Media’s Manipulation- “A critique on Visual Culture”
Nikita Luedke
Enduring Big Idea: Visual Culture and Ideologies
· In this unit, we will be exploring visual culture. Visual culture in relation to this lesson, can be defined as all of the visual objects and images we are surrounded with every day. Ideologies play a large part in visual culture, and tend to be completely intertwined. In this unit, we will learn more about how we read and interpret the visual culture and ideologies we are surrounded by, and then learn how to actively critique them as well as create our own. In this lesson specifically, we will be turning our focus more directly on media and marketing techniques that cater to various groups in our society, and how those create a visual culture and impact our ideologies as a whole.
Essential Questions:
· What is an Ideology? What are some general ideologies of American culture?
· Who do you “idealize” and why?
· How have ideologies changed over time?
· Do different cultures hold different ideologies?
· What is “Visual Culture”?
· How are visual culture and ideologies connected?
· What role does marketing play in forming ideologies?
· Does marketing control our ideologies, or do we influence what they put in front of us?
· How can specific images (visual culture) influence how we act, feel, or relate to people?
Objectives: The student will…
· Learn to critique various types of media images put in front of them
· Actively think about how ideologies and visual culture influence their opinions, actions, judgments, relationships, ect.
· Learn how to take an image displaying one ideology, pull that influence out, and re-create this image in a way that will showcase a different viewpoint
· Come to understand how marketing can cater to different age groups, genders, cultures, etc.
· Pull together all their knowledge of visual culture, ideologies, marketing techniques, and technical application to produce four re-created images into one comprehensive book, that will critique points of ideological tension in which they are interested.
Ads we will be looking at: Bebe women’s sportswear ad, Nina Rici Perfume ad, Tag for men ad, and McGraw cologne.
· Bebe ad will explore the use of idealized bodies to pull people in
· Nina Rici ad will explore the use of fantasy/ fun/ beauty to pull people in
· Tag ad will explore the use of “I get this/am happy when I use this product and if you use it so will you”
· McGraw ad will explore the use of celebrity figures to sell products
Artist we will explore: Instead of focusing on specific artists, we will turn to various ads from throughout history. Many of these are drawings from the 1930’s and 1950’s. We will also look at some of the artwork of Ben Frost (check images carefully, a number of his works would be highly inappropriate for the school setting)
Lesson Vignette: Anticipatory Set
The students will be shown pictures of Ads from 1930’s-2010 and will uncover techniques marketing specialists use to sell products to specific types of people. I will introduce the project, discuss a few of the essential questions, and request that they bring in a minimum of 6 ads (magazines will be provided if needed) which they feel cater to them specifically. That same day, we will learn 3 various book folding techniques they may choose from for their book’s format.
Lesson Vignette: Body of Lesson
We will discuss—as a class—the rest of the essential questions to get their minds moving in the correct direction. The students will then spend time looking at each ad they brought in, and take notes (text or sketches) on what parts of the ad draw their attention. They will pick out one the one part that draws them to the product the most, and will then begin exploring ways to change that one thing to make the ad draw in a different gender, age, personality, etc. They will collage these two opposing things into one ad (I’ve left this part vague and open to interpretation intentionally, they will be allowed artistic freedom in how they perceive this part. Some may want to collage in images from other magazines, some may want to go back in history and pull our old newspaper clippings, some may use text, some may want to draw or paint something in on top instead… all of these are okay and will make the project more meaningful to them). They will then use the 4 ads that they feel make the strongest impact and put them into a book format that they learned earlier in the lesson.
Lesson Vignette: Closure
The students will all set their books out and we will have a class go around where they will all get a chance to look through one another’s books. We will discuss which things worked well, and what could be improved, as well as what they’ve learned about how techniques in advertising affect the way they look at things. We will also go over some of the more critical “essential questions” and see how their answers compare to before they participated in the image manipulation.
Grading:
The students will be graded upon completing of 4 collage advertisements. They must write their reasoning for each one, and the way the image is portrayed must meet up with what they are saying.
Additional Considerations:
· Purposeful constraints/boundaries—What technical problems will the lesson address/explore—What conceptual problems will the lesson address/explore?
o It must be done in a book format, however, they will be able to choose which of the three types of book folding/binding techniques will present their ideas the most effectively.
o They will be asked to collage and piece things together, however, the process and materials they use will be totally up to them and will force them to think critically about what they are trying to say with each collage, and how they can pull them all together in the end.
o They will address the technical aspects of 2D composition as well as book construction
o The conceptual problems they address will vary based on what types of ads they pick to work with, however, they will all deal with the concept of how to take one ideology and transform it into another as a critique on visual culture.
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