Rough inroduction and thesis for Essay 1

People who design advertisements aim to target specific audiences.  They do this through making assumptions about the characteristics of their target audience and using those assumed characteristics to create ads to best manipulate the target the consumers.  For example, so is the case in the styles of the distinct fragrance advertisements found in a US Weekly magazine and a Southern Living magazine. 

The perfume and cologne ad appearing in US Weekly shows a close up of an ultra-sexy man and woman lying together.  It greatly contrast the Southern Living perfume ad which shows a full length photo of a glammed up, dazzled woman with a night city skyline in the background.  The styles and subliminal messages presented in each of the ads suggest that the US Weekly advertisement is aimed toward a younger, more liberal audience interested in sex and lust, while the Southern Living advertisement is aimed toward a middle-aged, conservative audience longing for a temporary escape from their mundane lives.

(To be continued)

Ad Free Write- A Look at the Audience

What is the journal or newspaper that featured the ad?

Advertisement 1 was in US Weekly.  Ad 2 was in Southern Living. 

What are the typical topics covered?

US Weekly mostly covers celebrity gossip.  Southern Living features recipies, health and family topics, and home ideas.

What are the demographics of its prospective audience?

US Weekly is read mostly by young adults, male and female.

Southern Living is read mostly by middle-age to elderly women, most of which are southern house wives. 

What other products/services are usually advertised there?

US Weekly advertises things like TV shows, make up, and cars.  Southern Living advertises things like medicines, skin health care products, and insurance. 

Based on the answers to the questions above, what does the publisher assume about the values of its readers?

The publisher assumes the US Weekly readers value pop culture, and beauty/ appearances.  Readers of Southern Living are assumed to value health and family. 

Comparing Fragrance Ads: Essay 1 Free Write

SWA #4 - ESSAY 1 WORKSHEET.

What kind of ads are you analyzing (cigarettes, clothing, music, etc)? What publications are they from?

I am analyzing two fragrance ads.  One is from an issue of US Weekly.  The other is from Southern Living. 

1.     Describe the audiences of the publications in which you found the ads. Ask yourself who reads these magazines or newspapers.

The audience of US Weekly is younger men and women interested in keeping up with popular trends and gossip.  They most likely hold liberal views of the world; the immodestly of the magazine does not faze them. 

The audience of Southern Living is intended to be middle-age to elderly southern belles aiming to keep their homes in top shape, health nice, and taste buds happy.  The audience is most likely conservative and modest, and set in southern ways.  Readers have probably spent most of their lives in the south.

2.     Describe (don’t analyze) your ads in detail. Look closely at every aspect of the ads: images, text, models, props, color, lighting, etc. You can describe your ad in a paragraph or as a bulleted list of details, whichever you choose.

US Weekly ad:

§  Young man and woman

§  2 bottles of fragrance- men’s: black and tall; woman’s: gold and squared

§  Green eyes; intense stare

§  Modern, darker makeup

§  Tattoo

§  Scruffy face

§  Hands on faces

§  Close up

§  Laying down

Southern Living ad:

§  Bright, night city background

§  Red door in front of city

§  Red door shaped bottle

§  Silver, metallic dress- bejeweled top; pleated bottom

§  Early middle ages woman

§  Slightly windblown hair

§  Mid-step

§  Peek toe heals

§  Touches of red in city lights

§  Standing on platform

§  Full body length shot

3.     What made you choose these two? What stands out as strikingly different? Can you state briefly in which values/stereotypes the ads are grounded?

I chose these two ads because they each were geared to distinct audiences. The zoom onto the people/s in each of the ads is what is strikingly different.  The values portrayed by the US Weekly image are of lust and sex.  The Stereotype presented in the Southern Living ad is a desire for southern women to break from the south- as if they are being trapped here. 

Other notes:

Southern Living: October 2011

·        Red door= adventure, out of south, glamour (desires of the older, southern-born audience stuck in mundane scene they have always been in)

·        City in the background: escape from the south

·        Early middle age woman: good choice for the audience; shows the fragrance in mature and sophisticated, but still young/ fresh

·        Name of product: Elizabeth Arden Red Door- “door”; door of opportunity- new routine; “red”- bright, adventurous, a small touch of sexy

Other notes:

US Weekly: November 21, 2011

·        Intertwined couple= passion, sex, lust (desires of younger, modern, liberal audience)

·        Young man and woman: fragrance for men and women who are still young and wild

·        Ultra-sexy

·        Name of product: Gucci Guilty Intense- “guilty”; associated with “wronge” implications of sex/ lust; “intense”; the intensity of passion (subtle message: this product make your love life more steamy)

Extensive Life Support and Care for the Elderly

Social issues are all around us.  Two of these are the question of the naturalness of extensive life support and the neglect of elderly.  Both deal with the matter of valuing life, and how this can best be expressed. 

