WEEK 4 - "Visual Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics: Adorableness in a picture"

I remember back when I was still a hyper, surging-with-hormones 14-year-old girl where zit was a matter of life-and-death and marrying one of the drop-dead gorgeous from a boyband was a life-mission, messaging through Friendster was a craze. We’d scribble snazzy messages on each other’s comment’s boxes. Leaving messages with any attached cute, bizarre, animated picture would give you bonus points and regarded as “socially active and creative” commenter, in the world of us gossiping-giggling-girls.

Looking back, I wonder what sparked our interest in choosing certain images and not the other.

This week we uncovered the knowledge of how and why our eyes seem to focus on a particular part of an image; and we also covered some basic grounds of the rules of visual syntax – how, by following the rules of visual colours, syntactic rules of lines and rules of composition may create a pleasing sight, and defying them may lead to the production of an uncomfortable sight.
This may be why a particular picture stands out from the rest: satisfying the rules qualifies them to stand out.

Now, a particular Friendster-comment image that has always been a favourite of mine over the years is the image of a very cute teddy bear by an empty, white flower pot.



Having the newly-found knowledge on eyes-fixation and visual syntax rules, I think it’s just about time to find out why this particular picture interests me so much than the rest. What are the rules that are obeyed (or disobeyed) that make this image seems like a comfy to me?

Eyes-movement & Eyes-fixation:
Now, when we’re looking at this image our eyes will move in the following direction:


In a split millisecond our eyes will land first onto the changing, blinking words and scribbled lines, before wandering around the teddy bear and finally settling down to the white almost-blending-in-with-the-background empty, white flower pot, and back to the blinking words and scribbled lines.

In terms of fixation, our eyes are fixed more on to the blinking words and lines, followed by the teddy bear, and finally the pot before going back to the changing, blinking words and lines.



Why is this so?

Symbols and explanatory words, lettering
Explanatory words, numbers or other symbols, according to Pettersson (1989, p. 259) is important as it facilitates comprehension and learning, and is therefore should be incorporated into the picture as reading aids. These aids, he adds, should not be distracting, large or ugly.

The words satisfy the rule of being not too large and simple - one word is presented at a time, however it defies the rule of being 'not distracting'.

The changing and blinking of the words and scribbled lines is in fact a distraction to the reader. The words and scribbled lines HAVE to be a distraction so that the reader's eyes are attracted to them on first-hand.
The words and scribbled lines are definitely the focus of the visual, but not the subject. This is when our eyes start to wander to the rest of the visual.

Size of subjects
According to Pettersson (1989), “the most important part of the subject must be large and clear, take up a large proportion of the image area and be perceivable as an entirety” (p. 248). He notes that large visual elements draw and appeal reader’s attention more than that of a smaller scale.

The teddy bear, being the subject in this image, appears big enough in the viewer’s eyes and therefore attracts viewer’s interest to it.

However, if we look carefully, the most dominating element in this picture is the whites – the white background and the white flower pot. So, why isn’t our eyes focus first on them instead?

This brings us to our next points of discussion.

Syntactic Rules of Colours:
According to the Third rule of colours as mention by Tufte (1990), “Large area background or base-colours should do their work most quietly, allowing the smaller, bright areas to stand out most vividly if the former are muted, grayish or neutral” (p. 90)

In application to this image: the smaller brown colour, as opposed to the large area of neutral white, is bright and strong colour. When the strong brown colour is put in the surrounding of whites, it appears tantalizing, and is therefore the one that stood out the most. In effect, like an oasis in a dessert, the teddy bear is the next thing that our eyes land on to after the blinking words and scribbled lines.

It has been found out that, as mentioned by Pettersson (1989), "even if colour is not adding any information it is still contributing to better learning because the interest for the picture increases" (p. 251)

Syntactic Rules of composition: Balancing the weight
Pettersson (1989, p. 256) again stresses the importance of balance in any visual because imbalance can spark unpleasant feeling in the reader. Balance, he notes, could be formal with total symmetry – that could create the feeling of static; or informal – that contributes to a feeling of dynamism.

In this image, the whites is more dominating in proportion to the brown, but due to the outstanding performance by the brown as explained previously, the teddy stand out as a foreground image, making the large-proportion of whites as background and balance is therefore achieved.

