Coca cola has always been a dynamite in its marketing strategies. They use pop culture to contribute to a more evasive pop culture, by making the drink seem as an important part of this entirety. Moreover they’ve been doing this since the time a bottle of coca cola was sold for just 5 cents! Which only means that this goes all the way back to 1944, when the one billionth gallon of the coke syrup was manufactured. 

However, since the beginning of their marketing tactics, they’ve been consistent with one thing: their target audience. This has expanded over time, the people they aim at, but it doesn’t change the fact that they condition their demand side such that coke becomes an iconic drink, and what one would call “cool” at any given point. 

In Sut Jhally's article, ‘Image based culture: Advertising and Popular Culture’, he talks about how advertising agencies and companies use images and print media to employ a method to draw attention. People find their ads more relatable, because of how topical they are. Moreover, people learn to identify more and more regular activities, such as going out with friends, or watching a movie, or relaxing at home with drinking coca cola. Hence, Coca cola, something that is born out of ordinariness, and leads to a bigger spectacle, that envoys it’s own grandiosity. This faux hype light disappoint many, but not their sales targets. 

In this particular media artifact, Coco cola markets their product, ‘Coca Cola Light’, as their sugar free and this healthier alternative, for a drink which they look at as a basic necessity, in essence, coke. The product manufacturers obviously here believe that the sugar is the only constituent which is a concern for the public. It did work well for them, as even back in 1982 the wealthier people were worried of the cons of too much sugar. The advertisement aims at the fact that because of no sugar, coke is now super light, that it could defy gravity as well (because sugar is heavy), and hence a much healthier option. Coca Cola light is also known as Diet Coke in some countries, and continues to work well with the masses. This is why there’s a lot of fanfare and attention given to the product, the fact that it’s actually junk food, and yet is healthy now. Which further implies that Coca cola light changed the discourse of how cold drinks work, and the possible commencement of a new world order.

Before the launch of Iron Man 3, Verizon came out with their new product Verizon FiOS and this is how they advertised it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80jo6XZRspU. The ad shows a thin little boy rushing upstairs for a science project. Of course, the project is to make the iron man suit. The boy clears any questions he has with a team of specialists (one must not ask where exactly he got them from) and succeeds in creating a perfect replica of the iron man suit, winning the science fair and even impressing the girl. And the ad claims that “when you get FiOS, you get America’s fastest, most reliable internet” when the boy stumbles over a part of his project. It ends with saying “Technology that makes you feel superhuman? That’s powerful.”

Now, a critical consumer can never hope to create a direct link between being a superhero and having a certain mobile data provider. This ad presents the perfect example of “partipulation”. Sut Jhally quotes Tony Schwartz defining partipulation as the audience participating in their own manipulation. 

The ad associates socially significant values such as intelligence, charisma and success with a mere interne provider. The ad instigates you to buy the product because if you have this, then all your doubts will be cleared in a moment and you can totally make a fictitious iron man suit for a mere science project. That’s how smart you can be if you have this particular product. And not just that, the girls will love you, you’ll win the science fair and will come home to an impressed set of parents. Isn’t that what every kid wants?

If one is to take apart the ad in terms of actual essential values, the only thing is the high speed of internet that comes due to use of fiber optics. Aside from that, the ad is completely built on aspirational values and what the consumers want to have in terms of social commodities, rather than economic ones. 

If you think that this ad about mansplaining is bad, wait till you watch the 9 month old brain child of OPPO to be a companion in our dreams!

This ad is a 19 minute ordeal that reinforces our biases by carefully shrouding it in the wraps of enlightened sexism. With over 19 million views and positive comments about the good looks of Siddharth Malhotra, the larger narrative of a man dictating a girl's life has been played like a broken record. The damsel in distress is saved from her toxic past by the limited edition phone and made to find her "inner beauty" by using its editing softwares. 

In a time when content is generated for profit to take away our autonomy of thought, we need to become 'citizen consumers' in this pseudo progressive world. It is a time when people are the 'product' and our dreams are sold to us in the form of a modestly priced 32GB, 7.5 mm, dual sim, 40k phone. 

The more problematic aspect is that type of comments on this video. They range from thirst messages for Siddharth Malhotra and Kriti Kharbanga (atleast we have equality in one place!) to how the ad motivated them to follow their dreams. While we might think that the ad was successful in attaching aspirational value with an object, it has some worrisome consequences. In a country high on emotions (among other things), we seem to be victims of the indifference towards a little sexism as long as it serves a larger purpose.

In the book 'The Rise of Enlightened Sexism', by Susan Douglas, we are forced to rethink the definition of new age "feminism". Women have come a long way, but not as far as we'd like to believe. The discussion of equality has been morphed in a suggestive way and has been supplanted by a more insidious form of bias, where sexist messages are hidden in plain sight couched in irony. 

As conscious media consumers, we need to be more careful in identifying this sexist imagery where men are a part of the solution. Celebrity endorsements should not be the sole criteria for blind faith in the brand and its message. We need to question everyone and everything!

#OPPO_F5
#CaptureTheRealYou*

*With filters and dash of casual sexism 

Harry Brod (1987) states that  images of masculinity perceive ‘real men’ as physically strong, aggressive and in control of their lives. Yet the structural dichotomy between manual and mental labour means that no one’s world fulfils all these conditions. Consequently, insecurities generated impel them to cling all the more tightly to sources of masculine identity validation offered by the image system.Another view that needs to be talked about in context of this ad is that of Gray and Ginsberg (2007, p.19) who argue that women’s rise in power has created a crisis in masculinity all over the world. In particular, in cultures in which the traditional male role as bread-winner and protector has declined. Thus, men have developed muscles not for their usefulness, but for their representation of masculinity. This ad stands up for all men by mockingly ripping apart all stereotypes created about the ‘real man’. It tells that you don’t need to grow muscles, play sports, be the highest earning member of the family, be stronger than the women in your life, achieve a lot of success in your profession to be a man. All you need is to be comfortable in your own skin.

 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdQrwBVRzEg)

In the article ‘What's Wrong With a Little Objectification’, by Sut Jhally, we are made to think that advertisements must go beyond their typical product values to reach the audience and the consumer. Consumers look for an image where they see something they are longing for. The consumer then associates these desires with the product and hopefully buy the product based on these feelings. Tony Schwartz calls this ‘partipulation’, where the audience participates in its own manipulation. The ad looks for the participation of the consumer in constructing their own meaning with the ad.

The ad has been critically acclaimed, with its series under ‘Thank You, Mom’ with this edition being titles as ‘Strong’ with its previous edition being ‘Best Job’ in 2012. ‘Strong’ was the fourth installation in this campaign and was quite successful where there is a possibility of most ads failing due to repetitiveness. 

The ad looks to associate the values of motherhood like care, perseverance and their struggle of daily life with their line of products. The commercial addresses to link these values of moms by convincing and manipulating the audience by celebrating and thanking mothers with their product range which form the part of the daily life of any household. The key to this campaign and its success is that it doesn't push products down your throat, only feelings.

"It takes someone strong to make someone strong." With that powerful, emotional ending and send chills through viewers highlighting the incredible strength shown by their mothers. That's because P&G recognized the story behind the story of Olympic athletes -- the stories which show the supportive mothers who pushed forward these world-class athletes throughout their entire lives leading them up to that crowning moment. And yes, they probably had to do a lot of laundry, cleanup and other household chores along the way - presumably using P&G products. 

The link below is a video trailer for the series ‘Agents of Shield’:

This particular media artefact is, according to me, an excellent example of remediation, because it is remediated on not one, but two levels. First, the Marvel Cinematic universe, to which this piece belongs, has been adapted from a series of comics by the late Stan Lee. Further, Agents of Shield is a spin off based on a particular set of characters from this universe, which were first seen in the extremely popular ‘Marvel’s Avengers”. The former portrays a new perspective into the life of Agent Phil Coulson who was first seen in the latter. This, therefore, is a new interpretation, not just of Marvel’s comics, but also of the movie. The trailer is, in effect, not selling the show itself, but the fact that the show is a spin off from popular culture. 

Apart from remediation, this piece of media also clearly portrays how previous pieces of media affect it. The trailer makes it evident that this show draws heavily upon the popularity of the Avenger’s franchise to gain an audience. In fact, it begins with glimpses of the Avengers, which according to me is an attempt to tap into the wide audience base that the film franchise has garnered. It also does so by flaunting the fact that the show is directed by the same person as the movie was. 

The trailer gives its audience a brand new take on concepts and characters that have formerly been introduced in related media. The protagonist, touted to be dead in the avengers, is brought back to life, both literally, and metaphorically. The character of Agent Phil Coulson was quite popular in the avengers, and his passing away in the movie was an emotional element for its audiences. The trailer makes it evident that the show has tapped into this emotion. His character, as shown in the trailer, is now completely redefined, and quite a contrast from what was shown in the movie. The timid, shy man we saw on the big screen has given way to a confident, suave agent who now has his own elite team. This, in my opinion, is a brilliant take on the metaphor of coming back from the dead. 

The trailer showcases ample humour, action, and suspense from the show to target a wide audience. 

As we progress in the trailer, it moves further and further away from Avengers, to give the show an identity of its own. This is clearly seen in various ways, the most prominent of which is the flamboyant display of all the new characters in the show, which, while totally unrelated to the old ones, seem to have all too familiar skills. More subtle, and more important though, is the line with which the trailer ends – ‘Not all heroes are super’.

Through this, the trailer conveys the fact that while none of the ensemble in the show apparently have super powers, they are heroes in their own way. Through this, it establishes an identity for the show that is nowhere close to that of the avengers, despite taking place in the same cinematic universe.

2016IPM031

Reading: What's wrong with a little objectification? by Sut Jhally

Ad: Daisy Ad campaign for presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k

Critical Response:

Sut Jhally,in ‘What's wrong with a little objectification?' further elaborates Tony Schwartz’s ‘Resonance Theory’. It is one where you do not use new information or facts to communicate but rather persuade the viewer by activating key information already stored in the brain. It helps in producing a behavioral effect. In a way, one capitalizes on the information that the viewer already knows by selling it back to them. The artifact I have chosen to elaborate this theory is the ‘Daisy Ad’: An ad campaign for presidential candidate Mr Lyndon B Johnson. The ad campaign starts with a girl plucking petals off of a daisy flower, once she is done with the counting, the screen zooms into her eyes and you can hear the “ 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” countdown post which the screen turns black and turns into a mushroom cloud explosion. What follows next is a voice over saying  “These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." This ad was aired only and only once without the mention of Barry Goldwater’s name, but yet it left a huge impression in the hearts of the voters. 

Lyndon B. Johnson’s opposition candidate was Mr Barry Goldwater, a very outspoken person. Lyndon B. Johnson did not need to tell the audience who his opponent was. Mr Goldwater was widely known and quite infamous for his distressing remarks. His views, a little extremist, generally put people into a frenzy. He made various comments about throwing a grenade inside a room in Kremlin. He did not approve of the New Deal coalition. He also opposed the civil rights act 1964. His views often included using nuclear weapons to defeat Vietnam as he believed they were simply just another weapon. He, once even claimed in his speeches, “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”. 

For an advertisement to work, one must ensure it hits the right emotions to persuade the person. This campaign was less of data based, instead it used Goldwater's statements to target the pathos of the audience. The mushroom cloud which is seen after the girl resonates with the audience as they felt that Goldwater would eventually choose the path of nuclear destruction with Vietnam. It would not have been easy living in 1964 and hearing such views on the use of nuclear weapons especially when the Cuban missile crisis occurred just a few years before. The message was clear despite it being implicit that: Barry Goldwater was a mad person who will end up performing genocide. Being one of the most excellent examples of resonance theory, the ad campaign just acted as a trigger and resonated with what the audience already believed.

 This particular ad attempts to create a mold for real men who is characterised by strong muscular body, is a brave heart and exercises power and control, who needs to be intelligent, smart and clever at the same time. In other words, the ad depicts a form of masculinity which is hegemonic in nature and legitimizes his remarkably high stance in society. It depicts the supremacy of the man over the woman while portraying her as a subordinate serving her master. He is polite and courteous, although lordly and commanding at the same time. A different nuance of the same act could also mean that this is a way real men are honoured with women at their feet who are ready to serve them, given they exercise their masculinity. This ad also stresses on the occupational achievement of men in the form of valor awards which is a key feature of hegemonic masculinity.

Hegemonic masculinity, as defined by Raewyn Connell (1987) is a collection of traits that a man should possess to qualify as a “real man”. These traits set up by the society dominates how a man should carry himself and “act” in a specific (sometimes inhumanly) manner. This response tries to critically analyse the artefact “male heroes in Disney movies” through the lens of hegemonic masculinity. A Disney movie largely is the first time when a child is exposed to what behaviours he/she should put up in order to be better appreciated and accepted. The response will include the implications of these characters towards three stakeholders:

1.     The male Homo sapiens: The personalities of these characters constantly reinforce the belief that “you are not enough”. Unless you have the physique of Hercules, the riches of Prince Charming, courage of Prince Philip and thirst for adventure like Aladeen; you are not enough. These characters act in accordance with Harry Brod’s image of real men being physically strong, aggressive and in control of what they do. In reality, no single man’s world fulfils all these criteria. Hence, going by this image by Disney, no man will ever be able to marry the princess of his dreams. 

2.     To female Homo sapiens: No matter if you are the central character of the movie, there will arrive a man to save you. You yourself are weak, helpless and in order to come out of whatever problems you are perpetually in (being exploited by aunts or held by curse) you cannot get out of the situation unless a handsome prince becomes your saviour.

3.     The society: It promotes the image where society is highly divided, where there is no scope of intersection between the behaviours of a gentleman and a lady and where men being in dominant position have answers to all the problems and hence take all the decisions. 

The stereotypes that these movies create have a global audience and hence work at the global level of hegemonic masculinity analysis to give a more profound effect worldwide. There needs to be more research work in the area of what plots can be created for movies for kids to ensure that such conditionings are done away with.

