9. Propaganda in Advertising(/PR)

"Happy peanuts soar over chocolate-covered mountaintops
And waterfalls of caramel,
Prancing nougat in the meadow sings a song of satisfaction
To-o the wo-orld."

This thirty-second Snickers advertisment uses several efficient propaganda techniques to make it memorable and effective at selling its product:

Common man: The advertisement's main character is at the desk in a drab (grey-filled), fluorescent-lit place (a carpet store, on closer inspection), a setting seeming to represent the boredom of all office workers. Snickers is thereby represented as a obtainable object that suddenly brings unexpected song and joy (a smile on his face) into that familiar environment to an average schmo.

Repetition: The song in use here is a very good example of a "hook"ing jingle- melodious and simple (musically consisting of two similar lines). Besides being run for an extended period of time, an almost identical version of this commercial was made, to consolidate the memory of the jingle through repeated runs. Furthermore, within the commercial itself, the office worker repeats the "the world" at the end of the song, to emphasize the "global" appeal Snickers is trying to convey.

Transfer (virtue word): The lyrics are an extended metaphor in which the ingredients of the candy bar are likened to an exalted landscape of a paradise. The flying peanuts, caramel waterfall, chocolate snow, etc. are clearly meant for the audience to associate positive feelings about nature onto the product. This positivity is reinforced through frequent virtue words: "enjoy", "happy", and "satisfaction" being the obvious, while other words are chosen for their subtler positive connotation ("soar" instead of "fly", "prancing" instead of "walking" or "trotting").

5. (Movies or) Recordings

My uncle Phillip was born in Vietnam in the '50s, and grew up in Saigon. I know he learned to play guitar in this period (and possibly some piano, though they didn't own one). While being familiar with Vietnamese music, his favorite genre of music when he was a youth was rock and roll. He cited several English-language bands familiar to me: The Eagles, Wham!, and ABBA (being careful to point out the second "B" as being spelled backwards in the logo).

From the Eagles, he said "Hotel California" as a particular favorite. (Incidentally, also one of my dad's absolute favorite songs, which he says he always played on the jukebox when he was a student and new immigrant to the US.) From ABBA, he admired "The Winner Takes it All", and from Wham! he named "Careless Whisper". He said he and his friends listened to these artists on cassette tapes (and he's curious now to some of the more obscure lyrics). (Though I suspect my uncle picked particularly well-known artists throughout to be more accessible to me.)

He got more interested in more instrumental music in his thirties. Around the early nineties, he worked some years on the weekends as a wedding musician, on the guitar and the keyboard. Growing up, I frequently remember him editing music (and special effects) into wedding and family videos (this being a time when everyone took home videos frequently on their straight-to-VHS Panasonics). I also remember it was a great extended family activity to watch Paris By Night videos (a Vietnamese-American traveling music/variety show).

Later he part-time taught piano one-on-one. I was one of his students, and while he occasionally taught from a book ("In the Hall of the Mountain King"), he mostly arranged pieces to teach. A few of them were the traditional classical pieces, like "Greensleeves". But they were outnumbered by American folk songs (well-known as "The Star Spangled Banner" or children's songs taken from one of my CDs as "), Vietnamese folk songs (patriotic or traditional) , movie music (the themes of The Godfather and Love Story), and other modern Vietnamese compositions.

He says nowadays he's become more interested in softer intrumental melodies. And I've seen his giant CD collection which he takes pride in. His favorite composer is Trịnh Công Sơn, a prolific modern Vietnamese composer. His favorite composition is "Tuổi đá buồn", a melancholy song that is oft translated roughly as "It's Still Raining". Another famous Vietnamese composer my uncle mentioned is Phạm Duy (his "Cây Đàn Bỏ Quên", "the forgotten guitar").

7. Internet

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8. (Electronic) News

I logged the July 23, 2010 BBC World News program from 5:30-6:00 pm as it aired on KQED (my local PBS affiliate):

5:30:00-31:00 / Introduction to program; teasers of news stories to come.