It is when our eyes start to wander back to the blinking, changing words and scribbled lines:

'YOU'
+
'ARE'
+
'MY'
+
'LOVE'

Together with the outstanding image of the teddy bear, our eyes complete the cycle of fixation and finally ignite the “aww” factor within the readers. Realize something at the last scribbled lines aligning with the word ‘LOVE’? It’s a childish scribble of a heart.

Maybe this is the main reason why I had always found this image as adorable:)

References:
Pettersson, R. (1989) Visuals for Information: Research and Practice. New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications

Tufte, E. R. (1990) Envisioning Information. Cheshire, Connecticut: Graphics Press

WEEK 3 - Semiotics Revisited: "Amazing commercial"

It was probably last year when I stumbled across this particular advertisement while randomly surfing the net for “funny videos”. One thing kind of lead to another, and before I knew it – there I was staring at a 1-minute-plus commercial that broke my heart and ended up weeping.

Now, among the 3 of us sisters in the family, I am the hardest-to-cry and will be the one sniggering in the middle while the other 2 sniff and cry beside me whenever there’s a heart-breaking moment playing up front.
So, what is it really that makes this short, 1-minute ad so powerful that even I, the rough-tough kind of gal when it comes to heart-wrenching scenes, ended up dabbing tissues to my eyes?



The connotations of the video:
Whenever we see a sign, an idea usually forms in our head. This is because sign connotes, or links as well as defines things.

Connotation, according to Branston & Stafford (2003), “may link things by association with broader cultural concepts and values, or with meanings from personal history and experience” (p. 15).

This particular ad connotes a very strong message on huge sacrifices, the powerful bond of a family and, most importantly, the power of love that made it all happen.

But what are the components that help creating those messages?


The signifiers that create the aforementioned connotations:
These components are called “signifiers”.

According to Branston & Stafford (2003), “a sign has physical form” (p.11). This is called “signifier”. It might be anything from a physical form that is written on a paper, or even sounds in the air.

If we tune out the sound (which includes the translation) and just focus on the series of images, we get:
An image of a clock ticking

An image of a worried, desperate woman

An image of nurses and doctor carrying an operation

An image of the woman running off with a bundle

An image of nurses running

An image of a laying, head-bandaged man

An image of a machine showing heartbeat rate

An intermission of images of people on the street

Back to the image of the woman, now with a baby and the comatose man

With the baby’s holding the man’s hand

And tears welling up in the comatose man’s eye

And end with an image of a man talking on a recorded video.

The image of the clock ticking + image of the worried, desperate women + image of the surgery + image of the woman running with the bundle + image of the woman with the baby and the comatose man = all connotes the message of the huge sacrifice made by the woman, just so her child can have one last moment with the dying man.

The image of the laying, head-bandaged man + image of machine showing heartbeat rate + image of baby holding the comatose man’s hand + image of tears in the man’s eye = connotes the powerful bond held between the man and the little child.

The images of people on the street connote the unbothered, carefree and indifferent society of the world.

The final image, even though viewers may not be able to make any sense to as what was being said, but viewers can sense the density of the pre-recorded video, right after the image of the comatose man crying, and viewers may deduce it as the man’s conveyance of love = which connotes the power of love.


The Politics of the discourse that are being represented:
The ad struggles over the meaning of sacrificial in a family bond. It is only accepted that if you love your family, you are supposed to be willing to sacrifice anything for them. However, this isn’t always the case.


The Anchorage to the sign:
Stokes (2003) explains that, “images are polysemic – they have multiple meanings and are open to diverse interpretations” (p.71). This means that meanings of images are neither fixed nor single.
This is true to the series of images above, viewers may subject to different interpretation.

However, Branston & Stafford say that one of the way in which we can attempt control over the always potentially unsettling polysemy or ambiguity of visual images is through the use of captions or commentary (2003, p.18). Semiotics calls this process as “anchoring” – a process which tries to select and therefore control the meanings which could legitimately be made by a reader.

Now, when we finally turn on the sound (i.e. translation included) only with the help of the voiced-over narration by the doctor-actor are we finally able to link all the missing pieces of the story. We now know that the woman is the wife of the dying man, the mother of her new-born child; now we know the man is dying of brain tumor, how he has been holding on for a long time and refuses to give up on life; his final message on how much he loves his unborn child – all of which connote exactly the strong message on what it means to sacrifice for the ones that you loved. This is an example of how “anchoring” works.

However, this is not only the anchorage that occurs in the ad: For someone new, or non-Thais, who watch this ad for the first time they may not know what the logo stands for at the end of the ad.

