CoP 2 Lecture 7, Consumerism: Persuasion, Society Brand, Culture

Points of lecture - 

Rise of US consumerism 

Links between consumerism and our unconscious desires

Sigmund Freud

Edmund Bernays 

Consumerism as social control

Sources

Adam Curtis - Century of Self, 2002

Naomi Klein - No Logo, 1998

Freud - 

New theory of human nature

Psychoanalysis

Primitive forces and animal instincts need controlling

Civilisation and it's discontents 

Unconscious part of your mind is made up of ID, Ego and Superego

ID is our unconscious part of our mind that makes us do things, most natural 

1930

Fundamental tension between civilization and the individual 

Human instincts incompatible with the well being of community

The Pleasure Principle 

The animalistic desires an not compatible with modern society, so they are suppressed

WW1 indicated Freud's theories and his ideas of repressed animal instinct. Things like this is expected.

Bernays -

Press Agent

Employed by public info during WW1

Set up The Council on Public Relations

Birth of PR

Based on his uncles Freuds ideas

Crystallizing Public Opinion 1923

Propaganda 1928

He realised if you make people think that their instinct desires are met when they buy things, they will buy more and create a demand for things. [PR]

He made it less of a taboo for women to smoke, 1929 Easter day Parade. He paid all these debutantes to start smoking, tipped off the newspapers. Bernays made women want to smoke, feel independent and feel sexy.

Product placement

Celebrity endorsements 

The use of pseudoscientific reports

Politicians began using these techniques to become cooler and make them more attractive for everyone

Fordism

Henry Ford

Transposes Taylorism to car factories of Detroit 

Assembly line

Productivity increases to increase the wage, allowing workers to buy more products

Products were being made more and more, so branding and identity was needed. In order to make people want to buy their product over someone else's.

Products are now sold not on the need for something but the desire for it. 

Marketing hidden needs -

Selling emotional security

Selling reassurance of worth

Selling ego-gratification

Selling Creative outlets

Selling Love Objects

Selling sense of power

Selling a sense of roots

Walter Lippmann 
Public Opinion 1920
A new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd
'manufacturing consent'

Making Connections

Deconstruction and Pastiche 

Deconstruction - Jacques Derrida observed a tendency in philosophy and theory 'to create dualistic oppositions and install a hierarchy that unfortunately privileges one term of each dichotomy' Reynolds IEP

Its a mode of questioning these assumed hierarchies and structures
His theory was spread through Universities and art schools in Europe and US in 70's and 80's


'Design, Writing, Research' Lupton and Miller, 1996 - 

Reality is built up on a foundation of representation - Derrida

Opposition believed that speech was privileged over writing

Speech/writing - Writing/typography - Seeing/reading

Hori, experimented with typography which had a significant impact on the type world, creating a lot of different genres. 

Deconstruction can change adjust typography meaning on the written word. But punctuation and things like that can not be seen as signs or semiotics. 

Type can be used to trick, to help read, or tell a story. It can be used to communicate a certain aspect, pick out the main information thats most important. 

Pastiche - 

Concept written mostly by Fredric Jameson. Pastiche is a parody of art and work. Appropriating styles from the past. He doesn't like capitalism and create work with a historical style is bad. 

Examples of Pastiche

Question time

EDITORIAL

TYPOGRAPHY

BRANDING

ADVERTISING

PRINTMAKING

NEW MEDIA

What is the general theme? - editorial, printmaking, typography etc

What are the current contextual/ historical issues of the general theme -  mind maps, lists

What do I want to know or be able to do in regard to this theme? - form this into question that implies a conclusion, what, how , to what extent

How does this relate to my [increasingly specialist] practice?