The Persuaders Assignment

1. In Douglas Rushkoff's documentary film, "The Persuaders" I was suprised by two things while watching the film. The first one, that suprised me was that people had feelings when they thought about specific products, like bread or coffee. In the film, a person was interviewed by a specialist who asked him if he felt any of these words when eating bread. Such examples were do you feel lonely, depressed, accepting, trusting, or uncertain. The person said no to most of the words, except uncertain which he stated that he did feel a little uncertain when eating bread. Coffee was another example, in the film a question was posed to viewers, Does the brewing(smell) of coffee remind you of your mother? When I have coffee in the morning and smell the freshness of my lovely cup, it doesn't remind of my mother, but maybe it does for some. The second one, that suprised me was that people will buy or agree on certain products if the speaker presents it in a language or word that sends a message.


One thing I learned about advertising from watching the film is when corporations don't make money from their ads because of such examples like Tivo, they try to incorpate their products by putting them in movies and television. For example, in films, like I Am Sam and Cast Away, Starbucks and FedEx were the products used. In television, examples were Sex in the City and Survivor, and their products were a drink called the Absolute Hunk, and Sierra Mist.


One new thing I learned about myself from watching the film is to watch closely when I see a commerical, billboard, or read from a magazine if the product is using a message or telling me something it is, but actually isn't. Advertising is very persuasive and tries to make you buy their product through words and language, I know now that whenever I see an advertisment for a product, that looks good and worth buying, I will ignore it.


2. I would say because I don't live in New York City and live right here in Poughkeepsie, I see an average to a very little amount of advertising. I'm not much of a T.V. person, when I do watch television, I watch Lost and House which both I'm a big fan of. When I go online and watch videos on Youtube or other sites, they always have ads for different products.


In my view, it doesn't make much of a difference to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago. Technology has expanded and become more modern and standardized than in the past, 20 or 30 years ago. There are much more newer technology and options to promote advertising and more people are willing to buy a given product, which creates a successful business.

Myth of Photographic Truth Photoshop Assignment

Cropped Image: It seems like a normal pretty woman posing and having her picture taken.

Original Image: Except, it is actually a picture of a woman suffering from Anorexia Nervosa, an eating disorder.

The awful truth about photographs is they can be altered, changed in any form, making the viewer believe its real when it actually isn't. According to Practices of Looking, "Photographs are objective renderings of the real world that provide unbiased truth" (Sturken 17). What that means is you can't always trust the pictures, ads, billboards you see to be truthful. Photos can be altered or distorted with color, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and many others. For example, O.J. Simpson when he was convicted of murder the magazines contrasted and darken his color skin to emphasize evil and guilt. Photos can be cropped as well, the cropped image on top seems to be a normal picture of a woman, but when you look at the original image you see the woman has Anorexia Nervosa, an eating disorder, that is why you can't always trust what you see.

Final Edited Collage

The Ipod is a medium that provides the listener with many options and "content". The "content" of an Ipod are many from videos of music, television, movies, to storing and viewing photos and appliances. It allows you to look at upcoming movies on the web, locations, record audio, text, and podcast. To the right of the red Ipod is the new Ipod touch, which allows you to do these options and is the newest form of innovation in technology.

The "message" in accordance to Marshall Mchulan of an Ipod is its access to information from videos, songs, to photos, and other different appliances. The "message" of an Ipod can be positive and negative to its buyers. Positive in the way that it is a stress reducer and alters you from reality. Negative in the way that it can cause people to go deaf, have seizures, and not focus on academics.

Content and Message of Photoshop

Photoshop is a useful medium that provides the user with many options and "content". The "content" of Photoshop are a variety of selection tools and techiques, such as the move tool, magic wand tool, lasso tool, crop tool, eraser tool, and much more. It provides layers for different images, resolutions, color, width, height, and zooming in and out. There is a help tool in case of difficulty and an undo/redo tool for editing.

The "message" of photoshop in accordance to Marshall Mchulan is its ability to alter images, by editing and changing sizes. The "message" of photoshop can be positively and negatively user friendly. Positive in the way that it is quite useful for working on projects and collages of photos. Negative in the aspect of keeping originality of the photo as photoshop has the ability to alter the image.

The Message of an Ipod

The Message of an Ipod in accordance to Marshall Mchulan is its access to information, from songs, videos, movies, storing photos and other appliances. The message of an Ipod can be positive and negative. Positive in the way that it is a stress reducer and alters you from reality. Negative in the way that it can cause you to go deaf, brain seizures are involved, and it lessen your focus on academics.

Questions about Photoshop

My two questions for Photoshop are How do you put another image with the image you've already put in Photoshop? What was the overall assignment, the different techiques you can use?

Photoshop Assignment 1

The Ipod is a medium that provides the listener with many options and "content". The "content" on an Ipod are many from videos of music, television, movies, to storing and viewing photos and appliances. It allows you to look at upcoming movies on the web, locations, record audio, text and podcast.

The "message" in accordance to Marshall Mchulan of an Ipod is its access to information from videos, songs, to photos and other different appliances. The "message" of an Ipod can be positive and negative to its buyers. Positive in the way that it is a stress reducer and alters you from reality. Negative in the way that it can cause people to go deaf, have seizures, and not focus on academics.

Examples of New Medium

The Ipod is one example of a new medium that has been an innovation in communication technology. An Ipod is a device that allows the user to store vast amounts of music and videos, access the internet, and utilize many other features. They constantly are changing often with new improvements and modifications, this image to the left is the new Iphone.

The Blue-ray DVDs are another example of new medium that has been an innovation in communciation technology. Blue-ray discs are a new form of DVD that brings a high-definition sound and enhanced picture quality where it feels like the movie theater is inside your living room. This new form of DVD seems to be popular and is selling well, who knows what will come next when Blue-ray discs becomes obsolete.

MTV is another example of a new medium that has been an innovation in communciation technology. It started in the eighties with Michael Jackson and various musical artists taking radio into the next generation. This technology took music from not just hearing it on the radio but to listening and seeing the image on television.