31:00-33:15 / Results from independent auditor's 'stress tests' presented positively; only seven European Union banks fail (out of 91).

33:15-36:25 / Research by BBC Urdu has found "missile attacks by US drones in Pakistan's tribal areas have more than trebled under the Obama administration"; violence disrupts Taliban activities but also lives of civilians.

36:25-36:40 / plug for BBC News website

36:40-39:25 / Coming tropical storm will disrupt BP oil clean-up operations in the Gulf, as workers/boats must evacuate for at least two, if not several, days.

39:25-41:25 / Company Trafigura convicted of dumping toxic waste in Ivory Coast in 2006 and fined

41:25-42:50 / Quick headline news reports: Chinese oil spill clean-up continues; Kosovo bank chief taken into custody; Backed by French, Mauritanian troops raid al-Queda; Canadian prison riot.

42:55-44:50 / Scots turn down invitation to Washington to be questioned under suspicions BP lobbied UK to release Lockerbie bomber to secure Libyan oil deal.

45:25-46:50 / More on EU bank stress tests; critics skeptical.

46:55-49:50 / Infamous child-killer Jon Venables re-jailed over child pornography.

50:00-53:15 / Builders of (UNESCO Heritage) Sagrada Familia church (work-in-progress for 128 yrs) concerned due to new construction of nearby high-speed train tunnel.

53:15-53:55 / North Korea offended by planned S.Korea/US joint military exercises.

53:55-55:50 / World's largest flower, Titan arum blooms in Tokyo; is large tourist attraction.

55:50-56:45 / second plug for BBC News website, reading of Sponsors ("brought to you by")

56:45-59:59 / Commercials:
15 secs each for Union Bank, Clark Pest Control, Oakland Airpost, xfinity from Comcast
30 secs each for Wells Fargo and Subaru Legacy
35 secs for PBS network
15 secs total for KQED (local affiliate)

Omitting introductions, repetitions, transitions, and plugs; the total news time on the program was 23 minutes and 45 seconds (compared to ad time of 3 minutes and 15 seconds). The anchor was very brisk (and professional), often jumping into the next story at the very second right before the correspondent pieces ended. His authoritatively fast speaking seemed to fit the rest of the program, which overall seemed to try and hit many major headlines within the small time allotted. The correspondent pieces were all either clearly pre-taped or often from a previous live broadcast- leaving no "banter". The lead story was of the EU banks, clearly chosen for it's implications across many countries (rather than just two or three) and was the only story with any significant interaction between correspondent and anchor. They also discussed its role within the larger financial crisis and what this means for the future- interpretation that wasn't really present in any other stories. My overall impression is of a program with broad international appeal: providing the bare stories without much interpretation, if needing viewers who are already well informed on current events (and are willing to look up further information).

6. Television

Drawing Fire is a documentary about the work of Paul Conrad, a three-time Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist- and one time entry on Nixon's "enemies list". (Aired on PBS as part of Independent Lens, it is currently available to view in full on youtube.)

Clip: Censorship and Corporatization
Length: 44:20-50:35 (6:15)
Description: Talk about changes in the newspaper environment for political cartooning.
Chapter 4- Newspapers

Quiz:
1. To what two causes does the video contribute the increasing censorship of political cartoons?
2. What is the importance of newspapers in a democracy?
3. Why does John Caroll say "a newspaper that gets zero complaints is a dying newspaper"?


*Alternate links (Part 1, Part 2) if youtube doesn't work for you- Realplayer or Quicktime.

Answers:
1. a) Post September 11, people feared any criticism of the government would be labelled "unpatriotic".
b) Newspapers have become interested in profit over other motives, increasingly conglomerized and afraid of offending corporations in their interest in profit.
2. The press is supposed to inform the public and check the government's powers, both as part of individual civic duty and as intended by the founders by "freedom of press".
3. Alternate voices need to be heard. And maybe the controversy (having something to say) would make more people want to pick up the newspaper.

Bonus clips: Mr. Rogers is called by a senator to help defend funding for public television. And talks about the color tv tests to choose a format.

