Domino's Documentary

Sometime in January, I was eating lunch at my desk and checking the headlines on MSN. One of the stories involved Domino's and their new commercials. Usually, a commercial doesn't make the news so I was intrigued. The commercials made the news because Domino's aired some of the harshest criticism they could find in a documentary style video, then they tell you that have a completely new recipe. Turn out, this new recipe is something they have spent nearly two years and millions of dollars on. Then the genius of it all occurred to me; when a fast food chain, or other company not particularly know for high quality product, makes a big showing to tell everyone that their product is substandard, people are going to pause and listen to try and figure out why. By then, Domino's already has the consumer's attention and now when you say the new product is better, there's a better chance that they will take that to heart.

A big part of the ad campaign was their new website, www.pizzaturnaround.com. That is only place to find the full documentary ads. They also have live twitter feeds and I monitored them for a while and not all are positive, most are, but Domino's made a point of saying that customer feed back drove their new product and they are not going to turn away from that now. Here are some other video links from Comedy Central and CBS where they talk about this. Enjoy!

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/2010/01/stephen_colbert_topples_dominos_new_ad_campaign.php

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5989597n&tag=api

http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?code=hoe

Last week, I was driving home from my Monday night class and sometimes I like to listen to public radio. It's a good way to hear more information on news stories, gain some new insights and hear other people's take on it. That night, they were discussing the earthquake in Haiti and the comment that Pat Robert's, TV Evangelist, made regarding how all the trouble in Haiti was a result of their pact with the Devil. The radio program focused on Haitian Voodoo and the origins of Pat Robert's story.
Apparently, there really was a Voodoo ceremony to aid them in their fight for Independence. Voodoo is certainly not devil worship, but it makes sense that it would be portrayed this way. Think about it, a bunch of white Christian slave owners get beaten back in a bloody battle by a bunch of heathen slaves praying to someone that is not their God. Furthermore, this was about 50-60 years before America's Civil War and demonizing the Haitians was the best way to make their victory seem less attractive to slaves in the South.
It also mentioned how Pat received his highest ratings from that show. A TV Preacher used the media to spread his story and now Haitians and others sympathizers need to use the media to rebuff him and tell their own story.
Check out the link to the story on 1/25/10

Writing for Multimedia

As my aptly named blog implies, my name is Jim Schwartz. I am an English Major and Multimedia Minor at UW Whitewater as well as a non-traditional student who has a full-time career and a family. When I tell other students of my fields of study, they tend to look at me funny and remark “that’s an interesting combination” but to me it seems very natural.

In today’s world, we have been so overexposed to multimedia and instant communication that we sometimes take it for granted. We blog, twitter, and read articles on-line. Anyone with a computer and a phone line has access to a limitless world of knowledge and ideas that had been, hitherto, much more difficult to find. In the scope of human history, it hasn’t been that long since conventional literature was the primary means of conveying a message.

In America and most of the developed World, we risk relatively little when we post opinions contrary to the ruling party. This has not always been the case and authors such as Chaucer and Shakespeare would tell an enjoyable story while at same time, they would fan the embers of dissent through scathing commentaries directed to the Monarchy, Church or a rung on the social ladder. The meaning behind their message was not obscure, nor was the affected body necessarily oblivious to the author’s intent, but written properly these authors could get away with quite a bit. These writers were the informational gatekeepers of their times and as citizen journalists, we are all charged with the same task. Okay, so maybe that’s a bit overly dramatic, but there’s at least a kernel of truth to it. Anyone who posts a thread or makes an on-line comment has just published him or herself and added to global knowledge bank. We have an opportunity to use the most cutting edge communication tools to accomplish the same thing that great men and women with little more than pen and paper strove for. Now we can all share this connection with these great authors and I think that’s something important to acknowledge.