2016IPM028

Reading: Media Hegemony: A perspective of failure by David L. Altheide

Media Artifacts: 'US Safe For Indians': Damage Control Mode Sets In After Student's Death, NDTV news report, May 24, 2017

These two articles are quite interesting to compare in a multitude of ways, particularly in terms of their sources. Mr. Kumar is an Indian residing in the United States of America; the other is an NDTV article that would regularly pop up in our news feeds. The issue is the same- The safety of Indian origin individuals post the passing of Trump’s stringent H-1B visa rules. Kumar’s article is straight from the heart- he laments over the nasty attitude that seems to have suddenly arisen towards anyone of color. Opening with the brutal murder of Navroze Mody by a dozen American youth in Hoboken, he sheds light on how he may not have been victim to open aggression, but it is the subtle things he faces daily that counts. The area which he resides in may not have changed much, but he is still subjected to what he calls 'ignorance': If the white man cannot be wise enough to differentiate between ethnicities and religions, anyone who looks different from the ‘standard American’ will be subject to discrimination. The internet, he says, only makes this ten times worse, spreading hate and ‘fake news’ at a rate faster than can be controlled. 
In the NDTV article, two short lines are dedicated to the official statement given by the USA administration. The rest highlights concern Indian families have harbored over sending their children abroad in the backdrop of the rising cases of racial violence. In short, while both highlight very serious issues, a bigger problem is quietly playing havoc with both the news reports- They’re framed according to how the author wishes you to see it. 
D. Altheide talks about how Media is being manipulated constantly, and media domination is defined by three claims- Journalists unwittingly or consciously promote ideological hegemony in their work, cover topics which follow the status quo and negatively cover foreign countries. Turning the article’s American perspective around, this can be seen regarding Indian media platforms too. NDTV only reiterates what we know and wished to hear, and Kumar does not try to blunt his sharp knife of criticism of the US government or even Indian residents, who he says have turned misguided over the years. Altheide points out that bad news resonates stronger with the public, and it is evident if one does a basic Google search on the condition of Indian residents abroad, let alone in the United States. All in all, though Altheide penned his work back in the 1980s, his fears about the imminent control of Media by groups with vested interests still hold true. 

The given advertisements shows how enlightened sexism work through the assistance of media by conforming the norms for women. In this the women is shown to be of higher authority of an organization and she has Arjun Kapoor (protagonist) working under him. It shows that even though she has more power in the work environment she fails to wield it. She is shown as weak and ditzy. When Arjun Kapoor comes in late to the office, rather than rebuking, she lets it pass. The advertisements shows that as long as men are charismatic, they can get away with anything. The women leader is shown as inefficient and amateurish with her teenage girl like behavior. This advert shows an environment which is ludicrous and doesn’t happen in reality. The reinstates the notion that women are not suitable for a leadership role. In the garb of “feminism” this advertisement resurrects the sexist stereotypes that are associated with a women in leadership position. 

This ad was released by Wagh Bakri in India in the year 2015. It has a simple story line; a man is extremely busy in his professional life and isn’t able to give enough time to his wife. His wife eventually sends him a message via a handycam, telling him that she is leaving because he hasn’t the time to interact with her or even acknowledge her presence. He eventually ends up reaching at her house and they are shown as having as having a warm cup of tea together. Their relationship is shown to have evolved over tea in a certain sense to fit the brand and its value in the ad. While otherwise simple, there are a few noteworthy points in the construction of the characters and their environment. Firstly, the whole setting appears to be a typical middle class household. The wife is shown as lesser educated in comparison to the husband, and is shown doing typical work of the household like cooking and knitting. Her husband is shown as working almost all the time, having no time for even a conversation. He partakes no responsibility of the household. He is also projected as the person who cares, but isn’t adept at expressing this. An example of this character development is a small clip where the wife burns her hand and he goes to look for ointment even as he continues to speak on his phone. 

This ad presents itself as a good example of the Resonance Theory. Tony Schwartz, an ad maker, claims that advertisements are formed in a way such that they resonate with information that an individual already has; thereby inducing the desired effect. In the Wagh Bakri ad, we see various small details that would resonate with the everyday lives of the target consumers. The middle class women, who the ad is aimed towards, are often homemakers who are in an arranged marriage. The corporate culture of India is also such that the lower and middle level employees are often expected to contribute to the organization well outside the designated office hours. This combination leads, in a certain degree, to the situation as shown in the ad. The husbands and wives have few moments of genuine conversation. The team of Wagh Bakri has shown hope of this scenario changing through the tea they offer, and thus have successfully used the resonance in situations of their characters and their consumers to present an effective advertisement. 

 Submitted by:
 Harmin Gandhi
 2016IPM041 

Harley Quinn is introduced in a sexy avatar followed up with the song “You don’t own me.. Don’t tell me what to do”. With all the power and independence given to the character by the writers where the song compliments the idea, the dressing of the character is certainly something that we do not usually encounter in a prison, giving her a ‘sexy’ look. And with Margot Robbie playing the character, a sexier avatar is presented to the viewers. With the scenes presented in the first minute and a half like licking the prison bar, “play with me”, and “I sleep with who I want”, this certainly gives power to the character – the power to choose. But to what extent? This is just another case of presenting the fantasies of power. With no introduction to her supposedly superpowers, her sexiness and her craziness are supposed to impress us. 

The argument further continues when she chooses to exert this power again in the parking garage while changing clothes. With superheroes (or, super-villains in this case) being inspiration to many, they show us the importance of looks again when she puts on her lipstick and now in a sexier outfit. When she puts her dress on, all the people (where there was one woman as well) in the background are amazed and pause for a moment to have a look at her. A super-villain wanting to be sexy is fine, but the society also wants the same – a woman to be sexy no matter how crazy she is. Moreover, no other character (which includes mainly male characters) is shown dressing up which again reflects that why did the filmmakers put that scene in the movie in the first place – although that’s a different topic altogether. But the idea of enlightened sexism is shown often in media and the society seems to follow the norm. 

It is the D-Day. We are about to land on the beach. Sgt. Randall is blurting out some instructions which I cannot hear. All I know is that I need to capture Pointe Du Hoc. There is a hailstorm of Artillery Shells falling all around me…and then we are hit by sniper fire from the cliffs. As I am about to leave the boat, a shell hits it. I fall down, disoriented. I see A fellow soldier carrying a wounded mate on his shoulder. Then he gets shot. Is this the war that we wanted? 

 

https://youtu.be/4IWqWsBxvkw 

I have been an ardent fan of the Call of Duty series. It is First Person Shooter (FPS in gaming parlance) that was first released in 2003. I have played numerous computer games starting from Max Payne and Delta Force to Battlefield and Medal of Honor. But no game has made me feel more attached to it than the COD series. With each new game, the gameplay becomes more realistic, the storyline moving and the characters intriguing. 

 

Unlike other FPS games, COD relies on a strong visual and audio simulation of the gamer. This means that apart from having an engaging storyline, it also relies on scenes which tend to be graphic. Be it shooting near a bar in Havana in Call of Duty: Black Ops, seeing dead cows in Call of Duty II or Makarov and his squad shooting at hundreds of passengers in an Airport Terminal, the COD series has always aimed at creating a heightened sensation of reality and fully immersing the gamer into the game. I remember screaming like a mad man when the ending of Black Ops was revealed to me. How could Viktor Rezhnov die at the beginning when he was with me throughout the game? This question plagued me and thousands of other gamers. COD to a great extent presents the good and bad sides of a war with great efficacy. It keeps hitting the gamer’s conscience in multiple ways. For instance, when the player dies and the screen pauses to load for the next round, quotes by famous generals, politicians, activists and the so-called “National Heroes”. Often these quotes carry pacifist thoughts and hint towards the futility of war. So while the gamer is busy defending a building in Leningrad during the World War II (Call of Duty II) and a German MG-42 hits him and the game ends, a quote attributed to Bertrand Russel which goes as “War does not determine who is right. Only who is left” pops on the screen. When a young soldier dies in Normandy we see Ernest Hemingway saying “In Modern War…you will die like a dog for no good reason”. A Panzer shell hits an American soldier in Netherlands and we see Anton Chekov’s line “We shall find peace. We shall hear angels; we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.” As the series evolved from the first COD game in the series (COD I) to the most recent Call of Duty Black Ops 4, the one thing that has remained common are these supraliminal messages which try to direct the gamers attention away from the amusement and enjoyment obtained from killing. While other FPS games like Medal of Honor and Battlefield are explicitly partisan and create set definitions of who the winner is, who the bad guy is and what victory means, COD prefers to change the narrative. 

 

Due to the lack of seriousness associated with any form of computer games, they are considered just to be a “way to pass time” and entertain the gamer. Prof. Ian Bogost from Georgia Institute of Technology argues that computer games are “capable of informing and persuading as well as entertaining; in short, that they possess the power of rhetoric.”. In his book “Persuasive Games” he debates as to what games are, do and can be. This brings me to the argument the Noam Chomsky extends in his article “What makes mainstream media mainstream”. The elite media sets a framework within which others operate. Medal of Honor and Battlefield are the elite media and they are setting the rules as to what storyline computer games should have. COD lets those with differing ideals to play as well by projecting a different narrative albeit at a very implicit level. 

The representation of a woman has seen a distinct shift when it comes to their portrayal in certain media forms such as advertisements and commercials. Feminism has played a significant role in this, wherein women are now seen as strong, independent and capable individuals. However, nowadays the underlying problem is how this celebration of a woman’s capabilities and achievements is seen and represented on screen. What may be seen as empowering to many may in reality, depict that the way for the woman to show power and control is through her sexuality and the culture of consumerism. 

            In a particular commercial shown by Fogg, one of the leading deodorant brands in the India, there is a clear depiction of the independent and capable woman. In contrast to the image of women which were seen in ads in the 1950s and 60s which sees women as intellectually inferior to men, we see a woman is able to choose and make decisions for herself. This ad may look as if we are now past the old and sexist portrayal of women.  In an Indian context, we see an open minded woman who looks as though she is getting ready for a date or party which is a somewhat modern and liberal view of the Indian woman. 

            However, when we analyse the ad critically we find that the ad in itself rejects feminism and promotes ‘enlightened sexism’. Throughout the commercial, we are given the image of a fair toned woman with flawless skin and facial features. The ad focuses on the materialistic mindset of the woman as she chooses the perfect dress. Additionally, each frame of the ad focuses on either a particular bodily aspect of the woman or a certain product which highlights that particular body part thereby objectifying her image. As the ad is playing there are recurring words in the background which highlight how ‘cool’ it is for a woman to use certain products such as lipstick, flashy earrings and heels. In the end, we see the Fogg deo spray being used and hear the phrase ‘Smell wonderful. Feel Beautiful’ implying the importance of the product in defining a woman’s beauty. Hence this ad displays a subtle form of sexism that can be misleading at first but can be easily misinterpreted as supporting the empowerment of women. 

The aforementioned advertisement, of MTS India “ Born for Internet” was one of the most viewed advertisements in India at one point of time, and on closer inspection it isn’t exactly surprising, it works on basic principle of consumerism , but we will get to that later. 

The ad basically demonstrates an imminent biological drive of a baby to get connected to net as soon as it is born, and while doing so learns, on the net, so as to how to cut his umbilical cord, an instagram live video with the doctor, selfies with nurse and various other stuff, looking for his way on the map. Now the two most important question right here is why did MTS go for such an ad and how was it able to click with the Indian audience so beautifully. 

Firstly, the MTS side, they wanted to portray themselves as the fastest 24*7 internet, something that is very addicting, something whose endless opportunities entices you to go for it the moment you are born, something you can even depend on for the crucial moment so much as to cutting umbilical cords but while doing so it also satirizes our dependence on the technology, so much as to one of the most intimate and important moment of a mother’s life is undermined with the advent of technology. 

But how was it able to connect with the Indian audience so beautifully, yes it is funny, cute, satirical, but most importantly the basic idea of consumerism works in them showing what we want to see, and same is the case here, somewhere , even in our subconscious we know about the endless opportunity a high speed internet holds , we can imagine if not us at least the upcoming generation to get glued to it and when we see it we can’t help but laugh at it. 

This is the video of Miley Cyrus performance with Robin Thicke on his hit Blurred Lines at the 2013 MTV VMAs. The highlight of the performance was the “twerking”, which made headlines all over the world. The entire dance performance consisted of Miley “seductively” dancing around Robin Thicke. Her performance, along with her attire came under criticism in wide spread media. This however is being seen as an attack on the freedom of expression. This falls under the classic case of what Susan J. Douglas coins “enlightened sexism”.  The current brand of sexism is more subtle and therefore stays under the radar. It has been portrayed that women’s war of equality has been won, and the demand of women being   “slim, hot and sexy” is “their choice” and not a societal construct. The performance of Miley Cyrus was in all ways “her choice” and had nothing to do with the hyper-feminine ideal of hotness and beauty. Let’s forget about the performance itself and focus on the lyrics of the songs. The lyrics which say “I know you want it..you’re a good girl” and stretching the boundaries by “blurring the lines” between what is consensual and non consensual is enlightened feminism in the purest form. A part of the performance that was seen as funny while addressing the stereotype of “black girl with huge bottoms” is cringe-worthy to say at the least but still acceptable because “it’s just a gag”. The dance move “twerking”, which has been “trendified” by the pop culture, is just another example of the enlightened sexism. The biggest threat about enlightened sexism is that it is easy to be taken as a joke, and you’re called “too uptight” if you complain about it. The video, while controversial was vigorously defended by a lot of “intellectuals” who claimed that it was just a performance of two consenting adults and there is nothing wrong with it. What needs to be talked about is the blurring lines between reinforcement of  the distortions in representation of women and falling prey to the pop culture milieu. 