4. Magazines

Name: Horizon Chaser

Concept: People nowadays are inundated with glossy over-saturated images of faraway places all the time. The public is desensitized to this glamorous world of helicopter views that it can easily get from the television and from movies and the like. What people are really seeking for travel -and in a travel magazine- is not naked consumption as seen through most travel magazines, but intimate and alternative experiences. It is this curiosity that is making travelogues increasing popular, along with the fact that most people can't travel to all the places profiled every year.

Horizon Chaser will fulfill this need through content that is not merely advertisement . Issues will feature guest travelers that will write of journeys they know better than any experts, as well as features by locals. I also hope to offer reader features (coordinated through the website) that will provide an element of interactivity. Staff members will inform readers about new kinds of travel- such as green or humanitarian- besides setting out how an non-professional can get an authentic and meaningful (and safe) experience in any time frame or at any budget level.

Competition: National Geographic Traveler, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, Travel + Leisure, Sunset, Conde Nast Traveler

Potential Advertisers: airlines (ex. United, Virgin), trains, traveler's cards (ex. American Express), gear, cameras (ex. Canon), language programs (ex. Rosetta Stone)

Cover: Title at top in orange, photo of market in Turkey
Articles advertised on cover: guest feature from a long-term traveler in Turkey & locals weigh in, "Top Alternative Travel Options You've Never Heard Of", profile on bicycle touring, and as an inaugaral issue mission statement to the reader in the "Letter from the Editor" on the first page

3. Books

"Most" or "Best" lists are often inherently at least partially subjective with their dearth of empirical criteria, which doesn't impede their popularity in any way. Who doesn't love a good list to chew over and debate? We looked a few "Most Influential Books" lists in class, and here's three reads I chose that were personally influential:

1. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks: Sacks, a neurologist, describes special case studies he's encountered in years of practice. I was already interested in psychology, but Sacks really made me think anew about how I interact and perceive in the world. There's the senses I use so much I take them for granted-- like the proprioception (body-sense), the loss of which renders patient Christina mentally detached from her body and able to control what her hands are doing only through sight. Or abilities I didn't even notice I was missing, purposefully blocked in our human development-- like Stephen until he unlocks the world of the 'dog', discovering attention to all the variety of smells in the world.

And as complex and inherent the pieces, still Sacks showed me how adaptable and strange is the whole of cognition with both curiosity and respect towards his patients. In the titular case study, a music professor called Dr. P has visual agnosia so acute he describes a held object as "a convoluted red form with a linear attachment", unable to identify it. But when he smells it unveils itself as a beautiful rose immediately and he begins "to hum [Schumann's] 'Die Rose, die Lillie...' ".*

2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon: I didn't always have the most harmonious home environment growing up, but one of the later positive shared experiences I remember with my family was reading this novel. I read it and my mother quickly borrowed it from me and then insisted my dad and my brother read it in quick succession. (To this day, I've never seen my mother otherwise finish reading a book.) Curious Incident's Christopher is an autistic teen boy who counts by prime numbers, speaks to no one on days he sees three yellow cars in a row, and decides to solve a murder mystery. Not exactly the most relatable protagonist. But it is actually Christopher's alienation from understanding other people and recognizing some of his thoughts for our own that is so broadly winning... and encourages human empathy.

3. Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings: Poetry is dead, right? I thought so, but E.E. Cummings was the first poet that really changed my mind by saying more and more clearly about his experience using poetic "trickery" than using straightforward prose"- and with fewer words (here only four):

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)one
l

iness

And his philosophy that emerges from his loud sunsets and flirtatious springs is one that I can really take to heart--one of experiencing and being rather than looking for validations or intellectualizing: "for life's not a paragraph/ And death i think is no parenthesis".

*When I went to Germany, guess what I found a college student's required reading!

2. Media Impact

I found George Gerbner and associates' ideas of cultivation theory very interesting. His research found that people who frequently watched television overestimated the amount of violence there was in the world. I'd like to try this concept of cultivation theory on another frequent complaint of television, that it under-represents and stereotypes minorities.

