Non verbal communication

TED TALK: Amy Cuddy

Amy cuddy a social psychologist who speaks on her research on how our nonverbal behaviour affects our lives in more ways in which we initially realise. Also on how minor tweaks can benefit our perspective and behaviour towards life essentials, such as work. Nonverbal’s can influence how others judge us and how we judge others for example an individual with poor posture and who avoids eye contact can be judged negatively as someone who is lazy or lacks interest. Secondly our own body language  influences our perspective towards life and our physiology. She believes that choosing to adopt a more positive attitude towards nonverbal commination or “faking it” can help us progress and improve our own self-esteem while motivating us. She claims that there are two different types of attitudes towards body language: High Power and Low Power. People who adopt a higher power are more involved in discussions, more upbeat, more motivated and tend to have higher success rates. While in contrast people who adopt a lower power are more reserved, less confident, less involved and tend to not succeed at a higher rate than those with a higher power attitude. She has identified the different ways in which people communicate what type of power they fall under, through the study of Kinesics (body movement) these ways of communication can consist of :

·         Gestures

·         Facial expressions

·         Body Posture

·         Body Movement (nods, shrugs..etc.)  

Furthermore she has identified methods in which you can improve the way in which you communicate with others and achieve a higher power attitude, this will lead you to a happier more driven, be more optimistic and succeed in life. Power posing is a technique she has developed and studied under the acts of power posing. These acts include: Standing in a wide or assertive manner e.g. hands on your hips or open wide arms, sitting straight while seated,holding your arms behind your head etc.. . Adopting this small routine of using power poses while “Faking” a more confident attitude in your everyday life will actually have a positive effect on your mind. As a result you will embrace the positivity and it will become a more natural behaviour, guiding you to take more risks and live a happier and more successful life.   

Sub-cultures: MODS

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=717995938279225&pnref=story
Fred Perry's short documentary clip on the evolution of the British Mod sub-culture group, with influences of music, fashion and current affairs spanning the late 1950's up until the early 1970's

Seven Concepts

Key Concepts in Comms. (Communtication & Culture) 

Communication: a process through which meanings are exchanged.  

Context: the situation within which communication takes place.  

Culture: a particular way of life which expresses certain meanings and values.  

Identity: the sense we have of ourselves, which we then ‘represent’ ‘elsewhere’: a  

person’s social meaning.  

Power: control and influence over other people and their actions.  

Representation: refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass  

media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural  

identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or  

writing as well as still or moving pictures. (Daniel Chandler’s definition).  

Value: the worth, importance, or usefulness of something to somebody. 

  

Sub-Cultural groups are sensitive to contemporary trends in fashion,style and music.

A sub-culture group is a group of individuals who interact socially with each other and who are recognisable to outsiders as being a part of a group, for example ‘punks’ are a western sub-culture group that have evolved from the punk rock music genre. A ‘punks’ syntagm collectively is stereotypically rebellious and anti-establishment, outsiders can identify this through signifiers such as: rough/baggy clothes, shaved or spiked hair styles and usually an abundance of piercings. 
All groups consist of individuals with individual needs. Certain needs can be fulfilled within a social group.

The ‘punk’ genre is distinguished as it can fulfil multiple needs for an individual especially as adolescence, this is the period in which we grow socially and begin to associate ourselves with others while trying to rebel and break away from the elder authoritarianism life style. For example we look for trends within our needs such as in fashion, music and style and look to satisfy these needs when joining a group. Those who associate themselves with a sub-culture group can achieve a sense of belonging and loyalty from joining which in effect can boost an individual’s self-esteem when expressing aspects of their identity around those who share similarities. As spoken by Nicholson “we as people are attracted to those who share common interests”, these similarities can evolve and are contemporary to trends. Trends are significant when identifying groups they also act as a barrier between groups isolating them from each other each. However as the dawn of technology has took grasp on society it has become harder to distinguish social groups in public situations especially within teenage groups like socially and being active tend to take place online. 

As teenagers we strive to be socially accepted, however culture groups establish themselves on a set of culture codes these codes can vary between culture-groups they tend to focus around solidarity of the group. The punk ideology is cantered around not caring for authority and regularly socially at venues such as music events.       