 

The ad starts of with the first few scenes depicting the supermom performing her “role” single handedly ensuring that her son who is shown watching the TV with his (muted) father eats his food and goes to bed. A fraction of a second later the eldest of the three, a teenage girl is shown walking out with her high heels to a party. The mother, like every other Indian mother stops the girl to ask her where she was headed to so late at night. The girl just shrugs the concern of her mother and walks out with the attitude of Poo, from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. The ad depicts the “supermom” pestering everyone to finish their morning routine and treating the husband as just another bystander or just another offspring. Throughout the ad the father is muted and does not say a word even when her, the father’s reactions are constrained to the occasional eyebrow raising or the sympathetic hug to his wife when the children are annoyed with their overbearing mother. 

 

The fact that the house is a chaos when the mother goes away shows that the household is dependent solely on the mother. The younger kids are seen saying things like “Yeh mummy jaise kyun kar rahi hai” or “Don’t mother me okay” - these lines bring out the main essence of the ad as they point out the stereotypical role that the society has created depicting the mother.  

 

Media through television, advertisements, posters etc., has for time immemorial portrayed women in a problematic manner.  Soap operas and advertisements are consumed by huge masses in our country, and these ads invariably demand and portray a slim, fair-skinned woman with a pretty face who looks radiant through all her chores. And like most other ads this is no exception.  Television is only a point in the entire space of misogyny and sexism that is our entertainment industry. These ads affect the minds of the larger masses who unlike us have not taken the Media literacy course. These ads about food products, soaps, healthcare products showcase a traditional role a woman is expected to play – that is of a homemaker and a child bearer. This often extents to the woman who washes clothes, utensils, cooks, ensures that everything is right for her husband (who in 99% of the ads is muted and most often unable to find his tie or keys) and her children. 

The Indian advertising industry is a structure built around the concept of sexism. The ad itself shows the abstract of the perfect mother and the perfect family. This idea of Enlightened Sexism entails in it the acceptance of the usually unacceptable. While we have began raising our voices against sexism and the unfair treatment based on gender the Indian broadcasting system and Indian media in general, continues to lean back greatly on the concept stereotyping. 

 

As if this were not enough, the fact that the ad has no relation to the brand, the product or the audience it caters to is just another reason to question the existence of it. 

Women have come a long, long way. They have risen up to be much stronger and independent than the yest years. However, the advertisements like the Axe effect only show how the capabilities of women have been dragged down to only the inside-the-skirt aspect. The way in which women show their strength in these ads is only through their sexuality and because of the concept of consumerism.

Unilever, the company that makes Axe, has a history of advertising the product line with commercials that depict women in a questionable manner. One past ad showed a man showering after what appeared to be a one night stand with a woman and instructed men to use the product to "scrub away the skank." In October 2011 another Axe ad showed female angels giving up divinity for a man who smelled good. The ad was banned in South Africa.

The ad campaign is a favorite target for those who fight for equal rights for woman in advertising. Since 2003, Axe advertisements have portrayed various ways the products supposedly helped men attract women. Whether they are print advertisements or TV commercials, they always have the same message, “sex sells, we sell sex, buy Axe, you get women."

Recently Axe launched a woman’s fragrance. Of Axe’s 2.3 million “likes” on Facebook, ¼ are by women, according to Barret Roberts, the senior brand manager at Axe. The new scent, Anarchy, is being marketed in different versions for men and women. As its name portends, a new commercial depicts a scene of mayhem, with a chain of events including a car pileup. During the spot, strangers lock eyes and, oblivious to the commotion, walk hungrily toward one another, then freeze at about an arm’s length, nostrils flaring and chests heaving, not breaking the sexual tension with contact. Pitching sex appeal has made Axe a major force in young men's body sprays, deodorants, and soaps. Axe dominates the men’s body spray category, with a 74% share of the market.

The latest Axe campaign has drawn a lot of heat. The spot for Axe men's hair product entitled “Office Love” features two main characters: a full (male) head of hair on tiny legs and a headless set of breasts, also with its own pair of legs. The two eyeless creatures "stare" longingly at each other across the office, share an elevator ride, almost sit next to each other at lunch and finally morph into full-fledged human beings at the bus stop after work.

The concept of Enlightened sexism in the words of Susan ‘insists that women have made plenty of progress due to feminism and everything that was supposed to be achieved through feminism has been achieved, so now its okay to resurrect the sexist stereotypes of women’.  Moreover, she says that it is actually a choice the women make by focusing on things like their attire, face, skin colour, breast size in order to gain and enjoy power, power that will not only make men want them but also embrace them, along with all they have achieved. 

The artefact I have chosen is an advertisement that was published on the Best Ads YouTube Channel on 3^rd September 2015. The advertisement begins with a woman appearing on screen, well-dressed and having a royal look. She looks into her fridge for milk and finds that there isn’t any. The first point to notice in the advertisement is how the woman in the picture, who is a mother is displayed; a tight outfit, royal ornaments and a big house, giving us the imagery of a woman who is well off in today’s time. Unable to find any milk in her fridge, the woman drives off her car, ‘on her own’ during the night to find milk. She leaves her house, all alone, and goes to a shop named ‘Village Market’. Unable to find milk there, she leaves in the rain, and she is shown wearing heels in the night while searching for milk, by driving to places. Another point to make a note of, the kind of image the advertisement is trying to place, of a woman, who regardless of what time of the day it is, should be dressed in a one-piece with heels to look ‘sexy’. Regardless of what role she plays in life, whether of a single grown up woman, or a mother or an employee, whatever be her character, a woman dresses up perfectly. As the advertisement continues, the woman goes to the extent of going to a cow in the middle of the night to get milk, she is fearless ad strong today indeed! But having failed there as well, she is seen chasing a milk-truck in the morning, shouting with a dead face, asking the truck to stop and finally she gets a big-can of milk for herself and her daughter. In the end, she is shown all exhausted in the morning along with her daughter who is ready for her breakfast and finds the cereal box to be empty, and the mother (who is alone, since at no point was her husband shown) is worried that she will have to get cereals for her daughter now and accidentally in trying to hold the box, spills the milk, and is frustrated by the fact that she will have to ‘clean the mess’ herself now.   

I would like to discuss what the advertisement tried to quite hilariously display; the stereotype of women doing the household work, taking care of their children and going to extreme lengths for getting things done at home. They live today an independent and high-status life but are equally embedded in the kind of lives that a typical housewife lives. This stereotype has been prevailing and was fought strongly under the feminist movement, but just as Susan rightly pointed out in her article, media has got us all to believe that women have achieved all they could through feminism, ‘all is won’ for them and hence now, it’s okay to bring back the very stereotypes that were fought against, back into the lives as their choice and not someone’s dominance, through such funny-sexist advertisements. They are trying to sell this to the young-mothers, that even at late night wearing a tight-slim one piece is what represents them.  Wearing heels and looking after their kids is what represents them. Thus, where in one place, the advertisement establishes the fact that women are independent and strong today, they themselves make the decisions of practicing the very sexist ideologies they were fighting against with the rise of the feminist lady. And as Susan puts it embedded feminism and enlightened sexism reinforce each other, women today are caught up in these ‘powerful cross currents’ and are compelled to strike a bargain. They can achieve everything in life but along with that they have to obsess over their face, clothing, breasts, clothing brand, calibrated child rearing and pleasing men and being envied by other women. When on one hand embedded feminism allows women to live the power, enlightened sexism pulls them back in to being the stereotypical woman, that follows the ideals set by a patriarchy society about a perfect women, and we all as consumers of such advertisements, laugh with the way this grim mentality is put forward, not realising that we are letting these stereotypes creep in again, just because now they are put forward in a funny manner. 

Media is often perceived to have to maintain objectivity and is often criticised in its failure to do so. It is often said that the objectivity is only brought to the for when media legitimacy is at question and credibility is stake. But a question here arises, does media always need to be objective? There is this concept of Experiential journalism which has come to the fore which can be termed as the distant younger cousin of the ‘new journalism movement  of the USA in 1970s.

Bourdieu intelligently contends, there exists a homology between the class of producers and purchasers in the field of social generation. With numerous performing artists in the news field, there is exceptional market segmentation, and the decision of group of onlookers is regularly sponsored with the decision of appropriate news makers who could take into account them. In addition, "...part of what hinder mines the talk of the news is the way the news-producers themselves act inside the imperatives, weights, structures and standards that bring the bigger universe of social relations to tolerate on their work" (Hartley 1982: 47). Homology between the news stays and the quick reference gathering and furthermore the casualties of dread wound up clear when a TV news grapple and columnist, with regards to herself even with mounting feedback, said she got a considerable measure of appreciation (additionally) from "the better known ones" like Narayana Murthy, Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor and Sunil Khilnani - incidentally uncovering her reference gathering, those individuals who shape her concept of journalistic perfection.

In any case, to figure a suitable state - drove media the executives plan, it is imperative to perceive columnists as political on-screen characters furthermore, news coverage as a political foundation (Cook 1998, 2005). Pakistan's persuasive English paper Dawn, Britain's Observer daily paper and the British Broadcasting Partnership had before announced that Ajmal Qasab had a place with Faridkot after chasing down his dad Amir Qasab. This is a straightforward example of giving urgent data that could significantly influence political choices. On the other hand, board dialogs on TV channels continued discussing the alternatives that India should work out, regardless of whether political or then again military, regularly urging the oversee ment to take a hard line. It is just by recognizing columnists as political performers and not tolerating journalistic cases of being unbiased eyewitnesses at their face esteem, that the media institution could be incorporated into genuine platesions of catastrophe the executives

However, such power is not just in the hands of Hollywood. People in positions of prominence hold this power. Politicians hold this power. The American President holds this power. In his recent ad campaign during the American mid-term elections, Donald Trump’s campaign team created an ad about the migrant caravan which is moving towards the southern border of America. 

In that clip, there is a Mexican illegal immigrant who is a cop-killer, and is boasting about his “achievements” during a court hearing. This person is used as a representative any and all illegal immigrants, primarily of Hispanic origin. There is a huge banner up top, saying that this, visibly Hispanic individual, “Illegal Immigrant, Luis Bracamontes, KILLED OUR PEOPLE!” With dramatic background music, of the type which evokes imagery of an impending fight, there comes on more text saying “Democrats let him into our country” , “Democrats let him Stay.” There are more scenes of what is supposedly the migrant caravan, showing instances of violence. A man says that he would like to be pardoned for his attempt to murder. Then there comes another looming question, backed by more ominous music: “Who else would the democrats let in?” “President Donald J. Trump and Republicans are MAKING AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”

The video has got 6.74 million views and has about 98,000 likes. This is a rather large number of likes, even for a Trump post. This means that this message is something which a lot of people seems to agree with. This video attempts to depict the living hell that would follow if America allowed undocumented immigrants to come in, despite there being no statistics to prove this statement. The visuals of impending doom, backed by equally intimidating music nudges the audience to think about the consequences of undocumented immigration in the way Trump wants the viewers to think about it. While any thinking individual with a moderate amount of knowledge about the situation of immigrants would consider this clip to be bunk. However, someone who was aggrieved by migrants, like white, blue-collar workers. The people living in that region, the ones who care about their lost jobs and culture and a sense of integration, would be quick to latch on to this as a convenient explanation of their situation. The effective idea, of national security is an image in which he places the idea of illegal immigration, which would play the safety concerns of the viewers. Thus, they would conclude to themselves that this exclusion of migrants is essential for maintenance of law and order. And given that the democrats were the ones enabling this, they need to be kept out of power in order to maintain security. 

Such emotions are played upon when the Trump campaign manipulates people based on the premise of fear. 

Enlightened Sexism! Sounds weird or even funny to hear at first right? But in reality, it is scarier than sexism itself. In simple words, sexism shows one sex to be below another while Enlightened Sexism shows one sex to be below another by exaggerating its achievements. Confusing? 

Let’s take an example:

In this advertisement Anushka is trying on clothes and each time she gets out of the changing room she asks her boyfriend to validate her look in the different outfits. When on one hand each time she comes out in a new outfit she seems happy with it, the guy seems to be disapproving of her choices. Now this may not seem bad to the viewer of the advertisement as it’s not necessary that the guy has to like the dresses that Anushka likes which is fair. But Then she comes out in a backless and sleeveless dress and the guy seems pleasantly surprised by how beautiful she is all on a sudden. This clearly shows that in order to gain attention and time from the guy she had to flaunt her “perfect” and smooth( from the lotion)body. This is also supposed to show that in order for women to be seen as equal to men, worthy of a man’s time, she needs her sexual power. Once she has that, she is suddenly put on a pedestal where the guy respects her and treats her right as if he genuinely believes that she is no less than him in any manner. The girl on the other hand is happy to feel loved and empowered by just compromising with “a little objectification”. 

Enlightened Sexism here exaggerated Anushka’s gains as a woman and rendered the idea of feminism obsolete in the sense that once she has gotten him drooling over herself by showing off her back, she no longer needs to worry about being ignored or treated unequally and as unworthy of his time. Enlightened sexism has thus managed to keep her at “her place” as subordinate to the man. 

 

 

 

Why? He has the same height, same voice, and same body. And yet, he somehow becomes invisible the moment he takes off his Superman suit and puts on a pair of glasses. The comics describe Kent as a tall, broad figure, who walks with a slight hunch and is always soft spoken. Superman, on the other hand, in all his charismatic glory, is portrayed as a broad chested, shoulder pulled back, hands on his hips sort of a figure with a deep, commanding voice. 

So, can we then say that by changing your voice and the way you stand will make anyone invisible? And this is not just something that has happened in the Western cinematic space.  In Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Shah Rukh Khan getting his moustache shaved and putting on jeans changes his whole personality and makes him unrecognizable even to his wife.

These are perfect examples of how hegemonic masculinities are developed in movies and popular media. Hegemonic masculinity is the society’s portrayal of how the ideal man should be. This is, it is most important to note, not based in reality or practicality, but instead in the aspirational space. It tells people what a man must do, what he must look like and how he must talk in order to be a man at all. There are multiple hegemonic masculinities, separated by space, by communities and by nations. This is most astonishing when it is sold to little kids and adolescents, when they are still developing a sense of self. The frivolous nature of Raj and his constant flirting are then sold as what a man does. On the other hand, Surinder’s thoughtful behavior makes him less of a man. 

