Week9: Cinema and television

"Whenever we try to make sense of information visually, we firstly see the similarities and the differences. These relationships permit us to not only identify objects but also to give them meaning. As soon as we have an understanding of the relationship between elements, we can stitch together the whole story and understand what we are seeing ."(Wroblewski 2003) Therefore, when we analyze the cinema and televison, it’s very important for us to understand the cultural literacy in it. Phil Wood and Charles Landry note that cultural literacy "creates the possibility to take apparently familiar issue or discipline and to look at it afresh through an intercultural lens."(Phil Wood and Charles Landry,2008, 245)However, failure to understand the cultural literacy in the film may lead to our misunderstanding of the concepts and the meanings of the films.

Look at the discourse of the film “Gua Sha Treatment”. This film shows exactly the cultural literacy between the Chinese and Americans. Gua Sha Treatment is one of the ideologies in the film. It’s a famous Chinese traditional treatment. The medicist use a hard thing to scrape the patient’s back, chest of neck in order to drive the “sha” away for his body. It’s effective but it may leave some red petechiae. Guasha treatment is common among Chinese and it’s acceptable in China. However, it’s little known by the westerners. Westerners are familiar with the discourse of “Gua Sha” at all and of course, they don’t know how to negotiate and deal with it. In this film, the westerns know nothing about this Chinese traditional treatment so they think the father has abused his son and decide to sue him. What the director tries to draw our attention to is the cultural difference, values and cultural conflict between China and America.As an audience, if you don't have familiarity with Chinese culture, you will find it hard to have the resonance with the Chinese father. Further more, it’s also difficult for you to grasp the central meaning of this film.

To conclude, when we analyze a film, we have to understanding its culture literacy which can make us understand the meanings of the films thoroughly.


References:
1.Wroblewski, L. (2003). Visible narratives: Understanding Visual Organization.Available. Retrieved October 24 from http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/visible_narratives_understanding_visual_organization.php
2.Wood,P.,Landry,C.(2008).The Intercultural city: Planning for Diversity Advantage.UK:Cromwell Press.pp.245

week8:Photography: reconceptualising culture, memory and space

Photography is a fascinating thing. Being a photographer is even more fascinating. Although everyone has its own perception to every photograph, “The photographer has the power to sway viewer with pictures of people or situations taken out of context.”(Lou Jacobs Jr. 1979:131). Since photographers have the power to sway views' perception, they also have obligation to deliver certain messages to the viewers in the photographs.  They can use the photographs as a cultural critique, or "bring social or political issues to the attention of the viewers".(Terence Wright,1999,136) Moreover, photographers have obligation to concentrate the issues that are always overlooked by people.


Here is the photo I took in 2009 Chinese New Year Festival in China. I’m not sure whether I’m a good photographer but I hope that you can have the similar perception as mine.

Do you know what New Year Festival means to a Chinese? New Year festival is to Chinese what Hari Raya is to Malay. New Year Festival is the most important festival in the year and family members gather together to celebrating the upcoming New Year. But this old man, has to collect the scraps for miserable money. Where is his family? No one knows and no one cares. The reason why I choose this photograph is that it show strong social critique, which can be stated as follow.

This photograph can be analyzed through the semiotic approach, which we have already learned before.

Sign: an old man is collecting the scraps

Denotation: an old ,poor man who is wearing threadbare clothes is collecting scraps and looks lonely.

Connotation: Poverty, Minor group ignorance, wealth gap in China

Maybe this phenomenon is not familiar to you, but it’s quite familiar to me. Old men collecting scraps is common in China. This old man is merely, one of the minority group of the society. He represents the group of people who live under the poverty line in China. China is becoming more and more powerful, but at the meantime the gap between the rich and the poor is wider and wider. The government keeps repeating their plan of narrowing the gap. But the truth is, it never works. Minority group is always overlooked. I hope that this photographer can arouse people's awareness of helping those who are suffering. What's more, I hope that Chinese government can stop talking the nonsense and take proper action to help these miserable people.

References:

1.Lous Jacobs Jr.( 1979). Expressing Photography. California. Goodyear Publishing Company. Pp.131
2.Wright,T.(1999). Photography Handbook.London, Routlege, Retrieve Octocber 20 from http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.ubd.edu.bn/lib/ubdlib/docDetail.action?docID=10054800&p00=semiotics%20photography

week7: Visual Narrative and the Media

Narrative is popularly used in various media now and the use of narrative in advertisement is very common now. The advertiser carefully edits the storyline in order to shape the meaning of the advertisement. According to Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, narrative can help to “invite the re-thinking of the concept, term, or method” and may bring “unsettling effect”. Therefore, when we see a narrative advertisement, it may lead to our re-thinking of certain concept in order to achieve the advertiser’s advertising purpose. By analyzing the narrative in advertisement, we can know how the narrative affect the way we think and successfully persuade the audience to buy the product.

Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s (1981, 228) definition of narrative is very simple and easy to understand: “Someone telling someone else that something happened”. Here is the video I found in youtube. It's a very creative video and gives me a lot of inspiration about the visual narrative. Briefly speaking, the video shows that the “wind”man tells the audience that how he finally be accepted by someone. To give a further analysis of this video, I’ll analyze it in paradigm and syntagm.

Paradigm:

       Genre: Commercial

       Character: The "wind "man. He is the speaking subject and the subject of the speech.

       Discourse: social-identification, Energy Company

Syntagm:

Syntagm means storylines here. In this ad, the wind is personified as a man. The ad tells us how people are annoyed at the "wind" man. Thus, the “wind” man gets upset about that because he doesn’t know why. And finally, a man accepts him and invites “wind” man to see next to him.

In the first 1min20s, I feel pity for this man. He sounds pathetic and looks lonely and sad. But afterwards, there is a point that re-constructs my thinking. A man is willing to be his friend and I see the smile on the “wind” man’s face. He feels that he is finally accepted by someone and not that lonely anymore. Actually, the “wind” man is the representation of the EPURON, an energy company. Every coin has two sides. Wind can have harmful effect to human but, if it is used properly, it can also bring us benefit. What the advertisement try to tell us is that we everyone has its own potentials. The advertisement appeals the audience to trust their company so that it can develop its potential and do something good for people.

Robert Scholes mentions that video “excel all other narrative media in its rendition of material objects and the actions of creatures, is the closest to actuality, to undifferentiated thoughtless experience.” Therefore, the success of this TV commercial lies in its detailed narratives, which makes the audience feel the sincerity of EPURON. What’s more, the paradigms and syntagms construct a touching stories and arouse the audience’s thinking and identification.

References:

1.      Smith, Barbara Herrnstein 1981. Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories. In W. J. T. Mitchell (ed.),On Narrative. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

2.      Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan 2006. The concept of Narrative. In Matti Hyvärinen, Anu Korhonen & Juri Mykkänen (eds.). Studies across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences 1.Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. 10–19.

3.      Robert Scholes.1982.Semiotics and Interpretation. New Haven and Lonon: Yale University Press. Pp.57