After you watch episode 4 of Ways of Seeing (or even while you are watching it), provide short answers the questions below.
- According to Berger, how do “publicity”–what we would call advertising–images influence consumers and why is this significant?
- As he compares oil painting to publicity (advertising) photography, Berger argues that oil painting “showed what the owner was already enjoying among his possessions and way of life;” “it enhanced his view of himself as he already was.” Whereas publicity pictures, “appeal to a way of life that we aspire to or think we aspire to.” Why are these differences important? What do they reveal to us about the production of images for publicity?
- Choose one of the “dreams” he offers or think of your own. How does this dream offered by advertising use imagery to manipulate consumers?
1. Publicity plays a huge role in sales and advertisement, with this being said we tend to buy unnecessary items to fulfill our pride and “image”, Berger says. The more popular it is the more scarce it gets in which it gets more expensive as well.
2. The differences create that line between reality and fantasy which makes it important. In the process of losing yourself we try to fill in this expectation due to these glamorous and attractive ads. We feel the need to “fit in” meanwhile this is destroying our depiction of life. The oil paintings we’re illustrations of the wealthy life.
3. The dream that caught my attention was the dream of a far away place, this dream illustrated reality, fantasy and its differences. As said we tend to “fit in” and “fulfill” this fantasy as we spend more. In reality we are Nomads just trying to find a purpose and be happy.
Hi Angel, I really like the way you interpreted it, especially when you said there are differences in publicity that create a line between reality and fantasy which makes it important. According to the dream that you said, I think the publicity nowadays caught a lot of attention from the audience. Just like you said, people want to fulfill their fantasies even though we need to spend a lot of money on them.
1. “publicity” and advertisement influence us because that’s what companies do to get to their targeted audience plus the more the more its advertised and a low availability the more expensive it’ll become and more people would wanna buy it.
2. The differences in oil painting compared to publicity picture is oil painting is calming, less sporadic while publicity picture is a lot is going on in one picture from camera flashes, scenery and cgi with bright colors to grab the viewers attention quickly.
3. The dream that caught my attention was the dream of the far land because reality can often be dissapointing and dull so the far away place is basically us trying to make our reality the way everyone sees fit and how they wanna live their own fantasy world.