In both Surinder and Kent’s case, the formal way of dressing, the soft voice and the lack of unfaltering self-confidence makes them less desirable than their counterparts. 

Superman and Raj, however, ooze self-assurance and a save-the-world complex, which presents itself in the form of Superman fighting villains and Raj teaching Tani how to live her life. The background music and flashy entries only add to the appeal.

More importantly, how does that impact any of us at all? It does. It tells young boys and men that being respectful and soft-spoken is not what a man does. That you must dress in tightly fitted clothes to even deserve the main heroine’s attention and only by ignoring what she’s saying can you make her fall in love with you, because of course, you know what is best for her.

This leads to a social breakdown, which means that, since an individual’s sense of self and his ability to mediate between the self and the society are functions of socially developed forms of ideality and perfection, so any dissonance between the perceived self and social ideal leads to a breakdown of core values and principles, thus leading the individual to behave in ways that he perceives to be in line with the social ideal. This is, in fact, the reason for the development of hyper-masculinities in societies that have a very strongly defined idea of hegemonic masculinity.

And so, with the lack of criticality that we watch them with, Raj’s arrogance remains desirable, Superman’s mysteriousness remains untiring, women remain damsels waiting for the distress that would lead them to their hero and “real men” continue to be a fable being constantly chased. 

Source: ( Cultural Appropriation: What Is It And Why Is It Problematic? (2017, June 27). Retrieved from https://feminisminindia.com/2017/06/23/cultural-appropriation-problematic/)

While the bigger picture here seems to be revolving around culture and who owns it, this piece tries to find a reason as to how the Indian culture is being consumed, by the foreigners. (non-Indians). It is imperative to understand that Cultural Misappropriation is mostly done by the dominant community, this is as a result of the power and so-called “privilege” that they have.

Cultural Appropriation is the inappropriate, disconnected adoption of the practices, beliefs customs, etc. of one person by members of another category.

This submission talks about this issue by shedding light on pop-culture and its Imitation of the India culture. The artifacts chosen are the songs Come and Get it by Selena Gomez and the Hymn for the Weekend while the songs seem to be supposedly portraying the Indian culture, somehow they adaptation appears to be way off the mark for the Indian eye.

The Selena Gomez song was shot in India and soon rose to the top of the charts, apart from the Indian rhythm and instruments, there isn’t too much about this song that is Indian. The problem with these interpretations is the lack of disconnect, between the viewer and the Indian. The ornaments that the background dancers are clad with from head to toe are a perfect example of this, in India, the expensive ornaments hold great ritualistic value (not just aesthetic) and are used only during special/auspicious occasions. The fact that the dance is around the fire is just offensive but sure, one can argue that for the cinematic value of the piece.

The second artifact I have chosen is the song by Coldplay, from the extremely colorful portrayal of the religious country that has been taken over by monks to the shot of the overly dressed shot of Beyonce in “Indian attire.” From the dingy slums, levitating holy men and children who seem to be throwing colors. It seems like the Westerners have completely misunderstood the Indian culture.
The ideas are way off, and the video in several ways idealized Indian realities of a complex nation in favor of reductive tropes intended to preserve western hegemony.

The misinterpreted concept of the bindi, to the limited understudying of the Indian culture- poverty, spirituality, and color. The list of cultural misinterpretations does not stop here, the songs by Iggy Azalea- Bounce, Lean on by Major Laser and Dj Snake and the excessive use of the bindi by western actresses are all examples of ignorance and cultural misappropriations. It's thus important to understand, Who then owns culture?

Artifacts:
1.https://youtu.be/n-D1EB74Ckg
2.https://youtu.be/YykjpeuMNEk

For those spared the imposition of this “romantic story of true love”, 50 Shades of Grey builds the relationship between a clumsy, innocent and delicate Arts major and a proud, rich and brooding multi-millionaire (he is 27, and has built his business empire by his own hard work and driven it to a turnover of billions. This itself needs sufficient debate). Only, they get to know each other through various adventurous kinds of sex, and eventually fall in love. 

Problem? Mr. Christian Grey, our protagonist, walks right out of R.W. Connell’s definition of Hegemonic Masculinity. He is well built (his description may have hinted towards the number of abs), rich (and by his own hard work, not inherited), the stereotypically most admirable “man of the family”, is known to excel at sports and takes risks, and is very satisfying (in a book about sex, this had to come up *pun unintended*)

All ridicule aside, Mr. Grey excels in every trait that defines the initial stereotypical definition of masculinity that Connell offers. And the concept of the man’s exercise of control is, in fact, the point of the text. His control over the businesses throughout America, his desire to control his wife’s every decision (clothing to career), and his evident control of all those who interact with him on a daily basis, all point towards the same thing. 

Critics have mentioned that 50 Shades of Grey promotes BDSM, which could be damaging to the opinions readers have on sex and intimacy. I make no comment on other people’s sexual desires; but promoting a man without visible emotions, unreal levels of success, and an unhealthy desire for control sure could damage the readers’ opinions of, well, men. That, coupled with the dainty heroine who is always saved by the man, leaves the readers stuck onto an acceptance and promotion of the toxic, binding masculinity. 

The ad starts with a simple question, “Are you a great dad?’ It starts with the father waiting outside his son’s school, waiting for him to come and in the meanwhile doubting if he is a good enough father because there are several days pass by when he is not able to meet his son. But, at the same time he feels great seeing his son happy and cheerful. The father feels proud when he sees his son learning things from him. Things as small as polishing the shoes.

The ad shows this care and concern in the simplest of ways from seeing the smile on their child’s face to seeing them sleep peacefully. The impact which SBI aims to create is enhanced even further when they show the father as an army man. Everyone understands and knows the long days the army men have to live away from their family. This definitely creates a feeling of distance from the family members and these men usually fear that they will miss out on the growing years of their children which in turn might disconnect them from their fathers. 

The ad clearly works along the lines of what Tony Schwartz calls as the Resonance Theory. He says that certain advertisements are made in such a manner that they are able to resonate with the experiences and information an individual in the audience already has. This resonance between the the advertisement and the audience enhances the desired effect. In the advertisement, it is simply shown how a regular army men or if we have to generalise, any dad always is worried to be the dad to which his child looks up to. And, with this, they want to take every possible way to secure their child’s in future. These are things experienced in the life of every parent. Parents always look out for their children’s happiness and security.
 
What the ad tries to show here is how these great dads take care of their children and family. And what protects their children even after they are not there? The answer is simple, SBI Life Insurance. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrR2XlDn-4Y 

When I searched for portable mobile hotspots in France and later on, was bombarded with ads for ‘Skyroam International Hotspot’ each time I opened up Youtube, it reminded me of the power of algorithms to show us what they think, or ‘assess’ that we want to see. The fact that I had never even used my laptop to search for these things, but rather, my phone, was an example of how these networks of algorithms work. Often, I even clicked on these advertisements and spent time on Skyroam’s website. This definitely generated economic value for the company. Through my searches, therefore, Google has collected information about my preferences, a piece of common intellect and managed to convert that into Network value and Wealth, both for itself, as well as for Skyroam potentially (Pasquinelli, pp. 3-4).    

Each time I saw an advertisement for Skyroam, I was impressed by its capabilities. There was, however, one for which I had to think beyond the technological capabilities of the product. 

The advertisement linked above, shows how a lady, Sam, is ‘helped’ by Skyroam to travel in Hong Kong with confidence. This advertisement, as I will try to elucidate below, is a perfect example of what enlightened sexism looks like in mass media. 

The ad shows a woman, who, in many instances, looks like a typical ‘white’ lady who is out on an expedition, a solo trip to ‘discover herself’. That, at least, is what the advertisement seems to have portrayed. She is shown doing things that can be expected from an adventurous traveller – exploring via local transport, or via foot, and even enjoying her solace at a serene natural spot. This idea of blanketing what westerners like to do in ‘Non – Western’ countries itself does not gel well with me, but that is beyond the primary concern of this piece. 

Having shown Sam as an ‘independent’, ‘confident’ traveller, it is then made clear that the reason she is able to travel with confidence is because of the little orange device in her hand. I do not extrapolate from the video when I say so; this fact is in plain view as the title of the video advertisement! 

If this seems innocuous on its own, it won’t when compared with other advertisements for this product. ALL the other advertisements, which showcase men, focus on things such as connection, staying in touch with family, being able to push one’s boundaries, and so on. None, absolutely none of the advertisements featuring men portray the idea that the device is the reason why the protagonist has the confidence, or any other skills desired, to travel. 

The idea that the same product can have different values in the lives of different demographics is not one that is problematic here, but the idea that one particular demographic derives all their inherent qualities because of their mere possession of the product, indeed is.  

 

72% of consumers will take action only after reading a positive review while 86% of people will only buy something if it has a 4+ star rating. 

This practice doesn't come without its demons.  To my disappointment and some distress, I learned about “astroturfing.” It is defined as “creating the impression of public support by paying people in the public to pretend to be supportive.”  It is the opposite of “grassroots” and is a bottom-up approach of manufacturing consent. With the increasing knowledge about manipulation of the algorithm of online sites, and people are more savvy at masking their identities. Many companies hire people from India or the Philippines to write fake reviews where reviewers reportedly create fake identities for each of their persona.  

In the past, Yelp admitted to having more than quarter of submitted reviews as fake in 2013. In 2015, Amazon sued people for allegedly writing fake reviews  which in some cases boosted the sale of products to astronomical heights. 

We are bombarded with so much information on a daily basis which makes us more susceptible to fall prey to our own biases. In a dystopia not far from 'Black Mirror', screens have started to rule our lives. Eliminating such elements might take time but we need to become more aware as consumers.  Raising public awareness of the problem, we can only hope to develop tools to detect astroturfers so that social media users can make informed choices and resist online social manipulation and propaganda.

Stop relying solely on these online reviews. Next time some @MrsNickJonas writes that a Salman Khan movie was the next best thing after Inception, you need to stop. Read between the lines and take these online reviews with a grain of salt. 

#Don'tFallForTheStars

(P.S. Hoping for a good review on my review about reviews)

What seems to be the problem is the attitude the news anchor while presenting the achievement. Will have the similar behaviour if it was any other group boyband like Queen and Beatles. Yes, I am comparing them to Queen and Beatles. Why should I not, the notion most people have that Queen and Beatles are for the elites, it is a high culture because it is not consumed by the general public. But there was a time when it was consumed by the general public. But that is not where the problem lies. The problem lies in the fact that the western culture perceives BTS (Eastern culture) to be not educated enough to give the speech in UN Assembly. The reason that news anchor,  Kendis Gibson gives that they dance in synchronization wearing flashy clothes. But how can that be the reason when The Queen front man Freddie Mercury had one of the fanciest Stage clothes. This happens due to the West’s perspective of thinking oriental culture to be this state of becoming. We have not fully grown enough and are in the stage of instability and confusion and they should not be given any power which they cannot handle. The leader of BTS is one of a brilliant student across the whole nation and his ranking was in the top 1.35 of the whole nation. Burt that is not good enough criteria for the news anchor. This video shows even with all BTS’s growing popularity they are still considered mainstream and not worthy enough. 

Given, The Sipmpson is not, by any measure, recent , but it's still in everyone's mind, it's effects on the society are still omnipresent, because of it's popularity.

 It is known for its undeniable wit and accurate predictions, as it should be. What it should not be popular for is- Stereotyping, which it is. Here, we are talking about our own resident Indian- Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.
Apu is an Indian immigrant and is stereotypically Indian (in a way that is not even Indian). Everything about him, from his accent to the way he carries himself, is stereotypical. And as Sister Elizabeth Thoman says, in the reading 'How to break the stereotypes.' ,categorizing is dangerous too. Stereotypes can become too rigid and when there is no room for growth the label becomes stifling, both for the individuals who are labeled and for the category itself. 
Many go on to say that Simpsons stereotyped everyone, so it shouldn't be a problem. While I agree with the first statement, what they forget is that he was the only Indian representation,unlike with other cultures,in the western culture for a very long time, and many people started to view Indians in the same mould, which is a problem.
Apu, in this video, and the whole series has an accent, which, stays with very few Indians while they speak, and is not a norm but many people in the West expect Indians to speak that way.
This video, in addition, had multiple other stereotypes as well about religion,forced, arranged marriages, travelling on elephants, the traditions, the belief in everything that God says.
This formed a set pattern in west's mind about what India is, which not everyone complies with, and hence bullying and other disparities ensue.
The Simpson has defined cool for a long time. This, however, is not cool.

One of the questions critics of the postmodernist perspective pose is what is being sold in the commercialist culture: Song or product? When it comes to K-Pop, many feel that it would be the latter. The author of this article reiterates this, stating that the massive popularity it has gained in the US is due to “a few hardcore, mouthy fans that have made it seem like it is”. It no longer is about the songs or the message that any K-pop group tries to send out, but rather the structured commercialisation of their image, promoted by the companies that the idol groups work under. 

There are many different perspectives to this issue that have been debated constantly. The overall view is that K-Pop is manufactured, and the assembly and promotion of an idol group are carefully planned- They have dancers, vocalists, and rappers, all of whom are good looking beyond belief. This article, however, focuses on how BTS gained an almost alarming presence overnight in the States, and how this phenomenon seems as fleeting as Psy’s popularity with one viral song. He tries to justify how BTS’ two albums released in the same year, Love Yourself: Tear and Love Yourself: Answer hit the #1 spot on the Billboard charts with what he terms as very few sales. He sarcastically points out that “for something considered “popular”, these are pretty weak numbers”. This once again comes back to the debate postmodernism poses: What is to be considered popular? What is the quantifiable number that makes something popular? He compares the Korean invasion to the British invasion of The Beatles back in the day. But wasn't that considered popular too?

Net Neutrality is for the Internet. The Internet and Web are different. The Web is an application that runs on Internet which means that despite the two being different, a  Web user  is also a user of the Internet. So any interference caused to the Internet will have an adverse effect on the Web user. Digital rights are human rights that allow individuals to access, create, and publish and mostly importantly, use all digital media. The term encompasses the right to protection of personal data of an individual, the right to their privacy as well as their right to freedom of expression. 

