Stereotypes (post 11)

Do you think that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people? why or why not?

In my opinion I believe that advertisers do have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people however, at the same time they often have to input stereotypes in order for them to draw their targeted audience's attention and hopefully persuade them by using persuasive techniques in their advertisements such as the use of plain folks or the use of celebrities for an ethos persuasive technique.

The advertisers have to make sure that their advert does not offend anyone or any race, culture or religion. What I mean by this is to not use stereotypes in a negative way that will offend or impact a person in a negative way. An example could be that a particular race is all categorized as being terrorists or rude or too nice. If a stereotype must be necessary in an advertisement, I think that the stereotyping could be positive and that it could be implemented without completely offending anyone at all in an ad. the definition of stereotype itself is "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing." It does not have to always be offensive or negative, but the majority of the time sadly there are negative stereotypes around the world. Also looking at the example of implying stereotypes, sometimes some advertisements need to imply those stereotypes in order for people to recognize or understand what the purpose of the advertisement is and what it wants to deliver to you or provide to you. An example could be that you have a lot of acne and you feel insecure about it, an advertisement could attract and persuade you by saying rhetorical questions like "are you tired of that acne?" or "are you tired of being that one person with a face full of acne?" It might be offensive and the ad might offend you, but at the end of the day they did manage to attract you and for you to pay attention to them and see what they're offering to you.

Print Advertisement Lucky Strike (post 10)

The ad “Be happy, go lucky” by cigarette company Lucky Strike effectively reveals the cultural context of the advert by showing the women’s desire and that a man has to fulfill due to society’s expectations and stereotypes. This is shown where the focal point of this advert is made up of two figures. One figure is a man kneeling down for the women while holding a pack of cigarette towards her lips. The gesture of kneeling down evokes a sense of wanting for the man to get attention from the women, as if he is begging for her to see him or join him. The social context is showcased when the man and women are at the beach wearing with their swim wear with the waves in the background and pressumably the sun as a lighting which turns on a warm/pleasant mood through the colors and location of the advert. The encouragement to smoke contributes to the unknowingly effects that come along with smoking connecting it to the historical context. For the historical context, there are varies forms of patriotism and symbols displayed giving a context of the advert. the American badges and colors used such as red, blue and white throughout the cigarette boxes to the American badges show the patriotism in the advert and therefore show the historical context along with the U.S. Marine approving the Advert and the messages along with the Advert.

     The values of the American society during war times specifically WW2 include the importance of the mans role as well as the enjoyment in smoking that both sets the theme and slogan of the advert which is “Be happy- go lucky!”. The use of the cigarette being a “lucky strike” can be placed in the context of taking a “strike” by testing his luck as he attempts to impress the women with a pack of cigarettes or take a lucky strike and hopefully survive the war while being sent off to fight the man’s homeland in hopes that he comes back alive in one piece. The man is empowered in this commercial while the women is marginalized or not very relevant. This is simply because a man is more valued than a women since the women just smokes cigarettes while the man is on his knees begging and attempting to meet society’s expectations by fascinating the women’s appeal. Similarly to an accessory, the women is depicted as an “accessory” to a mans love journey because of her not having a say and being easily manipulated by a simple pack of cigarette.

Pitch reflection blog post (post 9)

Questions

What main appeals did you use in your pitch? Why did you decide they would be the most effective?

What were some specific persuasive techniques you used (include examples) why did you believe these would be effective?

How did an awareness of audience and context influence your overall approach to this activity?
  
If you were to complete this presentation again, what would you do differently in terms of content and preparation? 

     For my part of the pitch, some of the main appeals that I used were Ethos and Pathos. The reason why I believe these are the most effective is because I was doing the beginning part of the pitch and I felt it was necessary in a pitch to be able to grasp your audience in and to have a sort of connection or bond with them. Then talking about credibility as a person with ethos, I felt like it was necessary for me to show them that I am confident with the advertisement and to show in a way that I am the right person for the job in the pitch's scenario. It's all about convincing and persuading the audience to get them to do what you desire or want. Some of the specific persuasive techniques I used were association, rhetorical questions, intensity, plain folks and charisma. I believe these persuasive techniques are effective because on a general outlook, they all connect to pathos and ethos by using these techniques to share an emotion with them, ask them questions that make them think about theirselves and they could ultimately relate too, they could feel your passion using your intensity with words and the pitch and finally, plain folks and charisma shows the intended audience for them to buy the product.

     Again, the awareness of audience and context influenced the approach to this activity because this meant that the main persuasive techniques to look at would be categorized within Ethos and Pathos, not necessarily Logos because two of the critical factors of this activity were the Audience and the Context. If I were to do this presentation again, I would use more advanced and intermediate persuasive techniques and I would clearly show which persuasive techniques I used because I feel like I used them however I did not clearly show them or highlight them when I was presenting and the audience could or could not see the persuasive technique and this would affect the entire presentation.

