Lecture 8 - Globalization, Sustainability and the Media

• Globalisation is the way in which organisations or businesses build up an international influence. Examples of companies like this are McDonald's, Starbucks and many more, with them defining what the principles of fast food restaurants and coffee shops are.

• These aren't necessarily good jobs to have, due to the low chance of promotion and low profits, but they are promoted as the easiest and best places to buy foods and drinks easily.

• The TV, newspapers and the internet are all ways of gaining international influence over certain views, with the Western culture being the main dominant with certain channels and newspapers. Saying this, it is actually the owners of the channels and newspapers that determine the content of their works - newspapers in particular can only talk about the news that they want to - so they can back certain political parties during a campaign, and only advertise the sides of the stories which will earn them more money.

• The news in general tend to divide the world into territories, depending on their market importance - for example the USA is the most important, and the least important are areas of the Third World such as parts of Africa.

• In recent years, the internet has become huge within society across the world; it makes it easier to communicate with people, theoretically bringing us closer together - however despite the theory from the 1960's that it would connect us, the "global village" as it described, isn't necessarily how the internet has been used, but rather as another tool to influence people into the views of the government.

An example of globalisation within animation is in the children's TV series 'Spongebob Squarepants'. Set in a city called Bikini Bottom, numerous occasions have shown the whole city being influenced by the irresistible burger, the krabby patty - the main bad persona, Plankton's, whole character is based on him wanting the recipe for the tasty burger so he can rival with the only restaurant that sells them and his main enemy at the Krusty Krab.

This represents how our culture is heavily influenced by fast food companies, although not to the extremes demonstrated in the TV show. It becomes so extreme that in the most recent Spongebob film, 'Sponge out of water' to be released in March, the plot is driven by the main characters recovering the krabby patty recipe due to an apocalypse that broke out after it went missing.

I'm sure the real world wouldn't break into an apocalypse due to the lack of fast food, but this example shows how effective advertising and having an influence in the world can be.

Lecture 6 - Consumerism - Persuasion, Brand, Society, Culture

• Consumerism is defined as the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers (aka the general public), meaning higher powers such as the government want to influence people to believe in the same ideals as to what is best for them.

• Sellers of products use various advertising techniques to convince the public that luxury products are actually a necessity. They use celebrity endorsements and unique ways of advertising to differentiate themselves from their competitors, despite it being pretty much the same product, to convince consumers that they are the best.

• An example of something that has been advertised differently over the years is smoking. It has changed based on the views of society throughout time - so at first it was considered "uncultured" for women to do it compared with men, then Bernay's advertised them as "torches of freedom" which appealed to women because they associated smoking differently - as if you smoked you were sexually desirable and independent. This is a good example of how people thought they were making a free choice, but were actually influenced by the media's opinion.

• Another way advertising has influenced us is through food - with cake-making mixtures (e.g. Jemima's Pancakes) people believe they are being creative, when they are actually only completing simple tasks.

A good, yet extreme example of how consumerism is represented in animation is 'The Lego Movie'. Their government have brainwashed common workers and consumers of their products and have influenced them to all work in sync. This is shown through a song that they have introduced to the consumers; 'Everything is Awesome', and instructions into the right way to live, which have brainwashed the public into thinking the political views are their ideals.

In this video some examples of the instructions given to the consumers are demonstrated, as well as everybody working in sync.