For my final 4 posts I would like to have marked:

Language (dis)ability and representation in popular culture

Language of advertising

Language, Identity and Social Media

Introduction

1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/04/17/emojis-ruining-english-language-young-people-rely-communicate/
2. Nick Dixon 18 Apr 2018 7:18AM

   There was a similar uproar when texting patois took over mobile communications , mostly by the young but as they grew up and communicated with human beings they learned to up their game because they had to . Nothing to see here. 
   Brian Basford 18 Apr 2018 7:30AM

   @Nick Dixon

   There is the more serious problem of most young people’s total addiction to mobile phones. They will use them to comminicate when they are sat next to each other, every day I see dozens of them walking along glued to their phones. It has become a way of life for them. In a cafe the other day I witness a young family of 4 sat there and they were all using them at the same time

   PATHETIC

   Comment:

   I personally think that the use of emojis in this modern society could and should be used as an advantage. Funnily enough, some things are easier to be said through the use of an emoji rather than through words. For example, if you see something funny and send to your friend and they reply with ‘that’s so funny’ it could come across through the text as a sarcastic comment or the person replying may not feel as if their reply does justice, simply adding the ‘crying with laughter’ emoji is a way to quickly let your feelings known to your friend without having to write too much. However, I also think that sometimes emojis could be seen as a ‘barrier’ with language. For example I know that my mother doesn’t understand that the ‘crying with laughter’ emoji means that and thinks it’s simply crying, therefore making her very worried if I text it! Another quite common emoji between a younger generation would be the fruit peach to be referenced to a plump backside, however that’s not necessarily understandably from a universal audience.

Girls/Girls/Boys

I have decided to put together a cover that represents the song ‘Girls/girls/boys’ by the famous band ‘Panic! at the disco’. In this song, it is identified as a LGBTQ+ anthem to relate to and can be used to express their sexuality’s to themselves (if they are ‘coming out’ about their sexuality) or to show to their peers as a way to tell people if they are struggling about telling their friends and family about their sexuality.

The visuals that I decided to use is mainly focused on the rainbow as it is seen as the LGBTQ+ image and the different colored (Doc2) love hearts are to specify that, as the lyrics say in the chorus ‘love is not a choice’. I also decided to put the words ‘love is love’ which has the colored fonts black and white as a connotation of not only different sexuality’s being acceptable but also people of different races and nationalities. I’ve also this used this typography by putting it in the center of the rainbow which means the readers are drawn to reading the quote.

NOTE: was unable to upload the photo as an imagine so it’s attached with the hyperlink under ‘Doc2’.

Paralympic Games

The Paralympics is a major international multi-sport event involving athletes with a range of disabilities which are able to compete in events which are beneficial to their disabilities. I have chosen to do this advertisement for the Paralympic games which was televised on Channel 4 with the catchphrase ‘Meet the superhumans’. Immediately, the mise en scene of this advert is dark and dingy but the athletes are lit up by a bright light being cast on them from above. This lighting choice could be inferred positively that they are seen as angelic or better than normal people, like the advert is referring to them as ‘superhumans’ the adjective ‘super’ is positively representing the athletes instead of describing them as having disabilities- suggesting it would disable their ability to be able to compete in the events.

All of the athletes are looking directly at the camera which shows their power and strength. Also, the camera is a low level shot makes the athletes look larger than they might be, which appears to make the athletes to have leadership qualities. By the range of athletes (8 to be precise) it’s able to show a range of disabilities within the advert, such as people being in wheelchairs but also people who may come across appearance wise as ‘normal’ which shines light on the fact that not all disabilities are visual to the human eye. It also shows how versatile the events are in the Paralympics are to anyone with a disability. Although this could be viewed as a way of excluding people with disabilities instead of just including them in the ‘regular’ Olympic games- I think it gives a slightly taboo topic of disability the attention that it deserves.