The Web, as Tim Berners-Lee  puts it, “is vital to democracy- a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide conversation.”  It is based on egalitarian principles which means that no matter where you are located, what computer you have, whether your Internet connection is wired or wireless- you should not be discriminated on the Web based on what content you can access and in this context, at what speed despite which ISP you have. It developed into the powerful and ubiquitous tool it is today because what was initially created to help scientists share data across the Internet was given away by Tim Berners-Lee for free.  The simple setup of one web and one browser, when it started, upheld a radical concept- Any person could share information with anyone else, anywhere.Net neutrality is a threta to the Internet and hence to the Web. Berners- Lee had created it envisioning certain principles it should function on- like universality, open standards, human rights, decentralization.Threats like these are destructing the very purpose of the existence of the Web. As Berners-lee himself says, “The web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity-and even our liberty .Like democracy itself, it needs defending.” 

Submitted By: Cherry Yadvendu

Heterosexual men are quite often the heroes of movies. From being portrayed as 'defenders' of the nation, woman, being extremely macho in nature to being effectively irritated,  bad tempered leaders while the ladies are commonly subordinate characters who are damsel in distress or sex objects of the film. They are unreasonably enthusiastic, physically frail and dependent on their male accomplices. Compassion and being vulnerable  is often  viewed as a fixing and a shortcoming in one's character and is always to be rejected by male heroes.

Hegemonic Masculinity is something on which we’ve all been raised. These elements can be seen notably in almost all Disney movies. The idea of Disney princes being tough, true love of the princesses, kissing them without their consent and everyone being okay with it and lastly always saving the day has now become hegemony since society too has started believing it.In order to shed more light on how we’re being fed hegemonic masculinity right from the time we were infants, I chose the movie Beauty and The Beast.

Beauty and the Beast, the whole movie is filled with this idea of strong superior men. Whether it is Gaston or the Beast himself. The movie also further shows how Belle’s father, an old, short, pot bellied man is not a “real man” since he is not masculine or of the stature of a man who has all the inherent hegemonic masculine traits.

According to Trujillo, there are 5 major features to hegemonic masculinity and without a surprise Gaston from the movie satisfies them all.

All in all, even though I have particularly focused on Gaston from Beauty and the beast, instances of this can be found in any Disney movie one picks, whether it snow white, where snow cannot fend for self and only the 7 dwarves and a prince can save her. Or in the little mermaid or the sleeping beauty, the list goes on and on. Since the concept has now built into our own society, maybe Disney is not all to blame for the beast turning into a man and not a woman with whom Belle could’ve had a happily ever after. Gaston, to date seems to be one of worst characters Disney could have created to endorse toxic masculinity. This further just proves how ideologies are conceivable and we as media literacy students are now realising it. Given, its long adventure from Greek city-states to Marxist socialism in the world of Disney which prompted the  examination of these movies, it remains a commanding power in for all intents and purposes each part of human life today.

Artefact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g 

YouTube Rewind (shall be referred to as Rewind from here on) is a video series, produced and released by YouTube near the end of each year, as implied by the name. This video attempts to be a recap of each year’s viral videos, events and trends. Music has always been omnipresent in the background, but celebrity cameos are becoming popular over the years, with the advent of viral music videos, ranging from Psy’s “Gangnam Style” to Drake and Lil Pump’s “I love it.” Historically, music has been the most watched content of YouTube, so it is only natural to have them represented in Rewind. 

Typically, Rewind videos have been quite popular. However, this year’s video has been deeply unpopular, with 45 million view, and a like to dislike ratio of 1.4 Million likes to 3.8 Million dislikes. 
 This video shows the safest, most basic, appealing to the lowest common denominator sense of humour, which will offend none and attempts to please everyone. Given the kind of a platform YouTube is, being playful about the events of the past year is something which they could do to gain some credentials with the viewers, since there was a lot of “drama” which could be referenced. But YouTube misses out on doing so because of the tussle between YouTube’s identity as a platform for creators, against the identity of a platform for advertisers and big-name production companies. 

They choose the “safest” non-controversial content creators, who make the YouTube brand look approachable, nice and accepting of all, when that isn’t the case. There is a part in the video where the video grinds to a halt and tries to address the audience, where once-popular stars like Lily Singh (Channel: Superwoman) say lines like “you know who needs to be in this video? Everyone who managed to be something bigger than themselves and worked for causes which matter to them the most.” While there obviously isn’t much wrong with the message itself, the message sounds fake and preachy, with viewers aware that creators get large pay-outs for featuring in these videos. 

The audience knows that YouTube is trying to cover the platform’s truth with content they deem “acceptable” and “advertiser-friendly,” 

Hence, the audience express their ire and dissatisfaction in the dislikes, and in the comments. The comments are overwhelmingly negative, the dislikes are self-explanatory about the sentiment. Here, we can see the coming of an audience, which is discerning. It is able to see YouTube’s identity crisis and see that their favoured content creators are losing out to the corporates. The cherry on top is the fact that the video starts and ends with cameos from Will Smith, there are late night show hosts who do Fortnite dances. (popular celebratory dances from the shooter game, Fortnite) 

These people are last ones a viewer thinks of when thinking of YouTube. Yet, YouTube wants to associate itself with these very individuals, and has thus alienated its own audience. The number one subscribed Youtuber, PewDiePie, who hasn’t been in Rewind since the past two years, has set off the largest chain of events of this year in “YouTube history” with his war with T-series. Yet, there wasn’t a single mention of those incidences. Such a disconnect has left discerning users tired and harried. They see YouTube’s attempts to go corporate and at the same time attempt to be a platform for independent creators, while undermining the very creators who made the website into what it is. 

Hence, we see how YouTube is facing the consequences of marginalising its platform’s largest, self-made, well-loved creators. Subscribe to PewDiePie 

The artifact is the news report on Putin “discovering” ancient artifact while scuba diving in south Russia. This fits right under the public image of Putin. The former Russian spy, who rides horses half naked in the winter, loves to cuddle leopards, takes a shirtless ice bath, and rides with a nuclear “doomsday” torpedo capable of ending the world, what more do you need from your president. After all, Putin is the “man”. He falls right under the R. W. Connels definition of Hegemonic Masculinity. 

But let’s focus how his image has been developed in the media. Portrayal of Putin in the news in above case led to another round of talks focusing on “how great is Putin”. Even these talks were recorded and displayed on National Television. Several snapshots of Putin have led to the similar discussion in the mass. This is yet another example of what Chomsky has described as manufacturing consent.  With the cases like this, media is effectively building the image of Putin as a no nonsense leader who should not be meddled with at any cost. This is the image that Putin absolutely require to maintain his authoritarian control over public. The aim of cases such as above is to systematically divert the attention from more logical facts like rampant corruption and political assassinations to “This guy can kick America’s butt” for the citizens of nation.  In the above case, there was significant proof of the news being manufactured by the media, as two divers had recently searched the area before “accidental” discovery by Putin. But as other logical facts, these were “taken care of”. 

Media will keep on “reporting” such cases and Putin will continue to be the “man”. After all, with great power comes great masculinity.  

 

 

The concept of Hegemonic Masculinity is reinforced in the ad of H&M for superbowl 2012. The ad is directed by Guy Ritchie and features David Beckham in lead. Supposedly a successful campaign, it reinforces the idea of hegemonic masculinity where the ad is action-packed in a scenario where David Beckham is running through the streets. His provocative physical appearance is supposed to impress the audience where the qualities of a ‘real man’ are demonstrated. David Beckham as a person is normally considered very masculine where he is globally recognized as a sportsperson, financially wealthy and a family man. His status of being a family man is evident from his Instagram posts which majorly feature his family. His rugged and athletic body for a sportsman further classify him as a ‘real man’ which other men are supposed to achieve. Thus, David Beckham is a strategic decision by the filmmakers to represent a real man because he follows two features laid down by Trujillo for a real man. His power is defined in terms of physical force and control (particularly in terms of body) and his heterosexuality is confirmed again with him being a family man, his wife being globally known for her extraordinary beauty, and he has tattooed the name of his wife on his body. This construction of a real man is used by the filmmakers to their advantage where the audience can resonate with the purpose of the product of the ad. 

On 3^rd December 2018, Tumblr announced that posts having Adult Content will no longer be allowed on its platform. Their updated community guidelines go like this “Tumblr is not for Adult Content: Don't upload images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples —this includes content that is so photorealistic that it could be mistaken for featuring real-life humans (nice try, though). Certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity are fine. Don’t upload any content, including images, videos, GIFs, or illustrations, that depicts sex acts.”

Tumblr brought about this close to two weeks after Apple removed the Tumblr iOS app from the Apple App Store after Child Pornography content was found on it. The content was removed as soon as it was flagged by users. Interestingly, Tumblr released a blog post wherein they say that the Adult Content ban shouldn’t be seen as a fallout of the Child Pornography issue. This is not the first time Tumblr is facing such an issue. Tumblr which is owned by Oath Inc. (A subsidiary of Verizon Communications which is also the parent company of Yahoo! and AOL) faced a similar backlash in 2013 when it was acquired by Yahoo!. This time however, a law passed by the US Congress by the name Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA-SESTA) acted as a significant tool to prevent Tumblr from covering this issue up easily. Notably, the FOSTA-SESTA led to many Subreddits, Patreon and Craigslists accounts being shut. Thus, Tumblr banning Adult Content shouldn’t be seen as an isolated incident. However, the debate shouldn’t be just restricted to why Tumblr is banning but also to how Tumblr is banning the contents.

Contents that have been flagged as inappropriate include 

1)      https://kotaku.com/tumblrs-new-algorithm-thinks-garfield-is-explicit-conte-1830854912. 

2)      http://digg.com/2018/tumblr-flagged-adult-content-mistakes

3)      https://nerdist.com/tumblr-anti-adult-content-algorithm-not-working/

 

The post which declared Tumblr’s adult content ban has itself being flagged as inappropriate. While this may seem bizarre at first glance, we need to understand that machines do not see images like we humans do. In a layperson’s language, computers see clusters of pixels coming together to form images in patterns which they have seen in the past. Thus Tumblr’s new algorithm might just be firing anything and everything new it is coming across as inappropriate. Machine Learning (ML) codes are known for misidentifying patterns and coming up with spurious correlations in the past. Google Photos once marked a white American’s black friends as Gorillas. The issues are not just limited to image recognition codes. Facebook showed ads of kids toys and clothes to a woman who had a miscarriage.

Tumblr’s case can be seen as an example of Garbage In-Garbage Out (GIGO). Millions of data sets containing adult and not-adult content is fed into the system which based on these identifies patterns. With a dataset containing bad data, the results are bound to be equally bad. Relying solely on algorithms is thus extremely problematic. Until we come up with better systems, we need to ensure human moderation as well. However, classifying anything as Not Safe for Work (NSFW) and Safe For Work (SFW) isn’t as straightforward as it appears to be. Humans are also data sets. However their actions cannot be simply converted into a stream of 0s and 1s. The concept of “Cognitive Rent” as talked about in Matteo Pasquinelli’s essay on Google’s Page Rank algorithm raises this very same point. Google, Facebook, Tumblr etc have very little to claim as their IP apart from the platform they are providing. This platform us an aggregate of the algorithms which reply on getting the data from human inputs. Thus keywords like “Porn” might ban tags like “Foodporn” (which presents food in a “glamorous” manner) and “Wordporn” (a social media page for quotes).

 

As a reddit user joked about Tumblr’s staff having a conversation like this

PHB: We've got too much porn on Tumblr. Make the porn go away!

Developer: Um… that's what our site is, mostly. How exactly do you want to make it go away?

PHB: I read an article about Machine Learning! Build an ML system to do it!

Developer: That… isn't going to work.

PHB: I. READ. AN. ARTICLE. Just do your damn job and build a porn filtering system.

It would be interesting to address the questions that this issue has raised about algorithms and the people behind it.

An artifact supporting reading: What is Popular Culture? 

Cricket, as we see today, has become an inseparable part of our lives (if not another way of life). From a luxury part-time sport of the elite in British India, cricket is a force that binds people speaking 22 different languages with 700 different dialects belonging to 2000 different ethnicities to shout together “India.” 

Contemporary cricket fits the second definition of culture given by Raynold Williams that defines culture as: “a particular way of life, whether of people, a period or a group.” 

A way of defining the popular culture according to William is “the culture that is left over when we have decided the high culture.” According to this definition cricket in British India would fall under high culture. It can be identified as a practice that separates an ‘individual’ from ‘the thousands’. The skill of bowling, batting and the technical knowledge of different types of shots was restricted to the Kings or British officers who could afford to spend time on such activity. Movie Lagaan, quite accurately depicts the cricket that was prevalent in British India and how the poor villagers were apprehensive 

The fact that makers of Lagaan chose cricket (a slow paced game that would make up for less on-screen drama) instead of some more aggressive sport reinforces the thought that it had the potential to attract Indian masses to theatres and has fully transformed into popular culture. As opposed to a transition that is expected to lose its status of high culture when it becomes a mass culture, cricket has retained its title of a gentleman’s game. This encourages us to question that should the two cultures (viz. popular and high cultures) must remain exhaustive of each other? This also intrigues us to think that if a time would come when cricket would shed-off its roots of an elite culture and completely become an activity of the mass or would it go back to being an elitists’ luxury. 

Such a development toward perceiving youth as the members and eyewitnesses of the way of life that they guarantee, reject, and redo without anyone else terms is clear in the 12 articles and 3 book surveys displayed here, which include determinations from the early and center of the twentieth century notwithstanding later works. The subjects considered in these articles incorporate political commitment, monetary and instructive chances (or the scarcity in that department), sex, sexuality, transitional experiences and custom, culture change, utilization, pop culture, dialect, intergenerational strife, and place and space. We can't guarantee that this gathering, winnowed from the distributions of the American Anthropological Association, is in any capacity authoritative of the dynamic field of concentrate on youth. Our point in uniting these works is to give beginning stages to drawing nearer and connecting with youth in humanities.