To test this would require a random sampling of participants, surveyed on how much television they watched. Then they could be tested by asking them to estimate the percentages of minorities constituted the population at the local, state, and country level. I suspect that while their estimations at the local level would not be thrown off by the relative "whiteness" of television at the local levels, at the country level heavier television watchers would tend toward underestimating the relative abundance of minorities.

1. Media Autobiography

Mass media: It’s on your TV, on your phone, on your porch, on your computer screen, on your shelves. It’s traveling through the air and under the ground. I’m as “plugged” in as anybody, so it’s a little strange to turn back the clock.

Recordings were probably my first exposure to mass media. My parents bought me lots of cassette tapes with children’s songs and stories. Some of those I actually found still in the family possession while doing some spring cleaning! There was also a brief period in my life when I greatly imitated the singing of Vietnamese pop stars on Paris by Night, a traveling music concert show, from their CDs and concert VHS tapes. Nowadays I occasionally listen to CDs, but mostly when I get a hankering for music I turn on the radio to the local alternative rock station. This mostly amounts to when I’m driving, which isn’t really much time at all. As of late, I’ve been trying to educate myself by listening to some NPR, because I find their interviews available online to be a good resource for research. But it’s not really the kind of listening that makes sense in five minute segments, so I don’t think this will become a habit of mine.

From my early childhood, I also know for a fact I watched VHS tapes of Disney movies (especially The Little Mermaid) very frequently, as well as movie classics such as the Star Wars trilogy. VHS is also how I got my first exposure to television, our antenna television having terrible reception. I owned tapes of Barney and other children’s programs, but I also spent a much more significant time watching rented tapes of Chinese serialized television dramas with my grandmother.

Other than a brief flirtation with becoming a film major that lasted through around 1934 of my History of Film class, I’ve never been particularly interested in movies. I like going to the movies as a social activity on occasion with my friends and would never turn down, for example, seeing Casablanca at the gorgeous Stanford Theatre, but as a medium, I don’t particularly care for its storytelling abilities.

As for broadcast television, the first TV show I watched actively was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nowadays, I don’t watch as much television as I once did, looking up schedules to budget my time more wisely. I do however, follow the shows I enjoy very closely and discuss it frequently on the internet via forums and blogs and other sites that connect fans. The internet also makes it easy for me to watch older television shows for the first time, as well as foreign shows on occasion (mostly British shows, but also sometimes Korean dramas or Japanese animation). I'm drawn to shows with a humanist perspective and in particular with strong female characters (the eponymous Buffy and Samsoon, Donna Noble of Doctor Who, Leslie of Parks and Recreation are a few examples that come immediately to mind).

I started loving to read books at around fifth grade and even then started skipping recesses to hide among the bookshelves. I frequently read novels through middle school classes. Now I still read probably one book a week, mostly fiction because after all the reading for classes I do the last thing I want to do is absorb more facts! While books are still important to me, I also have many more entertainment opportunities and the less immediate conversation opportunities. I currently write book reviews on a book networking site (see my right-hand widget), which I feel forces me to more thoughtfully consider my reading.

I read the newspaper with my dad growing up, but have for the most part switched over to reading online versions of newspapers for the convenience. They even have the crossword online and it saves having to deal with the inevitable newspaper buildup in my living space if I am lax even one day. I have never been particularly interested in magazines. Although I rifle through them at the shopping check-out line, I rarely ever buy them. I do love (and subscribe to) National Geographic Magazine and follow a couple of columns from the online sites of Entertainment Weekly and other magazines.

All this speaks to the convergence of course, in how much I use the internet! I’m online at least two hours a day. Besides conducting school business such as communicating with professors and doing homework (such as this assignment), I’m also contacting my friends casually through instant messenger or checking the news or reading fanfiction. I also blogged frequently in high school and still participate in several discussion forums. I remember in elementary school, in the early days of widespread internet usage, when a classmate shared a site with a real-time world population counter (at that time the world population was at the cusp of six billion). How amazed we all were, and now those same classmates of mine probably can’t go an hour without updating their Facebook pages!