Hidden Messages

In the article "Subliminal Advertising Leaves Its Mark On The Brain" researchers at the University College London discovered that even when people don't recognize subliminal messages, their brain still acknowledges them. Subliminal advertisement is legal in the United States, but what the "study doesn't address is whether this would then influence you to go out and buy a product".  The researchers also did a test to see if people’s brains still registered these subliminal messages when it was distracted by something else.  They did this by having people wear these two tone glasses and they have to pick out numbers from within pictures.  When people were asked to point out a certain number, their brain never registered the hidden picture, even though one of their eyes could barely see it still.  According to Dr. Bahrami "it challenges previous thinking - that what is subconscious is also automatic."   

Do you think hidden messages in advertisements could be a problem in the United States? Do you ever notice any of these hidden messages? Could this affect our decisions on purchasing a product? 

Falk Blog Post #8

     EM Forester was portraying how technology is going to ruin everyone’s lives in the future. He portrays a world where human life can no longer breathe the oxygen air, so they live in their own little “cell” where anything they desire is readily available.  People are trained to only desire certain things and to enjoy only the act of sharing ideas with other people, because they are given all the basic needs and they have been living that way for quite some time that they’ve become accustomed to it.  Forester is responding to the issue that humans rely on technology so much, that the more it grows and develops, the less reliant humans will be.  The Machine makes life easy, but it destroyed face to face interaction, the desire to travel, and people are only allowed to share ideas and nothing else.  The TV show called Futurama, shows the future as being all high tech, and that humans live with aliens, robots, monster, etc. and can do practically anything they want to.  The show portrays a good future, one where people live happily, get along with any creature, and still will have jobs just the learning the always be up to date.  

     The similarity between EM Forester’s “The Machine Stops” and Futurama is both show the future as being so high tech, that people can get whatever they want, and both r able to visit outside the realm they r in.  People in the Machine are allowed to visit the surface of the Earth with a special permit and a breathing apparatus, and people/creatures in Futurama are allowed to visit Space or virtually any planet.  The difference between the two is that Furturama shows how the future is a happy place, where people are happy about all the new forms of technology.  “The Machine Stops” has a sad ending, where the machine breaks down and kills every person living in the machine. 

Falk In Class Writing #7

 Grand Theft Auto games are more than just entertainment, they are a training method to learn how to kill.  Beck points out reasons why the game should not be distributed to people, because of the violence.  He shows that anyone could play the game and then make it into a reality, and all they need to do is play the game to learn the skills. 

     Beck tells about the features of the game, like beating up hookers, stealing cars, beating up police officers, running over pedestrians, buy hookers, and can basically beat or kill anyone they’d like to. He argues on the fact that it used to take a special training to learn how to do some of the stuff in the game, but now all someone needs to know is in Grand Theft Auto.  He is shocked on how many parents allow their children to play it, because of all the many violent actions that can easily take over someone’s life.

     Beck seemed to be stating his opinion mainly, because he was making a general statement on how people who play this game would turn into killers.  He always kept saying that it was only guys who played the game, which by far is not true.  Many girls are playing violent video games nowadays, so that shows how Beck isn’t too informed on facts about the game.  Beck could have made his argument more convincing if he used true facts, that were about percentage of kids who turn the game into reality, or what age rage most likely plays this game, etc.  He also put a lot of emphasis on the fact that in the game the person playing a game can make their character buy a hooker, have sex with her, and then kill or beat her right afterwards.  The main point of the game is not that, but it is an aspect that Beck knew would get parents to realize how violent and horrible or a game Grand Theft auto is.   

Falk In Class Writing #6

Part 1     

     Music on ITunes used to be only 99 cents a few years ago, but now it has gone up to $1.29 for just one song.  There are many different sites for people to download music for free, which is illegal.  Most either do music piracy or have done it, because to pay $1.29 a song is just too much.  It is really easy to download music illegally, because there are different sites someone could use and there isn’t any kind of block on these sites.  My opinion is that music piracy is alright, because I used to do it just because I didn’t have the money to buy songs I wanted to listen to.  People shouldn’t have to pay that much just so they can listen to a song.  I don’t do it anymore because I found an application that is only $10 a month to download and listen to any song I want at any time.

Part 2

     I read the How to Save the Music Business by Paul McGuinness.  The author tried to explain to readers that music piracy is becoming unbelievably popular and it has started to ruin the music industry.  Artists work hard to make their music, so they want something for their hard work and it wouldn’t be right for them just to allow anyone to download their music.  The music industries also provide many jobs, and as music piracy increases, more jobs are lost.  The author is against music piracy, and is doing what he can to get more people aware of how bad it can be.  The author states that from 2006-2009 “music industry revenues dropped from $25 billion to $16 billion.”  The author described his fix to the music piracy problem, and described it as the music company would be included in a broadband bill that way a whole family could download whatever kind of music.     