Option #2: Complex interviews Jermaine Lamar Cole AKA J.Cole (post 6)

Chris: Hey guys, Chris here from Complex Music with the one and only Jermaine Lamar Cole aka J.Cole!!!

J. Cole: Hey Chris, what's good

Chris: Hello J. Cole, its such an honor to have you in here with me today

J. Cole: ah thats alright its no biggie,

Chris: Um listen J. Cole, I wanted to talk to you today about your hit album 2014 Forest Hills Drive and a song within the album, would you be okay with that?

J. Cole: fo' sure

Chris: Okay so first of all, what is the song "January 28th" about?

J. Cole: The song January 28th is about me and my community. The date is actually my birthday and the song is about my early years in Fayetteville North Carolina, U.S. On my second verse in the song, I address the issues of the black suppression in America saying that system shows no value or care on a black mans life because when a person dies, there is a toe tag attached to the big toe of the dead person in a morgue (depending on how you deal with the body). The use of the tag is for identifying the dead person,  so when I check for a toe tag on the body of a dead black man, I can't find one so it really shows the value of a black man or even a black woman in the system showing that they have no value. The reason why i'm talking so much about the government in America and why they do not care about black’s is because the storage where bodies have tags on their toes are called morgues, and morgues are managed by the government. If there are no toe tags on black people, this shows that the government has no interest in them because they don’t place them inside morgues and these actions are saying as if the government don’t care about their identity and don’t value black lives.

Also, i'm talking to the black community about how they (including I) should unite and be together rather than “turn us into enemies” because of their egos fueled by the idea of who is tougher or which gang is the best in the area. The law of physics declare for a reaction to occur there has to be a collision of particles. I'm symbolizing the law of physics with the gangs “collision” of people which makes a “reaction” that turns them against each other, when really they should unite and fight against the black suppression together. 

Chris: Wow, well thats really profound man. Why did you choose to portray this message through music?

J. Cole: Because the community and the people that I intend for them to hear this message generally don't read the news or even read at all. But with music, you can deliver whatever you want good message or bad message and you can make it as creative and as free as you want. Also my people and the community that i'm targeting this message towards they probably listen to music more than read the news and I don't blame them, I too prefer to listen to music so I thought it would be beneficial if i gave them this message that they needed to hear through my song and through my music.

Chris: Thats a really smart way to deliver your message, now why did you choose to make your lyrics with this type of language despite attending college? To me it really contradicts and devalues your identity from who you are

J. Cole: Because I know if I speak in another dialect or in another tone other than the tone that they hear and talk, they won't fully absorb and understand my message and what i'm trying to tell them. It's like speaking another language with a friend, you want to communicate to your friend and tell them something, but they do not understand you because they speak and use a different language than yours. I want my community and my fans and the people that listen to my music to understand this message and for them to apply it on themselves.

Chris: Do you think that your music has somehow impacted your community?

J. Cole: I hope it has. Damn i'll be sad if it didn't because i did this all for them. This song in particular. I know it has my birthday and i talk about myself but at the same time, I believe we are all one and we are in a community all together, so in my eyes i'm them and they're me. They just haven't experienced some things I have but they think the same way I do and I too think the same way they do. In this example it's bad because instead of bonding and joining together as one, we're dividing ourselves into more and more different groups and we're not doing anything good expect spreading hatred and anger amongst our community. I want to impact them to let them know about what i'm trying to tell them through my songs and about whats going on in our community and our lives. It's our community for a reason and we live in the same street, same state and same country for one reason... To unite!

Chris: Wow i'm truly amazed. Again, its such an honor having you here and thank you for your time.

Sources

- "J. Cole On Jay Z Giving Him The Roc Chain And Being An Introvert". complex.com. N. p., 2016. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.

- "Breakfast Club Classic - J. Cole 2013 Interview". YouTube. N. p., 2016. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.

- "How Kendrick Lamar & J. Cole Rebooted Conscious Rap". Medium. N. p., 2015. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.

- "J. Cole – January 28Th". Genius. N. p., 2016. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.

