The concept of representation and of how information is produced and submitted appealingly to an audience is essential to any written, visual or verbal text. Iconic, symbolic and indexical forms of representation when combined with preconceived ideas of particular subject matter assist in the forming of either negative or positive reactions with regards to a text. This paper examines the attached text and provides a critical reading of the strategies used to promote the ideas raised in the text and why such ideas are relevant. Issues raised include the premise of autonomous thought and the influence of technology as a form of human conditioning. The way in which the text uses both visual and verbal signs coupled with stereotypes commonly associated with the area of philosophy to promote these issues will also be analysed.
Any one text can provide its reader with a multitude of signs that need to be interpreted in order for the text's meaning to be fully understood. Quite often texts hold several meanings and each individual reading will take away with it a totally independent reading, unless there has been collaboration with others during interpretation. It is this point that makes the relationship between images and words so powerful. A group of people faced with the exact same formation of both words and images will invariably come away from a reading with slightly conflicting opinions on what was being presented. The central concept conveyed by the text remains fixed but due to different levels of intellect, social conditioning and ideological positions, altered interpretations will be apparent. John Sinclair in his book "Advertising in Cultural Theory" that this situation is unavoidable:
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...gy. It simply states that everything has its place and that thought is not a field that technology should dominate. It does however in its imagery, give recognition to the huge impact that technology has on our lives a fact that whether it be intended or not is not lost in the reading of this text.
In conclusion, the text succeeds in its attempt to promote the image of Philosophy. Socially dominant perceptions relating to Philosophy are used to great effect through both symbolic and iconic representation to engage the reader in the text. Politically the text explores the question of technology's influence on human thought and both words and images form a relationship that allows for a powerful and insightful reading of the text. Multiple interpretations are made possible through this relationship yet it does not detract from the central meaning of the piece.
...istful portrayal of our affaire de cœur with technology and its larger socio-cultural insinuation is hard to miss. This is especially relevant to our current societal trajectory where the hand of technology is omnipresent. In this not so distant future portrayal of the world, the boundaries between man and technology have been erased, and the concept of privacy is defunct. It is a world where humans are more connected and in sync with their gizmos than fellow humans. Emotions are no longer defined as an instinctive, intuitive feeling, but a commodity that has been monetized by reducing it to binary code and installed in artificially intelligent operating systems. If this is the future powered by man’s technological genius, then it should give us all pause and make us think twice before we decide to distract ourselves with gadgets in the face of human interaction.
“But technology plays a supporting rather than initiating role. It is the tool of a philosophical and economic vision” (Posner).
Since the industrial revolution, communications technology has improved at an alarming rate. From the invention of the printing press to the rapidly expanding internet, it becomes easier to communicate with others every day. One downfall of this revolution is that it is much more difficult to keep confidential papers documents secure. In such a volatile environment a document can be stolen, scanned, and sent to the rest of the world within a span of five minutes. Once a person gets a hold of this information they can read it if it is in their own language or get it translated if it is in a foreign language. If a picture, symbol, or badge, is exploited in the same manner through the internet, it will not have such a crippling effect. Although viewers will be able to see the illustration, they will only derive from it whatever values or characteristics they associate the symbols with. However, the people who are affiliated with the image derive more important facts from it. They might associate the illustration with historical meaning, personal stories, or how the image was created. Literate means of communication are imply universal understanding while symbols have the ability to convey different levels of meaning and comprehension to different groups of viewers. This dichotomy creates different niches for literate and visual means of communication to be used in. If material is meant to be understood universally and to convey the same meaning to all viewers than literate means of communication should be employed. If certain details are to be communicated to a select group of individuals, then symbols are a more effective way of ensuring secrecy. Symbols indicate the need for communication and yet conceal the details and innermost aspects of its contents (Religious).
Numerous intellectuals have debated on the effects that typography has on the mind. An example of two such intellectuals are Walter Ong and Neil Postman. In Walter Ong’s “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought” he describes the difference between oral and typographic cultures and the resulting effects each had on the mind while in Chapter 4 of Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” similarly focuses on how typography has molded the way that we think, which has become very structured and writing-like, and how that effects public discourse. Overall, both their pieces serve to demonstrate how typography arrogates itself into our lives and is forever embedded in our conscious and unconscious mind, which illuminates how technology is
The first party crasher, "readability," probably makes its presence felt in all of our venues at least occasionally, but it haunts our work all the time. At the simplest and most practical level, readability is a hermeneutic problem. But it is a special problem of interpretation, not just the "same old" questions that come up in any work involving the production of signs and meaning. We try very hard to reduce the special problem to the same old problems, as evidenced by terms like visual, media, and computer "literacy." The question is this: What makes us so confident that our "readings" of visual signs are legitimate or defensible? Okay, that does sound a whole lot like the "same old" hermeneutic questions, but I don't believe it is the same in the case of visual rhetoric as in spoken or written discourse. Or at least, it doesn't seem the same, given the degree of skepticism registered by readers and students about interpretations of visual signs. Leaving aside for a moment the possibility that my interpretations just aren't very good and that that's what's provoking this response, our own colleagues and my students seem to pose far more and greater challenges to such interpretations than they do to those of a speech or a written document. For them, apparently, even in the wake of deconstruction, natural language seems safer, easier, and more stable in its capacity of meaning generation than does the visual image. I wonder why that is the case, and particularly so in a culture in which "seeing is believing" and a "picture is worth a thousand words."
