leaves by Mark Denielewsky

A novel that uses typography to encourage a dual way of reading, its about a man who discovers a manuscript of a dead blind man, non of the footnotes are real in the book. 

'Pastiche'- Fredric Jameson 

Pastiche- is a appropriating styles from the past 

We become detached from the history and we don't appreciate the designs in the past we appreciate them more now. Personally I think everything develops from the past, we interpret everything in our own way. 

Pastiche is taking elements of design and re organising it 

This is a piece from a stranger & stranger, the design has a historical element to it but the design is still very relevant and up to date 

Other Pastiche examples 

The architecture within Las Vegas is a pastiche example as it pulls together different parts of the world and history. 

Benefit makeup is a Pastiche example as it pulls in elements from the past with 1950's ish girls, they use the pink throughout the packaging and makeup counters. 

Soap and glory has a similar theme, pulling in elements form the past using similar pink girly theme with black and white 50's photography to influence the design, it works really well as it is very eye-catching when on the shelf. 

The film Great Gatsby is heavily influenced from the 1920's, but has a modern twist with the music having sound tracks from modern people such as Jay-Z and Larna Del Rey 

Supremes logo has Pastiche on Barbra Krugers work 

Forming a research question

Think a question to start researching into for the COP essay that links to one of these areas:

Editorial, Typography, Branding, Advertising, Printmaking, New Media

Questions to think about:

What is the general theme? 

What are the current/ contextual/ historical issues of the general theme- mind maps and lists

What do you want to know or be able to do in regard to this theme? from this into a question that implies a conclustion... what, how, to what extent 

How does this relate to my (increasingly specialist) practice? 

I am going to start by pulling apart the different areas as I am unsure as to what I want to base my essay on. 

the main two areas that I am interested in within the ones given I think are typography and branding. With typography I am particularly interested in hand drawn type and maybe I could research into the history and whether it is dying out or coming back into fashion recently. With branding I am interested in logo design, I could look into classic and iconic logos, how and what makes them so good and recognisable. 

Lecture- Cities and Film

This lecture looks at:
the city in modernism
the beginning of an urban sociology
the city as public and private space

Georg Simmel 
German  Socialist 
Desden Exhibition 1903, Surrealism and dada 

Urban sociology 
the resistance of the individual to being levels swallowed up int he social technological mechanism 

Architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)
creator of the modern sky scraper

The details of the guaranty building

Carson Pririe Scott store in Chicago

Sky scrapers represent the upwardly mobile city of business opportunity, the sky's the limit in the city. 

Charles Scheeler- an advertising photographer with use of abstract photography, hew worked for ford and displays modernism 

this idea is also examined in Fordism: mechanised labour relations. 

Charlie Chaplin- Modern times- the film potrays Chalie Chaplin as a factory worker and he suffers a breakdown. 

Stock market crash of 1929- unemployment goes up dramatically, leads to the 'great depression' the contrast between whats actually being advertised and whats actually happening 

Sophie Calle Suite Venitienne
for months she follwed strangers on the street without them knowing, she followed one man to venice

another project by Sophie Calle
The detective 1980 
She hires a detective to follow someone, she invents it into a love story 

Here is New York book/ exhibition- when the twin towers came down, images from the attack. Images by everyone from random people in the attack, firefighters and profesional photographers. 

Joel Meyerowitz- Broadway and the west 46th street
Theres a lot going on really captures how crazy the city is. 

Study Task 02- Triangulation exercise

Above are my notes from the seminar today

For this study task I have decided to look at the red bull adverts as I think it links well with some of the discussions that are made within the seminar texts. First things first 1964 discusses how advertising is a wasted talent, how they don't want to 'take the fun out of life' but we should prioritise more useful and lasting forms of communication. 'We have reached a saturation point at which the high pitched scream of consumer selling is no more than sheer noise' this statement is quite true everyday we get bombarded with tones of graphic design and forms of advertising when we don't even realise, but it is all there for a good reason because without advertising and graphic design nothing would sell. They think that there is other things worth more using their skill and experience on, but they as graphic designers, photographers and advertisers shape our visual world. The first things first manifesto got re visited in 2000 and there is a difference in the tone of voice, the 2000 manifesto has more urgent tone of voice with the attitude of 'we need to sort this out', it has an ethical change. In the 2000 manifesto it explains that we use our skill and imagination to sell things that are inessential, this joins well with the red bull adverts 'red bull gives you wings' red bull is not a necessary in everyones life it has a target audience for people who want to perform at their best. Study note 6 from the 10 footnotes to a manifesto discusses how we as graphic designers make things look desirable for the customers to consume. It also questions that if we don't do the work and make things look good then who will? There will always be a hierarchy within design and if there was no designers it would just create a hierarchy of bad design. Footnote 6 also states that all we do is make things look pretty/good for the consumer to want it, the red bull adverts certainly do that, they use good visuals in the form of illustrations and make the product relatable to the target audience. 

References :

Garland, K. (1964) 'First Things First Manifesto', self published

Lasn, K. et al (2000) 'First Things First Manifesto', Adbusters

Beirut, M. (2007) 'Ten Footnotes To A Manifesto', in 'Seventy Nine Short essays On Design'

COP Lecture- Identity

we all have an inner essence that makes who we are

Modern Identity 19th and early 20th century 

Charles Baudelaire the painter of mental life

Above Gustave Caillebotte paris street rainy day

Simmel:

-trickle down theory

-emulation

-distinction

-the 'mask' of fashion

The painting above is about the upper class distinguishing themselves by their fashion, and how the middle class look up the the upper class fashion, it all bubbles up. This idea works the same within other things such as street artists may get inspiration from graphic designers. 

he introduces the ides of 'flaneur' (gentleman-stroller)

George Simmel suggests: inividual withdraw into themselves to find peace, he describes this as the separation of the subject. 

Veblen- 'conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure' 

Le pont de l'Europe 1876

possibel discourses

-age

-class

-nationality

-race/ethnicity

-gender 

-sexuality

Class

The above photos were taken in Bolton of the working class, the photos were taken by Humphrey Spender who works for mass observation, the project called 'work town' (1937) documentary photography. He captures the working class of the thirties perfectly with these black and white film photos, they take us back in time. 

Martin Parr, New Brighton, Merseyside from the last resort 1983-86

These photos really make a statement and show the middle class. Parr has little things in the photos to show that they are working class for example on the top image the stain on the ladies dress. It also shows that they are middle class by sunbathing next to a digger.

Above are some images of Alexander McQueens 'Highland Rape' collection 1995-6 

McQueen is a very controversial fashion designer and some people say this is how how he became so famous. Down the catwalk the models would stagger and not walk the models apper brutal in conjunction with the word 'rape' 

Nationality 

Las Vegas

Las vegas is a new culture and has a mini everything, mini Eiffel tower, pyramids ect. 

76% of Americans don't have passports as they feel they have it all in Las Vegas, however this is a dumbed down version and they don't really experience any culture, with peoples busy lifestyle Las Vegas is a quick fix. 

Racial 

Chris Ofili- no woman no cry 1998

this piece depicts radial identity, it is a unique piece held up by elephant poo

Sexuality

Tracey Emin- everyone I have slept with

This is another controversial piece, it is titled 'everyone I have ever slept with' we automatically think thats all the people she has had sex with but its actually just the popele she's shared a bed with for a night, the names include her nan and grandad and friends from when she had sleepovers. this produced a lot of controversity of girls being 'slag's' or 'sluts' but if boys sleep around it almost gets celebrated.