Semiotics: Analysis Of Movie Posters

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, all posters use semiotics to communicate with the public and their audiences. Communication is composed of three aspects “Sender” (someone who is trying to address a message or initiate communication), the “message” (the subject of communication; what the sender is communicating to others) and “receiver” (the person who accepts the message and interprets what is being communicated).  For example Movie posters use a set of imagery and symbols known as paradigm to convey the message of their film to the audiences. Signs all have different connotations, the connotation is the implied meaning behind the sign collectively a set of signs are more commonly known as a “syntagm” connotations of signs can vary between cultures. Movie posters use signs to create a syntagm for their movie, movie posters use more closed text compared to more open text posters; the term “open and closed text” was coined by Umberto Eco, open text leave more to the receivers imagination these are more abstract texts and can be interpreted in multiple ways unlike closed texts that have only one message.    

Multiple signs and symbols can be found in movie posters we use these interpret the genre and the style of the movie. This movie poster has:

A young girl, connotations of this can be youth, purity and peace.

A Dead tree which has connotations of death, decay, neglect.

Night time setting which signifies horror, fear, lost, absence.

Gothic stoneworking usually has connotations of the horror genre.

   

The poster’s use of signs creates an idea of its message for example  little girl leads us to believe that this movie is a children’s film due to its associations with purity and vulnerability however her positioning in the poster hints us to believe she is lost or she is somewhere she shouldn’t be. The scenery reinforces this idea the dead trees and dark weather links to a horror genre or a place that has connotations of unhappiness and dismay. The lighting in the middle of the poster is seen to be enticing and alluring however due to the message given off from the scenery it leads us to believe that danger is lurking, the message of the poster can be signified as a horror or dark film.   

Selfies

Selfie is the term given to a self-portrait photo taken on a mobile phone of one’s self. Selfies have become more mainstream in the last 5 years as the modernization of mobile phone technology has skyrocketed. Millions of selfies have been uploaded to online social media, the internet and mobile social apps. Selfies have become a craze and have each have their own category some such as: Car selfie, "just woke up" selfie, Duck face selfie, Gym selfie, etc... The purpose of a selfie from the senders perspective is to depict them self in a desirable manner, this could be through jealously, wealth or attractiveness. The sender most commonly depicts their most cynical identity this is to promote themselves to friends or even strangers, the sender tends to use their most cynical personality 'whether this is a photo where they look most attractive compared to previous photos' to boost their own self esteem. This is usually to appeal to what we deem as socially desirable or attractive. Boosting their self-esteem makes them feel happier about themselves as a person and they will also tend to seek reassurance of this message from others, most likely through comments or feedback on their selfies. The message the sender is trying to send is usually one of envy, selfies tend to have the effect of envy on the receiver who views it. However what they are viewing isn't always a true representation of the senders’ true identity,        

Top 15 Selfies

http://uk.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/10/the-15-types-of-selfies/   

Women in media

Objectification of women in media

The media’s representation of women in our modern patriarchal society constantly objectives and extorts the female image for advertising gains and to increase the popularity for branded items and products. 

The use of women as a method of increasing marketing and sales for production is used in excess, especially in cultures such as the western world (America and Europe). One of the main purposes of the objectification of women in advertising is too sell sex as a means of marketing; appealing to the male populations the female body image is constantly being exaggerated and sold as objects of sexual desire to boost sales. For example REDTAPE (a male footwear label) has used this method of objectifying women to portray females as something male populations can “own” when wearing their footwear, comparing women too objects of possession that a man can simply buy from a vending machine when they please too “live their fantasy”. 

The extortion of women isn't just in advertising retail; the use of women as objects of sexual desire is in use in all over media such as: movies, sporting and especially music videos.

Music videos for decades have used the female body to increase viewership and appeal to male audiences. Among hundreds of examples one most recognized Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” the video has caused controversy as it plainly demonstrates the sexism in the music industry. Women are depicted with minimal to nothing clothing dancing around an arrogant shaded male “artist”, with using lyrics that focus on the sexual exploitation of women for album sales it is a key example of how the media is guilty of undermining the female race as 2^nd class compared to men.

A major problem that faces our western culture is the impact of the objectification of women on our children and females who grow up and feel the need to compare themselves to the women that are presented in our media. The self-esteem can be hindered as trying to replicate this ideal body image and behaviour of an exaggerated role model to fit what we deem as culturally attractive can cause lasting emotional distress on younger generations.  Barbie is considered  the most well-known plastic doll for girls since the early 50’s even dolls that children play with represent an unrealistic image of the female body and is even considered as sexualized this just as the media does can have a negative impression on girls and represent a false representation of sexual attractiveness.    

  

Links to representation of women in media:(Blurred Lines, REDTAPE, barbie) 

http://defpenradio.com/wp-content//2013/06/robin.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VINfi_zGKG8/U2u52eP4x0I/AAAAAAAAAAg/aN-NVx4l7lI/s1600/women+for+sale.png

http://queensuopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/barbie2.jpg?w=500