Falk In Class-Writing #5

      Carmen likes to listen to music by Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and The Saltine Project.  She loves Harry Potter and likes to read the books as well as watch the movies.  Her two favorite television shows are Make It or Break It and Friends.  Carmen doesn’t give too much information about herself, just a few things to complete her profile.  Her roommate attacked her Facebook page by posting random wall posts, and just stating random things.  She doesn’t give much information about herself on Facebook, and most of the comments from her friends are just about how they want her to go back home. 

     The ads I generally get on the side of Facebook have to deal with horses, snowboards or some genre of music.  The horse ads are websites that sell all kinds of tack, and I tend to always get this kind of ad.  It has a picture of a horse jumping or running free, which always catches my eye.  The snowboard ads are usually trying to get me to sign up for an online raffle to win a free snowboard trip or a free snowboard.  The shopping ads that are sometimes presented have a picture of some cute outfit, and it tries to get people to click on the link to go online shopping.  The ads don’t have anything to do about what Carmen likes, but more aimed towards what I like.  Facebook does this, because they know that if they show ads favor the viewer then there would be more of a chance that the viewer would click on the ads.    

Falk Blog Post #5

MySpace used to one of the most popular websites in the country, until Facebook came along and took over.  In Christine Rosen’s Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism, she mainly focused MySpace and her article wasn’t really old.  It came out in 2007, and already is outdated because now everyone who is anyone has one.  Christine states that having “friends” on MySpace are different than having “friends” in real life.  She has a point, because most people just add random people or someone they just met, just so they will have more friends on Facebook/MySpace.  It has started to turn into a competition, which gives people and incentive to try and meet people in real life so they can have more Facebook/MySpace friends.

     Christine argues that people who a lot of time on Facebook than they do hanging out with people, tend to be less socialable.  This can be true for some people, but it is not completely true because many people know how to be comfortable around people even when they talk to people on Facebook/MySpace all the time.  The competitiveness has increased ever since people have been making more of an emphasis of having the most friends.  It isn’t necessarily a bad thing to have that competition, because it makes people want to go out to meet new people so they could add them on Facebook/MySpace.  Some people even add random people on the internet, and it has gotten people into dangerous situations, but even when people do random adding they eventually try to meet the person in real life.  Facebook/MySpace isn’t really making people less socialable because it is the person’s own choice to be shy or outgoing.  It just is a fun thing to go onto and keep in contact with friends and family. 

     

Falk Blog Post #4

http://www.youtube.com/user/KiaMotorsAmerica?v=4zJWA3Vo6TU&feature=pyv&cid=sem&ppc=y

     I chose the new KIA commercial that is trying to sell the KIA Soul.  This commercial starts off with a video game background of aliens and robots shooting each other, so it looks that it is a commercial for a new game.  The hamsters then drive up in their KIA Soul and start shuffling to the popular song, Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO.  They get the two sides to stop fighting, and then everyone starts shuffling together.  The song makes me want to just start dancing whenever I hear it, because it is one of my favorite songs.  The only text is at the end when it says “2012 SOUL a new way to roll”, “$ Starting under $14k” and of course they had to add their name at the end, “KIA”.  The opening really caught my eye, because I thought it was for a new video game and I was interested to see what one is coming out now, but was shocked when it turned to hamsters driving and shuffling.   KIA knew that people love the song and that most people will watch a commercial if it has anything to do with a shooting game, so they used both to create a viral video. 

     KIA tries to grab the attention of viewers by adding catchy songs, and an opener that is appealing to the audience’s age range.  The opener gets the attention of people, because most probably thought it was a new video game that was coming out, so it hooked people to stay and find out what is was about.  Once the hamsters rolled up in the KIA Soul they knew people were going to know it wasn’t for a video game, so they made hamsters shuffle to Party Rock Anthem.  The rhetoric they use is based just on image and sounds alone to keep viewers hooked and entertained throughout the whole commercial.  The commercial uses the desire to dance and play video games, because the song they use makes anyone want to dance no matter the age.   

     The audience for the KIA commercial would be basically anyone that can drive, but it is probably most intended for the younger generation of new drivers.  The video game resemblance shows that the audience they wanted to get “hooked” first are the guys, and then the music gets the rest of the other people to watch.    The commercial assumes that the audience knows that shuffling is the dance that is meant for the song Party Rock Anthem, because that’s how all the hamsters and the other things are dancing.  The audience might think that if they buy this car, they’d be able to shuffle just like they are in the commercial.  They might also assume that other people who just look up to them now that they have this “awesome” new car.  The commercial really doesn’t have much to do with the car, because it never tells or shows any information about it, except for the name and price.  The commercial just is a really entertaining, and it gets people to watch.  The commercial is both on the T.V. and YouTube, but it is most effective on YouTube.  YouTube is viewed by various people, and anyone can find this commercial so it doesn’t have to be aimed for a certain type of people.  YouTube is the most effective form of advertising as long as you can get it to go viral, which means it is mass sent to people and becomes extremely popular or extremely hated.