For all they know, the commercial might be advertising on a family campaign, or might even think that it is a short trailer of an upcoming movie!

This commercial is actually a Thai Life Insurance advertisement.

The particular Insurance Agency at the end of the ad is well-known for making such commercials that can tug viewers’ heartstrings. Their adverts are almost all short-drama forms and are clever enough not to show any data or facts on insurance policy etc., but their message is simple: If you love your family, buy our insurance.

Somewhere around second 32-40, there were images of what seemed to be poor people on the street. When we see that image, together with the voiced-narration, it connotes on how people can be carefree and clueless at the same time, unaware of those who love them, pointlessly living their lives searching for meanings. However if we look from the semiotic analysis point of view, the image of the poor people actually adds to their message: Even if you’re poor, if you love your family, buy our insurance.

Grasping with this newly-found knowledge, looking back, I don’t even know why I had cried. It must have meant one thing: No matter how tough I thought I was when it comes heart-rending scenes, being a girl, I still have a soft spot when it comes to what it means to be a family.

References:
Branston, G. and Stafford, R. (2003) The Media Student’s Book: Meanings and media (pp.11-16) London: Routledge, 3rd Edition.

Stokes, J. (2003). Semiotics. How to do media and cultural studies (pp. 70-75). London: Sage Publications

WEEK 2 - "Seeing and Perceiving: What is Real?"

"How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake and talking to one another in the walking state?" - Plato

This week we learned quite an interesting topic on how we thought what we're seeing as real, but in fact, are just "electric signal sent to the brain", and what we perceive as the "truth".

According to Jamieson (2007), “The light energy reaching the eye is converted into electrical discharges which are transmitted as impulses along the nervous pathways to the brain” (p. 15)


And it does not just apply to our sense of seeing, but also apply to all other four senses of our body: sense of hearing, sense of touch, sense of smell and sense of taste. A scientific research shows that everything we see, hear, smell, touch and taste are in fact, signals sent to the brain and what we perceive as "real".

During the lecture, Dr. Chris showed us a video that had unmistakably slapped us with a shockingly cold truth: So, after this while, all that we thought was real, may not be real after all?
(link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqnEGu8VF8Y&feature=related)

It was one of the few questions that Dr. Chris Woo kept on pondering upon us: how, ladies and gentlemen, do you know what's real?

It was, in fact, a very good question. Well, how do we know what's not Not real? Throughout the lecture, I was actually quite surprised on how easy people digested the "truth" conveyed by Science. What I meant is this:


1. We believe that the world around us is real because of what we see, touch, smell, hear and taste of them.
2. But, science has proven that they are merely signals sent to the brain.
3. Therefore, all that we thought were real may not be real after all.
4. However, if Science has proven that everything that we touch, smell, taste, see and hear may not be real, how did they know what they experimented are real at all?

There is one question in our tutorial work this week: How do we judge whether one person’s perception is more “true” or “false” than the other? Is it even possible? Taking the same root as this question, I applied it to the question imposed to us by Dr. Chris: How do we know what’s real? How do we prove what’s real and what’s not, when everything that we see, smell, touch, taste and hear are “signals” sent to the brain?

(Not that I mind to think that King Ape of All Apes Species little brother of mine is merely a fragment of my messed-up brain)

I thought hard of the question, and after awhile, I had finally decided that: No, there is no way for us to prove something is "real" or "fake". It was probably not even possible. So far, we can only assume what we're seeing and what we are not seeing, as either true or false.

I think this is where "faith" comes in. For all those questions that we can't seem to be having the answers, we have to accept the fact that, there is a much greater power working that is beyond our comprehension. “Faith”, as define by Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, means “firm belief; trust; complete confidence” (p. 364). It may be “nonsense”, or “rubbish” to a non-believer – but, sometimes, life is about taking a leap of faith.

References
Jamieson, H (2007). The perceptual connection. Visual communication: more than meets the eye (pp. 13-27). Bristol: Intellect Books.

Longman dictionary of Contemporary English – New Edition (1988). England: Longman Group UK Limited

Images
All images are courtesy to the following links:
http://www.star.ac.za/graphics/n11lmc_noao.jpg
http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/Library/eyewk-2a.gif

WEEK 1 - Trial: The Discourse, Ideology & Politic of "Family"

(As, what I would like to call, a "fruitful" first attempt in making this blog a success (and not just another-dream-on-the-sidewalk), I will try my best and express what I think on the discourse, ideology and politic of "family", with regards to this week's topic.)