The fun thing to know here is that it's not been this strategy from the beginning. Initially, it was very exclusive, and only those who had been following it from the first, with movies and comics were drawn to it. But over time they realised that there was a threat of this ‘high culture’, if it stayed that way for too long, it will lose. Hence, when Iron Man first debuted, the entire world went ga-ga over Robert Downey Jr, and moreover Tony Stark. And since then, they have been monetizing on their fictitious, romanticized end of world scenarios. John Storey, in his article, “Cultural Theory and Popular Culture”, using his five definitions of pop-culture, would definitely categorize The Marvel Universe as massively pop culture. “The field of popular culture is structured by the attempt of the ruling class to win hegemony (here; over DC), and by forms of opposition to this endeavour.” What works for them is that they don't use everyday life to depict instances, but what contemporaries imagine life to be. The claim that popular culture is American culture has a long history within the theoretical mapping of the popular culture. It operates under the term ‘Americanization’. And that is why, the influence of American culture worldwode is undoubted. Also, being a part of this Marvel Universe has an effect of binding us to the social order; a social order which is marked by enormous inequalities of wealth, status and power. Hence, being able to talk about MU gives one a status quo to become a part of what others think is popular culture, irrespective of what they personally believe of it. And that's exactly what enavles Avengers, The Endgame to wipe out records in half a day. 

                Gillette has always established itself as a leading brand when it comes to men’s grooming products. Their catchy slogan, ‘The best a Man can get’ has been effectively marketed to their audience and it has been a repetitive feature in almost all of their advertisements and commercials. However, we have to stop and ask ourselves, what according to Gillette is the definition of a ‘Man’? 

                Though there are several ads where Gillette uses this rhetoric, one particular commercial by Gillette features the portrayal of their version of a so called ‘Man’. In this commercial, their representation of masculinity is characterized by certain attributes that have been continually reinforced time and time again in order to convince their male consumers to continue to buy their products in order to reach this ideal image of male behaviour. In other words, they repeatedly enforce hegemonic masculinity through their commercials. 

                The commercial starts with multiple shots which consist of athletes achieving great heights, for example, scoring a slam dunk in basketball and scaling the top of a mountain highlighting the need of a man to achieve success. In addition there are also shots of famous athletes including David Beckham and Muhammed Ali all while the narrator states that every guy experiences that one ‘feeling’. This feeling refers to their dominance in their field, their superiority and their unbreakable attitude. A shot captures a man looking flirtatiously to a woman with the narrator saying ‘You look they smile’ further highlighting the man’s power and control over the woman. A repeated goal to achieve is further highlighted throughout the video and it is important to note that in this commercial, a specific occupational status or achievement is the main feature which is reinforced. The commercial further highlights that every move a man should make should be ‘smooth’ or ‘cool’ in every way. It is this representation of masculinity which will derive success and pleasure in life and it is an experience which should never be lost for a ‘Man’.   

Comics have always been a crucial way to express events from daily life. This is the essence of the comics. Each part of the comic strip is a link to the other and with each part that the reader reads; the comic develops a sense of suspense and builds on to it. Comics have evolved as they’ve come a long way. Earlier comics portray an exaggerated and often a censored and modified form of reality. They were normalized to the prevailing circumstances. However, now we encounter comics which are somewhat a reflection of what really goes around. 

Feminist comic humor is one such form of comics which bring out social inequalities and sexism with a biting sense of humor. It challenges the stereotypical definitions of women and femininity. The chosen artifact attacks the thinking of the primed reader. As soon as the reader encounters the first part of the comic strip, the immediate reaction is that of concern and horror. The reader subconsciously assumes that something must have gone wrong with the protagonist as she is walking out of her home after midnight. What follows later in the comic is an counter and a blunt outright attack on the very thinking that persists, and the notion/ norm towing the line between right and wrong, and ‘safe’ and  ‘unsafe’ for a women. It breaks that mold. The disarming humor here is a vehicle of expression of the frustration and suffocation that women experience as they are forced to fit in the mold of norms decided for women but not by them, where these norms reflect nuanced versions of social injustice normalized to portray protection of women. This artifact is an parody of this social constructions. 

2016IPM012

For this critical response I have chosen some screenshots from some news channels in India.

We discussed in the class of Media and Propaganda, how the book, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media’ written by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman is relevant in Indian context through an article ‘Manufacturing Consent in India: Mass Media and the Political Elites’ written by Mr. Paresh Hate.

The article discusses how the five filters of Editorial Bias are playing in whenever these media platforms serve us a news item.

So when I was looking for artifacts, I found some pictures who are not a part of any propaganda (not directly, at least). Then I don't get it why they are playing it on there channel? And it's not like they are some kind of important news item that they are doing out of ethics. In fact, they are so petty that I wonder how did they even make it to a news telecast?

Why would a cat who is stuck on a window sill or a donkey who has a “unique ability” to sleep on the ground, get broadcasted on channels like Aajtak and IndiaTV? These are not the small players we are talking about. Neither do I think that any big corporate or politician is gaining anything out of it. By this logic, are these items just fillers? 

If you look at the bottom of the picture, something about Congress and Amitabh Bacchan is going on. It's actually hard to determine “the importance” of both the news items since, highlighting whether a particular famous actor (Amitabh Bacchan) likes or dislikes a particular political party of our country (Congress) can be traced back to one of filters of Editorial Bias; Fear of an Enemy. People who admire Amitabh, in a way, are being tempted to like Congress. And if any other party issues some conflicting statement, it becomes enemy of sorts.

If a cat getting stuck somewhere is just a filler, then why do channels need them? They clearly have some propagandas to preach,or, if I could add one more example, a crime is being reported in bottom news flash but in the main frame a news regarding a lost dog of some officer is going on. So basically, a crime is still more important, I guess.

I would like to rest my case by saying, it is crucial how we look at these 'fillers'. It's either channels really don't have anything important to show or they have something important to hide.

All of this is done in the name of enlightened sexism, under the belief that since women have already been empowered by now, such songs are only a representation of how they wish to be and how they want to be treated. The romanticisation of the stalker in Bollywood movies is something all of us have come to accept as natural. For a huge art of the population, such movies tell them how a girl has to be pursued and wooed. 

The unending shopping, the constant dissing of others and the jealous fights over boys are a frequent occurrence in the Bollywood cornucopia and as entertaining as they seem, they are equally as harmful. They create fantasies of power for young girls, and even older women, about how they are so empowered that now every action is not a result of oppression but of personal choice. When earlier they were forced to stay at home and not work, now they do so because they wish to. While earlier being leered at made them uncomfortable because of what it might mean for their dignity, now the same catcalls become symbols of empowerment and pride. Now mindlessness becomes a choice, as does intelligence. Being an arm candy is somehow equally as empowering as being an independent person with attributed beyond the physical. Or at least that is what traditional Indian cinema claims to be the truth. 

It is time that one must realize the consequences of this trivialization of the women empowerment stance in Bollywood and stop this before more explicit forms of injustice become the norm and again, we are left grumbling over the golden past of the country being ruined by men behind a screen and waiting for a Lakshmi Bai or a Geeta Phogat to somehow take center stage once more.

Artifact:
Any movie or song mentioned in the piece.
For a specific link to start with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=id&gl=ID&v=PqFMFVcCZgI

2015IPM102

In Cultural studies, Multiculturalism and Media culture by Douglas Kellner, Gramsci’s model of hegemony and counterhegemony is mentioned. It says that there are dominant ideologies of the ruling social class and their cultural forces are hegemonic. The ideologies of the subordinate culture which forms a resistance to it in order to aid the process of political struggle and emancipation from oppression and domination is called counterhegemonic. In today’s times we can see a similar phenomenon occurring. This is the increasing rise of Korean music throughout the global scenario. The Hallyu wave which is basically the rise of Korean wave is happening very rapidly throughout the world. But the Korean culture was very much prevalent in South Korea but why the sudden change in their demographic. It can be that this the counterhegemonic occurrence after US’s long hegemonic rule over the soft power. To give some evidence to this statement, let’s look into some data. BTS is one of the leading acts of the Hallyu wave. The given link gives us the top 10 countries which gave the most Youtube views to BTS contents. Other than US there are no other country representing the Western audience. Even countries like Argentina and Mexico which are on the list have their own cultures and music find association with the Hallyu wave. BTS is not the only example. There are multiple Korean acts that are getting global prominence. Train to the Busan is one of the highest grossing zombie movie ever. It got critical acclamation in International film festival. 

Figures from the previous year suggest that some TV actors are paid more than the Bollywood celebrities. The list, which is used as the artifact for this article, contains 10 such TV stars. An interesting point to notice is the ratio of 'Saas-Bahu' serials to Comedy artists in the list. We have 3 comedians in the list and 7 daily soap actors, which in a way shows what the current trend of viewership is. If we think further, there are various other factors which might contribute to the increasing popularity of these shows amongst the actors. These shows usually run for a very long time (We all know 'Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi') which provides security in terms of employment and regular income to these actors. Moreover, the availability of TVs and the supporting cable connections have increased, providing these channels new localities to serve which increases their business which is not the case with Movies as they require multiplexes or screens to be displayed. As argued by Kirk Johnson, Television affects the cultural values, social change, consumerism, it can be seen coming into play as these advertising platforms are now reaching villages as well. It is easy for the viewers to associate with the characters used in such shows which increases their attachment and watch time for the same. The sequels to such shows are easy to script along with lower budget production, which allows a greater profit margin for the producers. This phenomenon of an increase in the shift from TV to Bollywood followed by the reverse shifting with respect to time, is what I like to call ‘The Normal Curve of the Entertainment Industry’.

Links- 1)https://criticsunion.com/2017/03/31/10-tv-stars-earn-bollywood-actors/10/ 
2) https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1EJFA_enIN707IN707&ei=qDIXXI65HMXdvgTq-oHACw&q=partners+trouble+ho+gayi+double+cast&oq=partners+trouble+ho+gayi+double+cast&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i22i30l2.2150.3669..4570...1.0..0.190.1047.0j6......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0i67j0i10i67.I7Kmvu3yOCc 

When I first saw the video linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nSHiHO6QJI , I couldn’t help but think back to the all too similar congressional hearing of Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. 

This video, a short highlight of the congressional hearing of Google CEO, Sunder Pichai, also tackles similar concerns of privacy and security of data on the internet, as were in question while Mr. Zuckerberg was on the seat.  

The main issue of contention in this hearing, however, was anti – conservative bias. There are several instances throughout the hearing, where the topic is brought into question, interspersed with the congressmen and women’s ubiquitous concern about being ‘tracked’. It also brings to question the issue of censorship for the search engine in China. 

A sad reality of the matter that is evident on watching a few minutes of the hearing, is the maladroitness and the unfamiliarity that is displayed by almost all the congress men and women present there, when it comes to technology such as Google search. It is not much to expect a panel on matters of technological concern to have the basic know – how on the same. 

The topic of anti – conservative bias reminds me of the views presented by David Beer in The Social Power of Algorithms. The panel was concerned that Google was advertently using results derived from liberal sources, while actively suppressing the search results from conservative sources. Mr. Pichai’s rebuttals to this claim were based on the fact that the search results, in fact, were based on Google’s proprietary algorithm, which showed search results on what people were actually searching for. Congressman Ted Lieu of California was perhaps one of the few people at Capitol Hill who understood that seeing negative search results for a keyword meant that the society perceived the entity concerned as negative! This is a prime example of algorithms being a window into the ‘Black Box Society’ described by Pasquale. Here, an algorithm has allowed Google to aggregate social choice into a curation of search results in a particular order. A direct corollary to this is the subsequent ‘hypernudge’ that results from users being exposed to this aggregation of social choice; people who now create searches will first get access to the results that converge with the social choice, and this is the view that a significant portion of the new readers will also adhere to now.  This convergence can be understood as a bottom – up consumer driven process, which, in fact, is an accelerant for democratic media. It would not be wrong to say, therefore, that the results generated by search engines play an active role in the perception of sensitive and controversial topics by the society. 

 Keeping this in mind, it is only fair to expect that makers of search engine algorithms, such as Google, strive to maintain levels of transparency and automation in their algorithms, such that they are reflective of what is really the choice of the society, and not the result of any bias in any particular social or political direction. 

In a world where we’re constantly under surveillance by our friends, family, bosses, neighbors, prospective recruiters, what we are doing is nothing but fabricating our own existence. Think about it. Every day, we open our Instagram app, go through a few hundred swipes down the long feed and just experience other people’s lives. Or do we? We’re just seeing what they want us to see. We’re just seeing what they have seen other people do. It’s surprising how there’s a pattern to everything we post on the internet. There is no uniqueness, just a replication. It might be a picturesque valley, a burst shot of joyful jump with the sea in the background, or a little kid peering through the steel wired fence. This is to say everything we’re putting up is just “inspired” from what we’ve seen earlier. This is where the part about building our own social identities come in. There is a constant effort involved in ensuring that whatever we post depicts our “true” self. We’ve undertaken to build our identities, based on the identities we think fit our own sphere of thinking. It’s a two-way road where we’re being controlled by the social media and where we’re controlling it also. And who is to say what is real? 

 

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/life/ 

Just start with searching for #life on Instagram, you’ll find over 263,838,000 posts. Do this for any hashtag you find good enough, what you’ll end up seeing is repetition — certain kind of pictures that will be repeated as you scroll down the feed. Either a guy flexing his muscles in the gym (because you know, the gym is life) or a young woman standing with a tilted head in front of the famous place (because again, traveling is life). This is not to say, that there is absolute repetition, but we’re just “inspired” by what other people are posting. Obviously, we can always conclude with “Monkey see, Monkey does!” but there is this larger question about whether what we see people on their online profiles are their real identities? If so, then can we hope for a real connection with people on social media, or is it even suitable for performing background checks on people? 