An 80’s night a The haunt the Haunt in Brighton

For my print advertisement I have decided to take on the 80’s night at the Haunt in Brighton. As the flyer is an advertisement for the nightclub I used both a metaphor and added intertextuality from the popular film ‘Batman’ and ‘Saturday night fever’- by having the Batman Signal changed to the popular dance move in Saturday night fever as well as having the slogan “Na na na na na na na na DISCO” as a replacement for ‘BATMAN’ because Disco is the most popular thing assassociated with the 80’s.

I also decided to add the metaphor ‘let your feet do the talking’ as a way to imply that it’s a nightclub (to stop any confusion) with the theme of dancing by taking the saying which is popular so understood by mostly everybody. By choosing this, it also is an imperative to make the reader want to come to the night and dance as it’s a persuasive devise, as well as using the second person pronoun ‘you’ to specifically include the person reading it.

Facebook profile pictures:

Facebook is one of, if not THE most popular form of social media, with a phenomenal 2.7 billion people estimated to have an account and use the services that it has to offer. With this amount of people, and many people having the same name’s, it’s useful to that Facebook as the concept of showing them a picture when approached on the profile to give an insight to whose profile it is.

I have decided to upload and analyse my own prolife picture with regards to gender stereotypes. Undeniably, my profile picture embodies some stereotypical features: For example, I am wearing makeup which is a stereotypical ‘feminine’ thing to do and making direct eye contact with the camera which could be argued that I’m trying to attract a heterosexual male gaze (Mulvey). The background in my profile picture is also slightly blurred which, again, adds to me wanting the attention to be solely on my appearance. However, the background itself is typically ‘feminine’ as it has floral bedsheets and pastel colours.

Although in my profile picture my clothes wouldn’t be considered ‘revealing’ as it’s only a medium shot- if it was a long shot it would reveal my outfit more so which consisted of a playsuit (some could argue slightly provocative as it’s similar to a dress) which is pastel pink – stereotypically a more female colour than a male.

However, My hair is also long, but tucked behind my ear to reveal my piercings (arguably alternative as they’re not just conservative lobe piercings) which could be considered a more masculine vibe, similar to my gold chain which could be associated to a male stereotype of ‘gangsters’ . My profile picture is disagreeing with the topic in the article that female profile pictures have the ‘kissing pout’ in them. This is proved by me smiling instead of embodying the female stereotype of profile pictures. It’s also disagreeing with the stereotype that in females profile pictures they are lying down or ‘touching ones own face or hair’ which in my profile picture I am also not doing.

Masculinity in the 21st century

The noun masculinity’s dictionary definition is: qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men. However, I think this word holds a lot more meaning in the 21st century than it did in a previous era. With synonyms such as ‘strength’, ‘ruggedness’ and ‘robustness’ it’s clear that the Masculine ideal before was for Men to be the dominant gender who wouldn’t express their emotions, whereas women would be the gender associated with being irrational when it came to their feelings, which is totally ridiculous! Right? Physical appearance also comes into the topic of masculinity in the 21st century as it is more open for males to not have to be the stereotype that is ‘talk, dark and handsome’ like dreamboats like Zayn Malik or Shawn Mendez (swoon) instead, males are able to be of all shapes and sizes and still considered loveable, everybody knows you love Smithy more than Gavin in Gavin and Stacey. Some could argue that the word ‘masculinity’ has been more diminished than ‘femininity’ as it seems more publicly for males to express their emotions, not have to be the stereotypical ‘gentleman’ in regards to hand-holding, car door holding, romantic gestures. Although us girls still love these things (or me at least!) it’s no longer a requirement that is expected of the man.

I think the concept of transgender and sexuality is a more expressed topic in the 21st century, for example in previous eras the idea of a man feeling like he should’ve been a woman or potentially having feelings towards other men instead of women like ‘normal’ would’ve been ridiculed and shunned. Unfortunately it wasn’t discussed so no progress was made in embracing people’s sexualities and preferences. However, in the 21st century people (including men) are given the opportunity to be themselves without the judgement of a bigoted society. Laverne cox is a perfect example of this: born as Roderick Laverne Cox, she was able to express that her identity as a male wasn’t who she felt matched her as much as if she was female. In her case, she has a negative response from friends and teachers but she continued to make her transformation, knowing it was best for her. She went on to become  an American actress for popular Netflix show ‘Orange Is The New Black’ where she plays transgender inmate (and hairdresser) Sophia Burset where she’s able to show clips of her transition from male to female and the reactions she got from her peers. Although it’s only a show, it does show resemblance her real life. FUN FACT: In the flashback’s of the show, it’s her twin brother who plays her! She now has a huge 680.8k thousand followers on twitter and 3.6MILLION on Instagram and is an LGBTQ+ advocate! What’s your view? Get involved in the discussion online by tweeting #seventeendiscussions online!

