The popular and, in my opinion, widely over-used phrase: "a picture is worth a thousand words" seems to be the target of this week's readings. This week we were supposed to have read 1 selection from what appears to be a comic style textbook, one original Superman comic, one comic style story of a returning Korean war veteran, and a commentary on the dependency advertising has on images for the spread of its message and how those images came to be.
Personally, I don't find anything wrong with an image based culture, after all, images and drawings were the original and most primitive forms of writing. Images work to convey something that mere words can sometimes only dream to achieve and often times can achieve with much less effort. In the case of "In Gratitude" much of the story was reliant on the emotions and reactions of the characters involved. Through its comic format, the reader could both see a visual of the story being retold by the parents while simultaneously seeing the reactions of the son whilst hearing it. This duality of imagery made for a much better overall story and a more concise delivery of the message.
As far as advertising goes, image reliance can be largely traced to the people and audience whom companies wish to advertise too. With children, technology users, and a rising uneducated population being the target population for many advertisers it is the smarter choice to go with pictures than with large written pieces to show how a product or service could make one's life better. Why waste minutes explaining how a product works when one or two pictures shown in a thirty-second interval could serve the same purpose. The advertising space spent is cheaper and the effect is the same. This is not to condone or condemn a consumer based society but merely to explain why and how the system works because it does work.
Imagery is so very pervasive in society today not because of any new or revolutionary reason but for the same reason imagery has always been so important: it can convey a message that is sometimes just very difficult to put into words. Emotions and empathy are not always something one can convey with the use of complex ideas and sentences no matter how eloquent but the image of tears or smiles, a furrowed brow or pursed lips, those will always be translatable.
I agree that imagery is very prevalent in today's society. The images we see associated with the news can invoke anger or sadness. The images we see on advertisements can persuade us to buy products. However, I do not believe comic strips are very relevant in today's society. During "The Gratitude," I found myself just reading the text boxes and worrying about how to follow them along instead of focusing on the pictures. When I did go back to look at the pictures, I felt like they were not helpful; I had a better image in my mind of the whole situation. Since comic strips are fictional and meant to tell a short story, I think the words have a larger impact than their pictures. The pictures are sometimes in black and white, and it can be hard to tell what is going on just by looking at them. Because the pictures are not meant to persuade readers to buy a product or to stir up different feelings, I do not think they are necessary. They may have been successful years ago, when that younger generation would read the comics in the newspaper. They may have been little kids so they needed the pictures to help follow along with the plot. However, I do not know a single child who reads the comics anymore so I do not think the pictures are vital to the story.
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of what you are saying here! Image based culture has been among humans since the beginning. However, I personally find comics hard to read, simply because I have always had a preference for books. This doesn’t stand for everyone, though—one of my brothers far prefers comics to book, as he likes seeing the pictures that coincide with what he is reading about. This is just a matter of personal preference, and I feel that both books and comics work just as well when those who enjoy them are the ones reading them .
ReplyDeleteAs for advertising, I agree that many people rely on images to sell things. Like in class, we looked at pictures of Emma Stone and Leonardo DiCapro with great products. These are effective, as they appeal to ethos. One that wasn’t effective was the karate add that featured a little boy wearing high heels.