 

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/ 

How can we forget a place where we specifically manufacture ourselves for professional display? Yes, LinkedIn is one place where we begin by trying to give shape to our professional lives. We start with our basic profile information and life achievements, like the labels on a food packet in a grocery store. We’re just writing those labels for our colleagues to awe, our employees to admire, and our future bosses to be looking for. A regular LinkedIn feed is full of people talking about their interests, the news in their fields, their recent achievements (usually a candid picture of them being involved in some glorious activity – planting a tree, giving a speech, receiving an award). It can be argued that this is what the basic and main purpose of a professional social media website like LinkedIn is. But the argument in this context is not about what is the purpose of the medium is, but about how most of the online content conforms to various patterns or what has already been done. One just has to carefully notice to understand this peculiar concept of us shaping and being shaped by our very own communication mediums. 

There is also the possibility that our social identities are a mix of the real us and what we wish to show. Then, there is a greater need for media students to actually understand and look for patterns that can separate the “be” from the “wanna be.” We just have to start observing the patterns and separate out the outliers from the “mess of conformity.” The uniqueness needs to found and appreciated. Otherwise, everyone will just become a face in the crowd. 

The actress in the music video is seen dressed in a traditional Mahrashtrian fisherwoman’s outfit with a peg of alcohol strapped to her waist, dancing sexually to the fast rhythm of the number sung by Shreya Ghoshal. Apart from the mesmerized men dancing around Katrina, the entire set is disconnected and disturbing in several ways. What worries me more is the reaction of the masses towards the song, the song was extremely well received. The title of the song like other item songs has a rather vulgarized meaning with ‘Chikni’ being an adjective for the feminine gender in hindustani language (Hindi + Urdu) meaning greasy or slippery. ‘Chameli' means the same as Yasmin in Arabic, a white jasmine flower known for its strong fragrance. The title of the song basically is a vulgarized slag which means attractive, desirable, sexy and in several ways appealing - an object of sexual consumption. In fact, we can see from Rita Brara’s reading that the phrase “item number” itself is derived from the Hindi slag “item” that is used for local delicacies.

The visual design too raises serval questions in such songs as a large proportion of these kind of songs have white skinned skimpily clad woman offset against a group of dark sinned bunch of young men. The dim but detailed lighting from the lanterns and the green bush-shirts and whitish clothes of the men, attempt to paint a rather foxy, sexy atmosphere that translated into the implied physical vulneberalfity. While there were several questions over Miley Cyrus’ single Wrecking Ball, and the image of her swinging on the huge metal ball, not many people questioned the depiction of Katrina singing from a chandelier and the men dancing and swaying below almost as if to suggest that she was a dangling piece of meat. This again reinforces the concept of the item and them being objects of consumption for men. 

In all, the song is a blunt ‘objectification of woman’ in possible means. These songs have become performances for the “sexually deprived” male audiences of the patriarchal society of India. I thus argue that it is important for us to question and think critically about the cultural texts and narratives in todays media, while the west has started questioning such performances it is time for the Indian masses to wake up.  

Douglas Kellner claimed that the advertisements we see don't just sell us the product, they often sell us an idea they make us associate with a product. When considering this, I was taken back to an advertisement of a very long time ago, the 2013 Raksha Bandhan commercial that Idea had released. 

 

The advert shows a young girl asking a busy police officer for assistance with directions. He replies with the answer, following it up with the salutation of ‘Behen ji’, which means sister. Touched, the girl inquires whether the officer had gotten his rakhi tied by his sisters, to which he responded that he had to work from the morning and did not get the opportunity. She immediately ties him a rakhi, and he is very moved when he assures her that as a gift and a mark of the ‘raksha’ he is expected to do, the girl must call him should anything go wrong. 

The ad ends with the thought that idea builds networks between people. 

 

This ad pulled of various noteworthy representations. The girl was dressed in a typical middle class way, choosing an actress that gave a pure, sweet and trustworthy vibe. The policeman chosen was swarthy, typically from Haryana and carried a rude, commanding demeanor. This made the girl obviously likable and the police officer very typically the sort public disagrees with. So when the story line of the ad played out, the viewer learnt to appreciate the police officer, and feel the intended emotion strongly. 

 

That, however, is not the most interesting point. The whole advertisement mentions nothing about Idea’s network strength, ease of connection or any other feature one would look for in a Cellular Service Provider. It simply capitalizes of the pathos of a deep sibling connection between two unlikely people and associates Idea with it. The advertisement worked quite well for Idea, giving one piece of evidence to Kellner’s point of view. 

2016IPM065

There was once a stout man with the signature goatee and his calm demeanor. He dared to disagree with his country’s government and told the world the truth about its brutality toward those who would speak out against it. And he was murdered for it. It was Jamal Khashoggi. 

This year, TIME's Person of the Year for 2018, is actually a group of journalists whose work landed them in jail — or cost them their lives. T

Jamal Khashoggi was a columnist for Washington Post was always at the center of controversies for being vocal about atrocities of the Saudi crown prince. Maria Ressa,  editor of a Philippine news website, is known for her coverage of violent policies of the president. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, 

Reuters journalists, were arrested while investigating a massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

The motive behind bestowing the coveted title of 'Person of the Year' to a group of people was to honor their sacrifice for free media. Manipulation and abuse of truth was the common thread of a lot of stories this year from Riyadh to Russia to Silicon Valley. 

The move did attract scathing criticism from many. People viewed it as an unimpressive move to reassert media’s self-importance. There is no doubt about the mistreatment of the journalists while performing their professional duties, there are some who feel as if this announcement amounts to the media patting itself on the back. 

TIME is considered to be a left-wing magazine due to its anti-Trump headlines and its known propensity to make up stories for scoring political points against the president. The picture of a crying illegal immigrant girl was plastered on its cover earlier this year and was claimed that the girl had been separated from her mother by President Donald Trump’s administration (who is consequentially named the second most influential person in the world). 

These “Guardians,” as the magazine has chosen to refer to the journalists, were among many of the finalists, including President Vladimir Putin,  Robert Mueller, President Donald Trump and the accuser of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford.

Modern misinformation doesn't work like traditional propaganda. It hides the truth in plain sight and makes it hard to discern from the falsity all around it. In the world of strong leaders who hate free press, the role of journalists behind the story assumes greater importance. TIME might have taken the step in the right direction, despite the criticism, to shift the control of media to the people.

Anurag Kashyap stresses this commercialization and loss of actual content. Movies aren't made in India anymore, as they want clean spaces to film. So calling Gangs of Wasseypur a breath of fresh air would be inappropriate, but it he subtly hints at it all the same. As you delve deeper into the article, you get swayed by the way he stresses upon the need for substance, and getting away with the superficial dance numbers and muscled heroes. This isn’t the real India, and all of those are just manufactured methods of making money. You’d be swayed by how he stresses upon the lack of imagination and how well read he seems to be. Coppola is his favorite, and he doesn't mind making dark, depressing movies as he hates that the burden of making people happy has fallen upon people who produce movies. In the midst of all this debunking, it’s quite hard to take a step back and realize the very basic issue with the artifact: It is a promotional article, and the Guardian put it up to ensure the film gets more visibility. Yet again, it’s a tiny cog in the huge machine of the big industry, a veritable wolf in sheep’s clothing. The irony resonates through the article if one was to read it in this viewpoint, maybe even helping Mahanta’s emphasis on the fact that not many Bollywood movies can break the set mold. 

Ooh aah ki aaawaz hai aati har oar se… 

Mere photo ko, mere photo ko seene se yaar 

Chipka le saiyyan Fevicol se” 

 

Kareena Kapoor dancing vivaciously with Salman Khan and other men around her- Fevicol Se is an example of a Bollywood item number. ‘Hot racy songs’ blended with ‘dramatic lights’ and discrete scenes or moves by the dancer characterize an item number. 

Item numbers, as Rita Brara points out, represents Cinesexuality in Bollywood and social life. Cinesexuality is a philosophy where we succumb to images created on films as individuals cum social beings. What exactly is wrong with item numbers? Actresses like Bipasha Basu and Malaika Arora claim that they love doing item numbers. Yes, item numbers might be revealing characterized by racy songs and vivacious dance moves, creating an aura of erotic feeling, but if the item girls or boys enjoy it and most importantly, give consent, item numbers should not be labeled as methods of objectification. Shabana Azmi begs to differ. She says, “If a top actress sings 'I am a tandoori murghi, eat me with alcohol...' it's not a laughing matter, it's serious. She sends out an invitation.”  Talking about sensuality she says, “I believe that there is no harm in celebrating female sensuality. It is great, and should happen. But is it truly a celebration? You are surrendering to the male gaze. You are commodifying and objectifying yourself... The camera strips you of your autonomy. You have no control over it." 

The ongoing debate is the comparison drawn between strip tease and item dance as both of them cater to the desires of the audience for spectacular and cine-sexualised dancing. Though, one of them is filtered through the eyes of the censorship authority and the other is considered to be illegal. When parts of the script such as ‘Foul words’ are removed from the movie by labeling them as inappropriate for the audience, why are these item numbers left out just by labeling them PG13? The movements such as #Metoo in India witnessed various female actors coming out and expressing their concerns while shooting such item numbers. Hence, this part of the film not only affects the audience, but disturbs the production dynamics of the film as well. The viewers should understand that promoting such content will not only inculcate wrong practices in the minds of many but also hinder the progress of other positive movements. Moreover, some actresses who think item numbers are an easy way to enter Bollywood, go through various surgeries, forceful diet plans, etc to attain a salable product or a desirable body, the process of which is termed as ‘Cinematic Norming’. This not only affects them physically but also bring other mental problems as well. Bollywood and the society at large cannot be seen separately as both of them tend to adopt the values of the other. This trend should be stopped by both the creators and the viewers of such content. The process should start from the script writers who must oppose the addition of such irrelevant content to their plot along with the producers who must keep the society above their profits. Most importantly, the audience should be made aware of the negative impact of such inclusions, so that they can make informed choices.     

Cinema (in any form) and other popular works of art is said to be the mirror of society. Given that, it can be safely assumed that every script has an age and outruns its time since the society is highly dynamic. The ever-changing nature of the society demands new storylines, new norms that can be absorbed in the society better. An example would be the movies that come under the category ahead-of-its-time. For example Dil Se, Mera Naam Joker, Filhaal, etc. These movies did not do huge business when they were released. According to Indian Cinema experts, however, these storylines are a perfect fit for a high grossing movie today. 

The issues these movies brought up, like surrogacy, a joker spreading happiness while being heartbroken was not well captured by the audience of the time. This also questions the popular belief of Bhagwat Geeta being perpetually acceptable. 

How can a story be relatable and become a source of knowledge that has no expiry date? Will Bhagwat Geeta ever outrun its time?

On deeper examination, we can see that the story of Mahabharata has already outrun its time. It is the fundamental concepts of Dharma, absolute commitment, focus on Karma and not its fruits, metaphysical knowledge being the highest form of knowledge, that remains and have been applicable from time immemorable. 

In the case of movie Mera Naam Joker, the story revolves around a boy Raju who lost his father in a circus act, his mother while he was performing the same act and two other women he called the love of his life. The reasons for the movie not doing very good at the box office were:

Its length: The first version of the movie was more than 5 hours long. The makers wrongly assumed that the audience was equally patient and engrossed in their work as were they (the movie was under production for six years).

There was no constant heroine. Though the society that time was beaming with hegemonic masculinity and it was the hero who attracted the audience to the theatres, the typical storyline of an all beautiful woman being pursued and finally accomplished steered the popular imagination. 

The audience was used to a happy ending and a story where the hero of the movie is all powerful, at the pinnacle of success and even if the earlier two are absent, he is finally able to make everything in the climax. In short, the hero never won.

Popular Culture is also defined as “mass culture”: Mass-produced for mass-consumption

James Cameron’s Avatar did exceptionally brilliant at the box office. It broke all records. It is also a fine example of popular culture being mass culture and therefore commercial culture which is created by mass consumption.

Such culture is :

Avatar clearly is an extremely formulative movie, it is politically manipulative and upon the release of the movie received multiple hues and cries from the conservatives. Avatar not just has an obvious political tone but it also is heavily based on american activities. Having a strong depiction of corporations wanting to capture Pandora, for all its natural resources without having any care for the na’vi civilization. The movie also has scenes depicting an underlying blackwater allusion. Its portrayal of the inhabitants being weak and helpless if they are in harmony with nature,calling the inhabitants “blue monkeys” and Jake Sully running away from humans to save the civilization, seems a lot like the white man’s burden to me. Big guns, ships, machinery, always waging war on places for resources they lack - highly americanized. Yet, the movie did exceptionally well in the box office. The viewers simply were fascinated by the kind of animation and vfx effects that were present in the movie. Being amongst the very first ones to implement such style in filmography, the viewers looked at the same old theme of a person betraying their own kind for apparently a nobler cause just because he fell in love with the enemy, and not just anybody from enemy lines but with the daughter of the main chief. The movie largely lacks content and the audience being passive in nature consumes. Avatar turned the sci-fi industry to a very commercialized one, with the help of UA, the tech industry has further become monetary in nature. At the end of the day, the movie has splashes of meta politics sprayed all over, highly americanised, liberal biases and like every other big budget hollywood movie highly commercialized making it the epitome of pop culture being mass culture, created for mass consumption.

Papers like NYT have reported more than 80% of their subscribers being digital-only users, and growing. Hence, we can see media convergence being used as a means to maximise the revenues of a paper, so as to stay relevant and not go bankrupt, as the Washington Post almost did, before being bought out by Jeff Bezos and being converted into a soft-paywall (i.e., allows you to read a few articles before asking you to pay) news site

The rationale behind this legend being the conviction that a lady on her periods is unclean and anything she contacts ends up grimy, unholy, tainted or unpalatable. Menstrual legends like a menstruating lady ‘shouldn't enter temples or spots of worship, shouldn't enter the kitchen, should remain inside her room’ are still accepted and drilled in some Indian homes. While instruction has exposed these fantasies after some time, the message still expected to reach and impact an extensive populace that keeps ladies grounded dependent on these myths.

