The Power of Subliminal Messages

The Power of Subliminal Messages

Derren Brown - Subliminal messaging EXPLAINED

  What this video represents, is a simple example of how we are being conducted by advertisers everyday. We solely succeed to explain our strong desires to get a certain product or service. If our conscious does not easily recognize it, our unconscious part can and translates it into what is called "desires". Advertisers exploit all the sources that grabs our attention and send us millions of subliminal messages through meaningless signs inside an attractive picture, or through stressing on some key words and letters.
  Besides the strong words used by Derren, there are subliminal signs that let the man think of BMX bikes to be the only thing he would get. The whole room was actually designed to unconsciously shape the man's thinking process. Decorations that are scattered everywhere are not pieces of art. They are subliminal messages which let the man unconsciously relate them to the overall structure of a bike (such as the wheels, handlebars, the seat...etc.)

  The concept of subliminal messages is not new. At the end of the 50s, the advertiser James Vicary tested their effect on the human's brain. In the American movie "Picnic", he inserted an image in which they wrote "Eat pop-corn, drink Coke!". People would not see it since it was shown every five seconds during 0.04 seconds only. At the end of the movie, the sell of pop corn raised by 58% and the sell of coke by 18%.

  The human consciousness does not detect subliminal messages, but the brain does. Advertisers availed one of the brain's functions, which is the ability to make associations between sounds, colors and smells in order to manipulate and drive people to their products. They have they own strategies to bring people straightforward to their goals. There may be other advertising strategies that we do not recognize and which interfere with our basic needs and daily tasks.

Google Finding Agreements with Publishers

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMdp7UaAV_E

As previously mentioned in class, Google facilitates and fastens research through algorithmic processes, but it does not create content.
 David Drummond, vice-president and legal director of Google, announced that the huge corporation is now offering more choices and control for publishers, "the creators of content", in order to ameliorate the selection of articles they give to their users, and also, to make their results more effective and attractive for them. Google News chose to work closely with publishers because they are more experienced, they master the information and have an idea about which user would be interested in it the most. Therefore, the human interaction with information would be more fruitful than the algorithmic process.
 Concerning Google Books, Google already succeeded in making agreements with Hachette Livres, La Martinière and  other book publishers. They aim at making books digitized and available everywhere. This would not happen only if book editors and Google could work hand in hand with each other, exploiting books and finding a new business model to generate their revenues, in a way that benefits both Google and book editors.
 Another important point that was evoked is the impact of the economic crisis on the cultural industries. Drummond affirms that like all the industries supported by the state, the cultural industries cannot escape the multiple effects of the actual financial crisis. Internet is believed to be the ultimate way to contribute in the emergence of a new culture. That is by the help of different actors: publishers, book editors and Google.
 An issue that emerged is the network regulations and their efficiency in protecting the editors' rights. Internet remains an unsafe place to run businesses because of the piracy issues. Any work can be stolen and lose its importance and reliability. Drummond confirms the necessity of creating intelligent regulations that reaches the heart of the issues. He stayed optimistic about their ability to find efficient solutions. But, the question raised is to which extent will these regulations be efficient, since network regulations already exist and do not solve many of the problems of publication safety.

  

Have 75 years of television made us smarter??

Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/05/television-75-years-made-smarter


Last tuesday was marked by the 75th anniversary of the first TV broadcasting from the BBC studios. Television became one of the principal media of information, implying huge audiences who constituted later on attractive spots for advertisers. The main goal of television mostly drifted away from informing audiences to selling their tastes and interests to companies and advertisers.
It is important to question the main values and cultural benefits of television in order to see whether the past 75 years made us smarter or not.
The television's educational value is worth zero, It is all about advertising and written contracts that manipulate audiences' emotions and thoughts as some may think. Even in some programs, such as University Challenge or The Weakest Link , that actually seem to be providing audiences with useful knowledge, the aim to inform seems to be far away. Peter Conrad, observer writer and cultural commentator claims that " It's not a medium for the discussion of ideas. You don't watch University Challenge or The Weakest Link to acquire information, but to enjoy the distress of the contestants who can't get the right answer."
 As others argue the diversity that exists in channels and great informative programs offered, it is still believed that whatever content television would broadcast is always including some subliminal messages and dissimulated calls to buy a certain product  or opt for a specific option. For this purpose, Conrad emphasises that "education was the television's alibi. Its main purpose was and is to sell stuff. TV has always been an evangelist for consumerism: it's a truism that the programmes interrupt the commercials, rather than vice versa – or else the two seamlessly merge. Every talk-show guest, even on the channels protected by the licence fee, is selling a book or a CD or another TV programme."
Television could make us smarter if its economic purposes were better regulated and managed and if its economic policies could go in parallel with its educational goals. Audiences should not be considered as robots who buy, but as individuals who would change the world for a good cause.