Song Lyrics

January 28

[Intro]
Rap tune
Can I make a million dollars off a rap tune?
Can I make a million dollars off a rap tune?
I'm tryna make a million dollars off a rap tune
Yeah

[Verse 1]
The real is back, the ville is back
Flow bananas here, peel this back
And what you'll find is, your highness
Can paint a picture that is vivid enough to cure blindness
Carolina's finest, you knew that already
And turned to the greatest, I proved that already
And if you would like, I do it twice
I just sharpen my blade for a minute became lost in my ways
This for my ****** that was tossed in the graves
Every so often I fade deep in my thoughts and then get lost in the days
We used to play before your coffin was made
Just got the call ***** got caught with a stray
Hope he's okay
Just got paid what Cochran got paid to free OJ
Just to share my life on the stage in front of strangers
Who know a ***** far too well, and that's the danger
Know me better than I know myself
I rip a page out my notebook in anger
And let these thoughts linger, singing

[Hook]
Don't give 'em too much you
Don't let 'em take control
It's one thing you do
Don't let 'em taint your soul
If you believe in God
One thing's for sure
If you ain't aim too high
Then you aim too low

[Verse 2]
What's the price for a black man life?
I check the toe tag, not one zero in sight
I turn the TV on, not one hero in sight
Unless he dribble or he fiddle with mics
Look out the window cause tonight the city lit up with lights, cameras and action
May no man alive come through and damage my faction
I brought you ****** with me cause I love you like my brothers
And your mothers' like my mother
Think we need a plan of action
The bigger we get the more likely egos collide
It's just physics, please let's put our egos aside
You my ******, and should our worst tendencies turn us into enemies
I hope that we remember these
Nights fulla Hennessey
When Hov around we switch up to that D'usse
Gotta show respect, one day we tryna stay where you stay
Cause we from where you from
Not talkin' bout the slums
I'm talkin' 'bout that mind state that keep a black ***** dumb
Keep a black ***** dyin' by a black ***** gun
And keep on listening to the frontin' *** rap ****** sun
Yeah I said 'sun'
This is New York's finest
For 11 winters straight I took on New York's climate
Like show me New York's ladder
I climb it and set the bar so high that you gotta get Obama to force the air force to find it
Never mind it, you'll never reach that
Cole is the hypnotist, control the game whenever he snap
That's every track, *****

[Hook]

[Verse 3]
I ain't serve no pies, I ain't slang no dope
I don't bring no lies, ****** sang my quotes
I don't play no games, boy I ain't no joke
Like the great Rakim, when I make my notes
You ****** might be L or you might be Kane
Or you might be Slick Rick with 19 chains
Or you might be Drizzy Drake or Kendrick Lamar
But check your birth date *****, you ain't the God
Nah you ain't the God
*****, Cole the God
January 28th

[Outro]
Make a million dollars off a rap tune
Can I make a million dollars off a rap tune
(Sound of baby laughing)
I'm tryna make a million dollars off a rap tune
I wanna make a million dollars of a rap tune

I'm gonna make a million dollars off a rap tune

Ad commercial analysis (post 8)

T-Mobile | "Drop The Balls" Super Bowl Ad

     The commercial's intended audience are viewers watching the Superbowl and within the Superbowl event, this ad is shown between breaks of this highly anticipated game that millions of people watch. within the superbowl audience, the more specific audience this advertisement intends to show is the cell phone provider consumers in America, specifically LTE consumers.
     As for the techniques of persuasion, this ad strongly uses logos, ethos and a tint of pathos. The ethos included in this Advertisement is a famous celebrity, television host and a comedian Steve Harvey. Already using a famous person to deliver the advertisement the viewers are already going to be persuaded into listening to him and they are going to be even more interested in listening to what Steve Harvey says because due to context relations Steve Harvey hosted the show miss universe 2015.
    The reason why this is significant is because he mistook the winner of miss universe from Colombia to the Philippines. This spark a media phenomenon and Steve Harvey was known as "that one host who got the winner wrong" or "that one host who failed at performing a simple task as a host". This lead the company T-mobile to create an advertisement with Steve Harvey saying "i have to apologize, again...". Using this phenomenon of Steve Harvey they already have people turning their heads on this advertisement and now with this knowledge of what he did, they constructed the logos section of persuasion in this advertisement and added ironic logic and facts in the ad.
     The Ad started with a narrative voice stating facts about T-mobile's company. Regarding the information that the advertisement was giving off, Steve Harvey interrupted and said "listen folks, i have to apologize again. those were last year's numbers". He then gave concrete facts and statistics about T-mobiles improved service such as "T-mobile doubled LTE coverage in last year and now it has more LTE towers than Verizon, T-mobile pretty much reaches everyone." With this solid information he also uses a slight hint of Pathos because he addresses the message specifically to the audience as if they were close friends.
     In the end, the advertisement cleverly uses Logos, Pathos and Ethos in a short amount of time in an advertisement to get the viewer interested and persuaded into paying attention to the advertisement and hearing what the T-mobile (ad creator) has to say to their audience.

Analytical post: "Language shapes our identity but doesn’t define who we are" (post 5)

Language shapes our identity but doesn’t define who we are. Take a stance on whether you agree or disagree with this statement. Write an argument that supports your position. Make reference to concepts or readings from the course as evidence.