As India's leading sanitary napkin brands, P&G’s Whisper came up with a powerful 30-second commercial.

Developed by P&G India and BBDO India, the groundbreaking film by the Mumbai office of BBDO India encourages women to defy tradition and taboos by touching the pickle jar.

An active teenage girl courageously touches a pickle jar and proclaims "I touched the pickle jar" as other women applaud. A voice-over urges: "Girls, let's make the taboos go away and touch the pickle jar."

Not only did 2.9 million women pledge to "touch the pickle jar," but the work resulted in sparking a huge conversation in India around the issue.

Whisper's share of voice grew from 21% to 91% in its category. It created a conversation in India that ranged from a TedX Bangalore talk to the endorsement of a leading Bollywood actress.

The campaign won the Glass Lion Grand Prix at Cannes International Festival of Creativity, which recognises work that implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice, through the conscious representation of gender in advertising.

 

Filmmaker Rajesh Mapuskar whose film Ferrari Ki Sawaari became had a Lavani “inspired” song sequence Mala Jau De with Vidya Balan says that “The fact is that if Bajiro Mastani did not have a Pinga song, with two leading actresses dancing in it, many youngsters would not have even known of Lavani. It was a very loosely inspired version, but it was at least something.” This is precisely the problem that exists. Bollywood movies are prone to involve Lavani sequences as item songs. Madhuri Dixit’s Main Kolhapur se aayi hoon was among the first dance sequences that involved Lavani (Helen had a dance sequence in one of her movies in the late 1970s as well but the dance form becoming a trend can only be seen from the 1990s). A leading newspaper from Mumbai carried a “curated” list of the top 6 bollywood Lavani numbers which features Katrina Kaif’s “Chikni Chameli” as well and Kareena Kapoor’s “Aata Majhi Satakli”. In fact it says “Katrina Kaif left no stone behind to emerge as the Lavani queen”

 

The closest Katrina Kaif is to Lavani in the song Chikni Chameli is the song being set in Mumbai which is in Maharashtra which is the state/region from where Lavani originates. Contrary to the image of Lavani that has been propagated in the Bollywood, there is more to Lavani than bawdy lyrics and suggestive dance moves. Lavani was typically a part of a series of performance which involved other folk dances, plays and comedy acts. Lavanis often involved issues like dowry, female infanticide and sexual violence. Nirguni Lavani focused on bringing philosophical ideas to the forefront. The Lavani that is seen on mainstream movies takes few elements from Shringari Lavani and tries to create a spectacle out of it. Though high energy and the idea of a spectacle or putting on a show are key elements of a Lavani performance, they are not the only elements. Lavani brought the lives and issues of the masses on the front while involving a humorous element to it. The culture of Lavani fell along with the fall of the Peshwas which resulted in it being shunned by elites. In 1948, the Chief Minister of Bombay State, Balasaheb Khare banned Shringari Lavani as it involved provocative language and themes. This subsequently became the theme under which Lavani was represented in Marathi movies.

 

The presence of Nat, a eunuch or a man with feminine traits, is an integral part of any Lavani performance. The Nat is the person who recites the Lavani and performs with the lead dancers. Across multiple “representations” of Lavani across Bollywood films, nowhere can Nats be seen.  Bollywood, on the face of it, seems to have adapted only the sensational aspects of the dance form, selectively presented to the audience and left the parts which carried the important messages and themes. Movies like Natarang though have tried to change the narrative by presenting a different side of Lavani. However, as long as we have item songs which claim to be Lavani performance or inspired by it, Lavani will always have a negative perception attached to it.

When analysing the viral video featuring Priya Varrier, it can be said that the PageRank algorithm is one of the prime causations of the video being viral. It can be said that one of the reasons for the video attaining the attention it has is due to the fact of the nostalgic and emotional ethos of the video that can be easily relatable with the public across different ages relating to their cherished childhood memories. Having said this, the video is in the initial stage, an offline entity. Through data accumulation and condensation in relation to social values or so called ‘ethos’ in this case, the attention value of the video can now be intensified through the PageRank algorithm. Based on the values relating to the masses this ethos is now heavily associated with the video and intensifies its online presence and significance. As a result the video becomes viral and in turn enhances the value of the video in the offline sphere, in this case, the fame associated with the video and Priya Varrier. A distinct example of the attention value controlled by the PageRank algorithm, the video is merely one of many examples of the control of the algorithm on attention value.  

This was further supplemented by the famous campaign of “Acche din” which reinforced the belief that days spent under the Congress party until 2014 were bad and the way out of this struggle of bad days was to bring BJP to power in the centre.  Hence, both the ads and primarily the “Janta maaf nahi karegi” ad was about telling people how they felt or how they are supposed to feel about the Congress rule at the centre thereby manufacturing a certain emotion of discontentment across a large section of the society.

Some ads that were a part of the larger campaign discussed above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CVUMP2mRIg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0St3QdqZKoc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx-i1tGasFo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g7PXhys-5k

However, we can also see this ad from the perspective of media convergence. Here, two different organizations come together to produce a product and an advertisement about that. Samsung, along with ‘Asha Ek Hope Foundation, is advertising a new product where personalized AI Voice assistant can be provided to the patients suffering from Motor Neuron Disease (MND). The NGO is first of its kind and together with Samsung, they have come to produce an entirely new kind of production of media where the voice of the dying patient can still live with them. This works perfectly in favor of both the organizations as Samsung would have developed the product however, with Asha Ek Hope, it found a reason and a greater purpose, and perhaps a specific audience for their product. And, Asha Ek Hope also paved its way in making the life of the patients’ family better in a way (although arguable). 

Therefore, here, we can observe convergence of media where two completely different forms of organizations with totally different purposes come together and create something entirely new for their customers.

 

Johanna talks about how advertising, worldwide, tries to understand their customers and potential customers according to their demographics. In actuality, purchasing power and choices don't get affected by demographics, that significantly, that companies should be using it to further their understanding of markets. We have seen in plenty of examples that the place, where a person belong to, do matter. Media scholar Henry Jenkins (2006), observes that place and culture still matter but, Johanna argues that online communities are seldom based on demographics. Rather they come together because of “taste”. She calls them “transnational taste communities”, where people from different places, different genders, different education level, etc. come together based on certain taste which could be anything from a fandom to a social issue. And hence, because of social media coming into play, it makes even less sense to use demographic data to learn about your customers.

So, since we are talking about marketing after you track down 'interests’ of your target market, what would be better than Facebook, who is always talked about whenever the discussion is about selling user's data to advertising firms. This artifact is the first ad I saw on my Facebook feed today. I am very much into funky jewellery and loud ethnic clothing, and, on top of that, online shopping. Johanna considers the fact that some might have problems with this "new surveillance culture" but she closes it by saying that we should understand that their are some advantages of 'being watched'. Advantage of "having our taste respected rather than presumed". I will have everything I see on internet tailored according to my preference. But, what if I don't want this luxuxy? Nobody asked me whether I want a personalized feed. Nobody gave me an option between generalised or personalized feed. This might not be a very witty plot twist at the end but I wonder, why should I understand that whatever is happening is for my own good? Doesn't this just facilitates effective marketing for the firms and save their money at the expense of my privacy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-bnphMDKao (2018)
Hegemonic Masculinity is a practice and belief that legitimizes men’s dominant position in the society and moreover justifies the subordination of the other genders and other marginalized ways of being a man. And this notion of masculinity is contested. Not all men occupy the hegemonic positions in the society and not all are looked as the ‘ideal man’ by the members of the society. The idea of the term isn’t a constant and keeps changing with time and context. Hence it would be nearly impossible to objectively define hegemonic masculinity. The idea is to present the fact that the concept not only establishes the senior hierarchy of men over women but also within each other in relations of marginalisation and subordination.  Or in other words Hegemonic Masculinity legitimizes the domination of manly-men over the not so manly-men. This practice is portrayed in a lot of domains and practices including religious practices, politics, mass media, businesses, etc. According to Trujillo (1991) the definition of hegemonic masculinity as defined in US media culture had five major features: power defined in terms of physical force and control; power defined through occupational achievement in an industrialist society; power in terms of familial patriarchy; when it is symbolized by the daring, romantic frontiersman of yesteryear and of the present-day outdoorsman; and power when defined heterosexually and centred on the representation of the phallus.

The first media artefact I have chosen is an advertising campaign by the company ‘SuitSupply’ that took the idea of hegemonic masculinity to another level on the basis of the concept that ‘sex-sells’. The first artefact is an ad campaign released in 2016. The kind of a man depicted in these advertising pictures clearly states that when it comes to be that ideal for masculinity, you dress smart and are sexually attractive to girls. Moreover, trying to establish that if you are that man, girls don’t mind being naked around you and wanting to get in bed. In these advertisements appropriated by the Dutch organization SuitSupply, there are different culturally hegemonic qualities that can be seen. The ads are publicizing for menswear and in each shot a man is surrounded by a lady or numerous ladies. These ads are extremely objectifying towards women, as the only part they play in these are exposing their bodies. Inside these advertisements social authority is prominent, showing acts of hegemonic masculinity, hegemonic beauty, emphasized femininity, and the objectification of women.

When the advertisement is trying to sell its clothing it clearly puts the kind of lifestyle and cultural surroundings that accompany such a dress-up. Each male character is Caucasian, hetero sexual, tough and asserting dominance. Each man asserts his dominance and authority by objectifying women, the quality they believe makes them ‘manlier’. There are no symbols of homosexual relationships.  But soon within two years, a new campaign was released by the same company which clearly displayed an extremely emerging image of a man. The whole advertisement was based on homosexual men who were still the ideal men to fit in the hegemonic masculinity definition. The advertisement ended with the note “Don’t Just fit in, Find your perfect fit”. This clearly gives an image of how masculinity and the way it is defined has changed over time and how these companies incorporate those definitions into their advertising campaigns in order to reach out to a larger audience that now believes in a newer idea of masculinity or the standards of hegemonic masculinity. We see how media changes the way we understand these concepts and how it sets for us the definitions. Seeing a perfect man in the first advertisement and believing that is what masculinity is about to changing our perception of masculinity by seeing the same perfect man in a completely different context, media helps us adjust and broaden our understandings of hegemonic masculinity and a lot of other social concepts that we come across through media displays.

What is the most annoying question that every woman starts her day with? The question to which she never has a satisfying answer. –  “What the f*** should I wear?” 

Indian movies themselves set perfect examples of what is expected out of a woman in the society. One such example is -

 "Yeh hoti hain asli ladki, chutki mein Bipasha, chutki mein Madhubala." - Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

Yes, because it's just so awfully cool to stereotype women, right? We are constantly judged on the basis of our clothes. And we judge others too. Fashion policing goes way deeper than a concern with merely what’s in vogue. Friendships and opinions are formed on the basis of fashion or the lack of it. Dress up too much and you are a narcissist. Dress up shabby and you are a nerd. Dress according to the image you want to portray. Work hard on the out-of-bed look to show you don’t care! 

F**k dressing up!

 

Radhika Vaz, the popular comedian is really irritated by the societal pressures of dressing up and decides not to finally give a damn. She stands naked on stage subverting the very basics of fashion policing. 

The video by Faballey is a powerful utterance that can become a war cry for every woman who is tired of the pressures society puts on her to dress up in a specific way. 

She funnily talks about how it is really difficult as women who have almost 7 body types, with sometimes having the upper body type as different from the lower body type, are still always expected to follow the societal expectations of how and what to wear.

 

And so, she believes that one can easily guess the amount of public shaming one has to face when she can stand naked before a public like that with her flaws and speak, but still have to think on a regular basis how and what should she wear. 

 

 

When asked how she feels about it, she says, “The idea was based on my personal experience of rarely being confident when having to dress for any remotely public event. I grapple with insecurities about my body and face, all the damn time, and I know it is exhausting. So, I just keep trying to find ways to put some of it behind me. “

 

The irony is how she endorses an online clothing retail stores by wearing nothing. The fact that the video goes beyond the taboo of nakedness, speaking impactfully of how easily one can unfollow whatever imposes a pressure in the lives of us, as women is what comes out. 

 

 

What is the most annoying question that every woman starts her day with? The question to which she never has a satisfying answer. –  “What the f*** should I wear?” 

Indian movies themselves set perfect examples of what is expected out of a woman in the society. One such example is -

 "Yeh hoti hain asli ladki, chutki mein Bipasha, chutki mein Madhubala." - Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

Yes, because it's just so awfully cool to stereotype women, right? We are constantly judged on the basis of our clothes. And we judge others too. Fashion policing goes way deeper than a concern with merely what’s in vogue. Friendships and opinions are formed on the basis of fashion or the lack of it. Dress up too much and you are a narcissist. Dress up shabby and you are a nerd. Dress according to the image you want to portray. Work hard on the out-of-bed look to show you don’t care! 

F**k dressing up!

 

Radhika Vaz, the popular comedian is really irritated by the societal pressures of dressing up and decides not to finally give a damn. She stands naked on stage subverting the very basics of fashion policing. 

The video by Faballey is a powerful utterance that can become a war cry for every woman who is tired of the pressures society puts on her to dress up in a specific way. 

She funnily talks about how it is really difficult as women who have almost 7 body types, with sometimes having the upper body type as different from the lower body type, are still always expected to follow the societal expectations of how and what to wear.

 

And so, she believes that one can easily guess the amount of public shaming one has to face when she can stand naked before a public like that with her flaws and speak, but still have to think on a regular basis how and what should she wear. 

 

 

When asked how she feels about it, she says, “The idea was based on my personal experience of rarely being confident when having to dress for any remotely public event. I grapple with insecurities about my body and face, all the damn time, and I know it is exhausting. So, I just keep trying to find ways to put some of it behind me. “

 

The irony is how she endorses an online clothing retail stores by wearing nothing. The fact that the video goes beyond the taboo of nakedness, speaking impactfully of how easily one can unfollow whatever imposes a pressure in the lives of us, as women is what comes out.