Reflection:

I think my piece of writing reflects on the ideologies that teenagers, typically girls, were being indoctrinated with ideologies to do with masculinity having connotations of physical strength and therefore having expectations of what a real ‘man’ should be and act like. It’s important to breakdown these issues that revolve around the stigma to ensure that we’re not raising other generations to still hold these  ideologies and don’t keep the stereotypes as an unhealthy role to think they have to be like. By me using an example such as Laverne cox it shows her identities as being young, black and male (however now she is viewed as female) which automatically creates an expectation from them in their social categories.

Rita Ora’s Glamour appearance

Immediately, the title of the magazine is the biggest piece of text on the magazine cover, behind Rita Ora’s head which makes the readers forced to make eye contact with the model when they read the title- creating a Male Gaze (Mulvey). Also the title is pink which upholds the feminine stereotype of pink being a girls favourite colour. Although the Glamour magazine is known as a ‘women’s magazine’ the way the picture is taken it’s assumed that the image is presented through a heterosexual male’s perspective. This  is then assimilated and makes women look at other women in a similar way, therefore creating women to objectify each other and themselves.

In the image, Rita is holding a conservative dress or ‘business like’ (which connotes authority and dominance) against her naked body. A post-feminist view may see this as empowering and confident as she is proving to have no insecurities with her physical appearance, diminishing the female stereotype that females are never happy with their appearance. Additionally, the model has a very minimalistic makeup look to portrays looking ‘natural’, but having a bright lip colour which forces the attention to her lips. However, a retro-sexism view may be that because the model is holding the dress to reveal her slim, yet still hourglass, figure it’s inclined to agree with the view of beauty standards within society that being her shape is the only acceptable figure and the only way to achieve the definition of ‘beauty’ or what’s considered beautiful.

Rita Ora Glamour Magazine UK- September 2015

This magazine uses the anchorage method rather than relay because all the subheadings around the model, such as in reference to her holding a dress against her it asks “Oh no, Rita! Nothing to wear?” and also with the fact that she is visibly naked behind the dress the discussion of sex is mentioned so the readers are not able to make their own interpretations from looking at the cover as they are automatically confronted with topics made around the picture.

LONDON’S BURNING

Services in action: Firefighters rushing to the scene to handle to break out.

An unexpected incident took place in London near Parliament last night around 17:00. A fire broke out on the streets of London, causing mass panic and resulted in 20 casualties: 5 fatally injured and 10 critically. Luckily the police and emergency services were able to get to the scene in 10 minutes and were therefore able to prevent any further injuries occurring.

Many are taking to twitter and speculating on what could’ve been an act of Arson, some creating conspiracies that it wasn’t an accident, some referencing cases like Grenfell tower fire (which also occurred in London) but on a much lesser scale. Critics have contemplated this event being linked to an act of rebellion against our parliament as it was within a mile from the area.

Reflection:

When writing an article piece it is vital that the language used is easily understood, as it is accessible to any types of audiences and ,as a paper, you want to appeal to as many audiences as possible. Although many newspapers do have target audiences in mind when creating a paper, it’s still better to have lexical choices simple enough for any reader. Secondly, the main purpose of a newspaper is to inform people about what’s going on in the world. Therefore, they need to have the referential function, which comes from including a headline which both intrigues or ‘hooks’ the reader into wanting to read the rest of the article while also being able to inform the reader quickly what content they can expect in the article. By using these declarative statements in my article, it’s easy for the readers to know what’s happened from an un-bias source.