Everyone's Getting on Board!

This was a great clip from Conan O'brien's show with Louis C. K. discussing the recent phenomenon that is...Twitter. This latest, and some would say greatest, form on social media provides people with up to date feeds which follow anyone from you best friend, to celebrities, and in this case, Jesus. Hope you all enjoy.




Source: Youtube.com

Green Peace Will Show You The Light

The Ad that I chose to discuss is a Greenpeace commercial that was run in England in 2009. The commercial is focused to encourage people to switch to energy efficient light bulbs, in an attempt to lessen their individual, as well as the global impact of our energy use on climate change. Although the commercial is 46 seconds long, only four or five seconds is dedicated to actually talk about Greenpeace, or the energy efficient light bulb, but clearly, this ad is designed to attract an audience in hopes that they will watch the whole commercial to find out who or what this ridiculous commercial is promoting. The overall message, until we can just create energy out of nothing (or our butts) we should do what we can to slow down our impact, in this case, buying energy efficient light bulbs. I was hooked as soon as the music started, which brings me to my first observation.

THE BRAIN

· The immediate reaction to this commercial was from the music that was playing, which attracted my Limbic Brain. The Limbic Brain, which is in charge of our emotions and feelings, gives us our first hint at the theme of what’s being shown. Music can have a profound effect on the way we interpret a situation, or a commercial in this situation. The song “You are my sunshine” is a great version of a classic, fun, and quirky song that all generations have heard at some point in their lives. Music can set our mental mood and is usually directly connected with a theme or emotion. In this situation, “You are my sunshine” was tied with the imagery that was being depicted on screen, as well as the humorous situation that was playing out.

· Our Neo-Cortex is activated at the end of the commercial, after we had stopped laughing, we understand that this is truly a serious matter. When the phrase “Until the light shines out of your ass, use an energy efficient light bulb instead”, our brain puts the pieces together, establishing that this is an environmentally-centered commercial, and that its promoting a global movement through Greenpeace and the use of energy efficient light bulbs, and not necessarily trying to sell you anything from a specific company.

TECHNIQUES & TOOLS

· In this commercial, the most obvious Persuasive Technique is the use of Humor. Humor solves all problems, well not really, but it defiantly helps “lessen the blow” of the truth, which in this case is the fact that Global Warming is real, and there are steps that people can take to change their personal lifestyles, using energy efficient light bulbs being one of them.

· Symbols were most apparent in the Greenpeace logo that is displayed across the screen at the end of the commercial. People have seen this title/company in the news or on the television series Whale Wars, but for people who truly know what Greenpeace stands for, it’s the direct action and intervention that citizens are taking to battle climate change.

· The imagery of the commercial depicted average citizens, old folks, business men on bikes, men working in a garage, all of which are the target audience of Greenpeace. This Bandwagon effect captures an audience, and persuades them that this is right for them. Although we don’t see any of these people actually using an energy efficient light bulb, we hope that the message is portrayed to that audience, and they take it seriously. (As if anyone really could)

· I saw a bit of Diversion techniques in the commercial. Obviously light will never flow out of people’s bottoms (I hope), but the idea was to diverge from the obvious—climate change—and focus on attracting people through humor. This technique takes the “guilt trip” factor out of our daily lives, allows us to laugh, and then focus on the personal lifestyle change that must be done.

PRINCIPLES OF MEDIA EDUCATION

· The Reality Construction of this story, or what is not being shown, is the obvious effects of climate change, which is a major message that Greenpeace tries to convey. Instead of melting ice caps, rising sea-levels, or smog, they chose a funny route to keep people’s attention on the final message, switching to energy efficient light bulbs.

· Clearly, the Ownership of this ad is Greenpeace. Something I found interesting while researching an appropriate ad for this project, was that the majority of these Greenpeace ads were shown in European countries. If Greenpeace bought up more space on main stream American commercial air-time, Americans would see that Greenpeace is more than just a bunch of rogue whale enthusiasts, and that their a promoter of personal lifestyle changes to lessen then effects of climate change.

· The Emotional Transfer, as I’ve talked about a few times, is the idea that humor can capture an audience in order to get an overarching theme across to the viewer. Humor is a key emotion, and we connect feelings with certain imagery or themes. In the case with light coming out of peoples bottoms, the lingering thoughts that the commercial arises may be of people talking about how ridiculous the commercial actually was, but also, something as easy as switching your lightbulbs can make a significant difference.

· Pacing…I wouldn’t slow this commercial down if I were you.

CULTURAL SHIFTS

· This commercial represents an Epistemological Shift, in that it contains no words or writing until the last scene that discusses the true mean· Clearly thiing behind the ad. This allows us to take in each scene of the commercial without our attention diverting to written text, until we are hit with the truth. Also, this represents the shift from

· As an environmentalist, its great to see Green Peace getting their voice out there when it comes to encouraging people to make personal lifestyle changes. This video represents the Personal Shift, that has been made in accessing information. Today, if a commercial can only be seen on TV in Europe, we have the ability to access the same video over the Internet to view and share.

· If there's one thing I've learned from this course, it's that Google is trying to take over the world. With this video, we witness the Cultural Shift that is taking place everywhere on the internet. As we watch videos, comment, or "like" certain things, we are more or less being watched by YouTube and Google to find out what our demographic is, to advertise products accordingly.

Video Source: Youtube.com Photo Sources: Google Images