Figure 1.5 in Writing Arguments is a political cartoon.  The cartoon says “Physician-assisted suicide is just not natural”, but observers pick up on the irony presented in the cartoon by the vegetable of a man on life support.  This has the effect of making views question the morality of extensive life support. As the TV in the scenes shows, assisted suicide is not natural, but neither is assisted living through extreme, extensive life support. 

The type of life support condemned in the carton is that in which a person has no hope for recovery to a functional life and the person is in a vegetable state.  The only things between life and death for that person are machines, but often it is debated between the patient’s family and the medical team at hand whether or not to “pull the plug”.   As the cartoon points out, in our society, it is deemed wrong for doctors to assist someone in suicide, yet encouraging pulling the plug ends in the same thing.  The cartoon seems to ask, “How can one be accepted when the other is not?”

The motive behind both actions are trying to do what is “best” for the person, be they in a vegetable state or being tutored by lack of will to live.  The issue that becomes the point of argument however is different persons’ ideas of what is “best” for another person’s life. 

A second social issue is brought up in the article “What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For?” in The Carolina Reader covers the issue of isolation of the elderly.  The article gives an example of elderly isolation, stating that “…14,000 elderly parents and grandparents were left to perish…” when a heat wave hit France.  This example allows the audience to grasp the criticalness of the issue that is often swept under the carpet. 

Elderly in today’s society are often stuffed into nursing homes when their families are unable or unwilling to care for them any longer.  Once the man or woman is in the home, visiting the patient can easily slip out of relatives’ routine.  The elderly in homes begin to suffer from isolation in the facilities.  This isolation is added to by the fact that many of these nursing homes are understaffed. Not only are the elderlies’ families not making time for them, the paid caretakers of the home are unable to provide much companionship either. 

While the issue of extensive life support often comes down to a matter of opinion of what is “best” for the person that may never be resolved, the issue of care for the elderly can be fixed.  A fresh idea and change of attitude toward elderly is needed. 

SWA 2: "Get Smart" Responce

Hope Stewart

"Get Smart" Responce

Jamais Cascio’s argumentave essay, “Get Smarter”, points out that the next obvious step is for humans to further develop and polish already existing technology and pharmacology to raise human intelligence.  His argument seems stronger and better structured than the one presented in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, by Nicholas Carr. 

Cascio argues that “Google isn’t the problem; it’s the beginning of the solution.”  His point about how companies like Google are adapting to fit more with what users are specifically searching for made me think of Siri on the newest version of the iPhone.  Just as Cascio says, new technologies such as these often start out crude, but as consumers play with the new tools more and more, the company can pick up on changes that need to be made for the next version of the product.  My sister, with a thick southern accent, has trouble getting Siri to understand what she is asking her phone to do.  However, through her rejection of Siri’s suggestions, Apple learns there is a restriction with their technology, and therefore can know what to address when creating the next version. 

Where as Cascio seems to support the insight companies gain from consumers, Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” seemed to fear this voluntary insight.  Casco addresses many other similar fears people discussing a rise in technology and pharmacology may hold onto.  One of these issues was the question of safety involving drugs used for focus.  I was repelled by Cascio’s idea that even if drug use for focus is wrong or dangerous, we cannot fight it.  I found his paragraphs on focus-enhancing drugs extremely interesting, because during finals week, many of my friends chose to take a variety of ADD medicine to gain an edge as they studied.  I stayed away from the medication, but Cascio managed to make some very strong points in his essay about how in a decade or so this type of medication could be simple over-the-counter drugs and those not indulging in them could easily fall behind their peers.

The essay, “Get Smarter” makes many great arguments, but left me with many questions about the effect of slipping morals technology and pharmacology may result in.  The controversy between the two opposing essays gives me many factors to consider concerning the debate on technology, but I have not yet decided if advances yield more benefits or problems.