Chapter 8 - Producing Identities

Allow me to play the Devil’s Advocate for a moment and ask why is it the media’s responsibility to define someone’s identity? I think most of us are intelligent enough to make up our own minds on who we are, or at least, whom we wish to emulate. Media is a business, they are selling to who is buying. And who is buying has been middle-aged white guys for a long, long time. It’s no wonder that women and minorities have been traditionally under-represented in the media, they weren’t the ones buying product! However, it would be difficult to say that minorities and women are under-represented in media today. We may not always approve of how they are represented, but the programs must be selling product (the attention of the audience) to the advertisers. Take notice that there aren’t throngs of angry, misrepresented audience members protesting shows of minorities or else they would speak out, or at least, cease buying the product and no longer remain that commodity to the advertisers.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Spiderman’s uncle Ben as much as the next guy, and I agree that “with great power comes great responsibility.” And there is no doubt that Media has tons of power. They defiantly have a responsibility to not represent images that are overtly harmful to minds that are incapable of disseminating information but there is a limit to this. We must be some form of Gatekeeper and if we don’t agree with a particular representation, than boycott it, speak out against it. If we continue to view the program and advertisements than we are the true enablers to misrepresentation in the media.

There’s obviously a problem with depicting models that are unattainably and unhealthily thin, but there is another issue at work, media continues to lie. How about they try a little truth in advertising for a change? This article mentioned more than just this freakishly thin model, it mentioned lightening Beyonce’s skin and thinning various other models. It’s despicable just how much we are lied to through advertising, this example employs an additional malfeasance by the advertising institution by setting an unrealistic and unhealthy bar for young, female audiences.
It’s defiantly an ethical issue on both fronts and it seems like their breaking two moral laws. There’s really nothing wrong with touching up a photograph to make it look nicer in advertising. Maybe the light wasn’t just right, or the contrasting features didn’t stand out enough. I don’t see an issue with enhancing what is already there. I can’t speak for the other examples as I didn’t see those ads, but when you alter something to the point of creating something that wasn’t there before, like an emaciated waistline, that goes beyond touching up. At that point you may as well be animating an advertisement.

Meaning, Chapter 5

It's interesting the book would mention "Born in the USA" as Regan's campaign song since more recently the same thing happened to McCain. I forget the song (maybe someone can help me out) but during his campaign, McCain used some one's song for his own interpretation and the artist didn't share his view. I have also heard of the "every breath you take" song really being more about stalking than love. These are both very contemporary and valid examples.
The book gets pretty involved in some of the theory behind meaning, but I took away that meaning is very often representational to something in the real world. We live in the real world we need to anchor meaning to something concrete, that's the easy part. However, when we try to give meaning, or rather share our meaning with someone else when discussing something more abstract, that's when different interpretations arise. It becomes very easy to see the same thing and take away completely different meanings as in the TV show example at the end of the chapter illustrates.
My little ones like to play a little joke on me. We pull up to a red stop light and they tell me, "Daddy, red means go, green means stop." Of course they both know full well that this is the inverse of reality, but even at a young age they understand this social code and they understand it so well that they find it ridiculous and humorous to try and fool someone into thinking otherwise. And these codes don't take long to learn. I suppose that is indicative of a social code or else we would have a more difficult time following the rules. Think of the Chinese encyclopedia and how tumultuous that would make our world. No doubt children would adapt faster, but the initial the ill effects would certainly be felt on the young despit their comparatively limited exposure to the codes we employ.

Media Making Chapter 2

Society has gone from a culture that relied on oral communication to that of one that is dependent on electronics for media and communication. Throughout this history it is arguable that the printing press was man’s greatest mass media achievement although the text focuses more on the inception of the telegraph. The telegraph truly was the onset of electronic media and changed forever the perception of time and space for anyone who was exposed to it.
As radio waves began to pierce the air rather than strings of wires, governments began to discover just how beneficial disseminating there message to a mass population could be. On the other hand, this new media was increasingly difficult to regulate. It makes one think of current issues of censorship, information hacking, identify theft and FCC regulations.
Different cultures tend to come up with their own media. High culture reads old books like Shakespeare and listens to old music like Beethoven. They treasure art as a form of media, not just wall hangings. Folk culture keeps it local such as folk music, blue-grass roots and values communication on a community level. Popular culture is really anything that appeals to the masses and is not limited or regulated by the strict confines of traditional and formal education.