The truth of the matter is people today honestly couldn’t live without technology. Think about not being able to snapchat your friend when you’re at the beach or not being able to share a post on Instagram about your best friend or even not being able to message your aunt on Facebook about vacation. To many people today, these things are simply unrealistic. This doesn’t necessarily mean technology is a bad thing, in fact technology is an amazing advancement. On page 12 paragraph 6 it says “The great thing about these platforms is that they allow us to participate in each other’s lives moments big and
The battle for superiority and dominance between words and images is long and on-going. Both can be found everywhere, mostly in books, magazines, television, paintings, and movies. However, in more recent years, the dominance of images over words can be seen. In a world where better, faster, and easier communication is necessary, images are a far better option than words. Mitchell Stephens in “By Means of the Visible: A Picture’s Worth,” Ward Churchill in “Crimes Against Humanity,” and the director of Within These Walls, Mike Robe, concur that images such as gestures, symbols, and pictures have a widespread and profound influence. In truth, “painting is much more eloquent than speech, and often penetrates more deeply into one’s heart” (Stephens 473). Thus, images are more powerful than words because they communicate more clearly and concisely, cater for a wider and more diverse audience, and connect with people on a deeper level.
Elliot Eisner, in his book Cognition and Curriculum Reconsidered, talks about forms of representation. He defines forms of representation as “the devices that humans use to make public conceptions that are privately held.” (Eisner, p. 39) He says that these can take multiple forms ranging from oral speech to music to images. Eisner gives the example of a painter who comes across a small mid-west town. Eisner suggests that if the painter were to want to express his private conceptions about the town to the public, he would most likely do so through the form of a painting. This is important because how a person expresses their selves is founded in their own personal literacy. What if the painter was asked to tell someone about the town and he was not allowed to use painting as a form of representation? How would the painter then be able to do so to the best of his ability? What this proves is that multiple forms of representation are needed because every person is different in their literary preferences. Indeed, Eisner states that to be refrained from using a form of representation “would eventually not only limit expression, but put the brakes on conception as well.
...a person either looks at thing from only one view point (Example: only seeing details), or when he or she looks at them in terms of a specific scientific study or philosophy. The idols of the marketplace apply in terms of the language that is used to communicate (Chambers and Dahl). One example is the slang that people from different places use to refer to numerous concept, such as using the term “sweet” to refer to something that is amazing or brilliant. The idols of the theater apply in terms of transferring knowledge to others (Chambers and Dahl). More specifically, these idols apply to the way knowledge is presented, whether it is through a live presentation, or a video.
In summary, both the article and the novel critique the public’s reliance on technology. This topic is relevant today because Feed because it may be how frightening the future society may look like.
This essay is based on Marshall McLuhan (1967) theory, which states that the medium is the message. McLuhan states that the form of a message determines the ways in which that message will be perceived.
In clarifying the spread of thoughts and practices in the general public, Gladwell depends on three key standards molding the transmission of the thoughts The Power of Context, the Law of the Few and the Stickiness Factor (Gladwell 298). The Power of Context hypothesis underlines the part of nature and its effect on the subliminal choices and practices of people.
A vital aspect of interpersonal communication is the style in which one listens. While every individual possesses their own preferred method of listening in communication, it can be enlightening to analyze our own strengths and weaknesses so as to maximize effectual communication. Within the confines of four main listening style categories, I have chosen those which best describe my own personal listening style.
In interpersonal communication there are many theories that are similar yet different in many ways. The theories can be combined to describe people and how those people interact and communicate with each other. Many of these theories help explain how people in society form impressions of others, how they maintain these impressions, why people interact with certain people in society, and how people will use these impressions that they have formed later on in life. These theories also help people to better understand themselves, to better understand interpersonal communication, and to better understand people in general. There are two theories in interpersonal communication that, despite their differences, can go hand in hand. The first is interaction adaptation theory and the second is emotional contagion theory. These two theories’ similarities and differences and their relevance to my everyday life will be discussed in this paper. These two theories are very important in understanding how people interact with others and why people do the things they do sometimes.
Communication is essential to human life. Every aspect of our daily lives is affected by our communication with others. It can be different types such as verbal, nonverbal and written communication. It is indeed a complex process filled with countless elements, all of which play an important role. The process of communication between human beings has been studied and analyzed outwardly since the beginning of time. The term itself cannot be defined in only one particular way because communication exists in a certain context and is dependable on the communicator and the audience. Example of describing communication is as “the transmission of information, ideas, attitudes or emotions from one person or group to another (or others) primarily through symbols” and “social interaction through messages” (McQuail, 1993). Furthermore, Watson and Hill describe the process of communication as “one which begins when a message is thought up by a sender, who then encodes the message before transmitting it through a particular channel to a receiver, who in turn decodes the message with a certain effect as an outcome” (Price, 1998).The complexity of the whole process is seen through the use of verbal and nonverbal communication on a daily basis, as well as the ability to interact with other human beings on multiple levels, mentally and emotionally. We begin communicating the moment we come out of the womb and do not stop communicating until death. This essay will try to compare and contrast two different communication contexts- interpersonal and mass communication, by using relevant communication models.