     "Language shapes our identity but doesn’t define who we are". As simple as it is to disagree with this statement agree because no matter how foreign your name may sound to others or how different your language dialect is to the norm, language does not entirely define who you are as a whole. It only defines you within a particular group's dialect or language.
     By seeing the name Julia Alvarez anybody would assume that the person would be a hispanic woman and assuming is perfectly natural however, concluding someone's whole (note how I bolded whole) identity based upon their name is a wrong and unethical judgment to practice because this action limits the person's identity to their names only and this does not allow the person to show all of what they are not just based on what their names are. In the example of "Names/Nombres" by Julia Alvarez, during her college years Julia was asked where she was from and she simply responded New York since as she supports "After All, I had been born blocks away at Columbia- Presbyterian Hospital". The intriguing part here is that the people follow up with saying "I mean, originally" which Julia then replies with her Family's homeland. Why does she say this? Simply because she knew how with the language of where she was communicating, hearing her name already shaped her as someone from a country within South America. It is not deniable that she has Dominican Republican Origins, yet she has not lived there for most of her life when she was aware AND she was not even born there to begin with, she was born in America and to me America seems her home because not only was she born there but she was also studying and living there at the same time. She just conformed into allowing people's ideas and beliefs shape her identity and instead of saying and supporting (like her inner self is as shown to the readers) that she is born and raised in America, she gave up and decided to go with the flow. After all she gave up trying when "my initial desire to be known by my correct dominican name faded." Deep down she knows her identity is not only determined by her name, but she chooses to let people shape her identity either ways.
     The section on the language dialect is different yet similar in some ways to the foreign name. The major difference here is that people tend to strongly assume more and even claim people's identity by their speaking abilities in comparison to their pronunciation of their names. An example of this belief would be in "Mother Tongue" by Amy tan. In this essay, Amy Tan's mother is depicted as an unintelligent person due to the way that the hospital treated her for her lack of english in comparison to when Amy Tan spoke in her "better" english. The hospital assumes that since the mother cannot speak english as good, she is not as intelligent as other people who speak a more sophisticated english and thats why Amy was treated differently than her mother. The way in which Amy shows the reader how her mother may not be as foolish as she is depicted by her language limitations is when she mentions how her mother reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week and reads Shirley Maclaine's books. I believer her mother is an intelligent person with a limitation of language which brings her intelligence down because of culture beliefs.

 "Language shapes our identity but doesn’t define who we are". I could have easily strongly agreed with this statement because I believe languages do not fully determine our potential selfs and who we are as a whole. To me, languages are a limitation if not learned how to become articulate with the language however not being fluent in one language does not make you any less smarter than you were with or without that language. In the end, I think it would be a good thing to show your true self in more than one tongue and to be able to express and show who you are in many ways.

Opinionated Blog post (post 4)

For my fourth blog post the issue that I wanted to give my opinion about was the stereotypes of non-native English speakers. I chose this issue because I myself am a non-native English speaker and I am bilingual, so i have unconsciously known this topic since my early years living. I believe that the stereotypes towards non-native English speakers are unethical and prejudicial because overall it undermines the person's value in many ways and damages them.

     The reason why I believe it undermines the person's values is because the native English speakers believe they have a certain power over the non-native speaker just because of the language barrier. In Amy tan's essay "Mother Tongue", The author describes how her mother was treated poorly because of the lack of empathy and help that the hospital provided for her when they said they had lost her CAT scan for a brain tumor, in which the mother was anxious to see due to the fact that her family members had died of brain tumors in the past. They simply told her to make another appointment "next time" for more information since they could not find it and to me that is leaving someone hang out to dry. In addition, you would expect that a hospital purpose's is to provide service in health and safety. I do not see the author's mother's health and safety being noticed or even considered in the beginning to the hospital in anyway from their actions. In the end the hospital is being ethnocentric for not showing empathy towards the mother, implying from the hospital's actions since she cannot speak (non-native English speaker) like we do, why should we treat her the same in the first place if we're not the same (native English speakers). 

     However, when the mother is clever enough to know that her English has limitations and the prejudice she has from the hospital, she tells the doctor in the hospital she won't leave unless they call her daughter  (the author). We as the audience already know that the author has what's considered "good" English as she's a writer and was an English major in her first year of college. When the author calls the hospital that is when they actually do show empathy and provide a service for her for whatever she wants. Before the author called the hospital, they did not even apologize for making the mother anxious, but when the author did call they assured the CAT scan would be found and promises already that a conference call would be held on Monday. That clearly shows how when the author spoke, not only did they show empathy and help but they even did their jobs and provide them an exact date for them to go and get the mother's CAT scan.

     I just know in anyone’s opinion with morals that setting an appointment on a date sounds and feels more assuring and guaranteed than "until the next time".