The Discourse of “family”

Watching the US hit animated television series, Family Guy, with my siblings – shooting up with wild remarks, hooting with laughter and constant imitation of Stewie’s contagious sadistic lines, sometimes makes me wonder: what exactly is “family”?

Is it Peter, acting the “head honcho” of the group, that makes a family? Is it Lois – what seemed to be the only sane person among all the insanities that seem to run amok in the family? Or is it simply the presence of Brian the dog that makes the day passing by seem ‘livelier’ than an otherwise mundane day?

What is a “family”?

Is it that man who constantly buggers us to stop eating junk foods, whom I called “dad”? Is it the constant screaming that I had with my sister fighting for the bathroom each morning? Or is it the little brother who’d be my direct victim of The Unimaginable Wrath whenever the chocolate supplies ran dry?

There are many different definitions of “family”. An online reference dictionary, Dictionary.com, define “family” as "a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not".

The Ideology of “family”

Sturken and Cartwright (2009) defined Ideologies as "systems of belief that exist within all cultures" (p.22-23)

So, what belief does a “family” brings?

According to Holtzman (2005) cultural conceptions of the family have traditionally been "associated with two married parents and their biological children" (p. 168). This matches with the definition of “family” as mentioned previously.

So, what does a"family" share in common? Surnames? Favourite foods? Favourite teams? Maybe.

But, what is obvious is this: Family is consequential and responsible for modeling communication, reinforcing behavior, sharing values and a confluence of images of what constitutes a family (Edwards&Graham, 2009, p. 191). There are certain ways in which you hug, a little peek on the cheek, a family that you just don't do the same outside the circle. The ways in which you scream at each other, and barely remember it the next day, the things that you only talk to them and not anyone else, the way they seem to be the only right reason when everything else went wrong, and the list goes on.

Family is the first thing every human had in the whole world, regardless if they are poor, rich, if they are Asian or Western. Family is where everything starts: where you first learned to love the person who taught you your first word, your first walk; where you first learned to get angry when you cannot have your cone of ice-cream; where you first learned how to forgive afterward when they kiss you on the cheek; where you first learned how to share with your siblings the chocolate bar that you received; where you first learned how to stand up after you fall; you learned how to believe in yourself; you learned to believe in someone else; you learned religion; and again - the list goes on.

In this sense,the ideology that a "family" brings include: sense of belonging, the sense of unity, sense of loving; sense of integrity, sense of forgiveness, sense of faith.

But, is this always the case? What happen to those who grew up in an seemingly "harsh" environment? Family living in the streets with crimes happening like they are part of their lives? A "breaking" family due to parental issues?

All these questions raise the final point: the politic of family.

The Politic of "family"

Politic, as mentioned by Dr. Chris during the lecture, means "the struggle over meaning".

All this while I mentioned how "family" seem to be bringing the ideology of a "warm, loving" environment. A "breaking" family raises the issue of unity, sense of belonging and loving. It struggles over the meaning of these components. When a "family" is "breaking down" such as parents filing a divorce, do the unity still remains? Are the rest of the family members feel they still belong to one another?

References:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/family

Edwards, P. A. & Graham, E. E. (2009). The Relationship Between Individuals’ Definitions of Family and Implicit Personal Theories of Communication. Journal of Family Communication, 9: 191–208.

Holtzman, M. (2008). Defining Family: Young Adults’ Perceptions of the Parent-Child Bond. Journal of Family Communication, 8: 167–185.


Images:
http://pauljlane.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/16163.jpg
http://handsonblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/FamilyStudies.jpg

Note: As this is a trial,and my first attempt, I am sorry that most of my reference are from the unscholarly source.

Acknowledgement

This blog is part of our AC-2202 Analyzing Visual Communication assessment, under the lead of our charismatic, uncensored, left-ear-pierced lecturer, Dr. Chris Woo. I had never done a blog before, and seeing this as my first time dealing with the whole blog business, I feel obliged to give an advance warning: the end-product may have a tragic ending and looked something out of a Frankenstein movie (fingers cross).

With this, I would like to thank Dr. Chris Woo for giving me the opportunity to finally start my first blog. I hope this blog will be an exciting journey, and not just another this-will-all-end-in-tears.