Women s Body on Media Advertising in the Consumer Society

Transcription

1 Available online at HU-O-009 Burapha University International Conference 2015 Moving Forward to a Prosperous and Sustainable Community Women s Body on Media Advertising in the Consumer Society Panu Suaysuwan 1 Abstract This study is an analysis of women s body images that appear on media advertisements. In the regard that these images can reflect the phenomena of consumer society, the advertisements in women magazines are chosen to analyze. The meanings from this analysis will be synthesized to form a conceptual framework for creating works of art. The study is divided into two parts. The first part is to analyze the women s body images in advertisements in magazines targeting three groups of women readers, classifying by their conditions of economic status, life styles and ages. The first group is the magazines for women with high incomes living in the cities, the second is for teenagers and the third is for women with low incomes. The analysis is based on the principle of sociology, semiotic and visual image analysis. From this analysis, the representations of social culture, belief, and attitude or value will be explored. The result from the analysis in the first part will guide the ways to create integrated visual arts in the second part. The purpose of the created art work is to present women s body as a medium of myth, signs, signifiers and code of meanings including visual elements of arts. It is to portray the images of women as a composite of women s beauty, dignity, taste and status that are used to be persuasive communication to the different target groups in the consumer society Published by Burapha University. Keywords : Consumer Society /Consumer Culture, Body, Visual Art, Media Advertising 1 Faculty of Fine and Applied art Burapha University 91

2 1. Introduction Proceedings of the Burapha University International Conference 2015, July 2015, Bangsaen, Chonburi, Thailand Consumerism is one of the phenomena Thai society has adopted from western countries and has very much influenced on people s ways of life in Thai society nowadays. The people in Thailand have possessed consumption behaviors at the level much higher than that in the past. The main causes for this depend on two important reasons: (1) consumption for necessary benefits (2) consumption for value meanings disguised with merchandises such as meaning involved with image status, taste expression, and consumer s image. In fact the latter reason is considered to be the main cause for excessive consumption in Thai society Jean Baudrillard, a French sociologist, proposed the idea for the today s consumption that it is not based on the explanations in accordance with the Utility Theory and the pleasure Theory any more. Rather, it relies on the ideas with a basis on the understanding of value and meaning creations for the objects called Consumption of Sign driving humans to consume things for either meaning or sign which is the abstract value through use of an object as its representative namely modernization, novelty, and equality.(athikom Komolwithayathorn, 1994, p. 16; citing Baudrillard, 1975) The forms of consumption for value and abstract connotation have become important strategies for merchandise producers in creating the contents that guide the consumption behaviors in conjunction with other factors like different channels of media to persuade and stimulate the consumption Different types of products made in consumerism societies are likely to possess their meanings through use of brand images that would create consumer s individuality. The images as such are set to express the complete popular lifestyles in that period of time. The idealistic images that the merchandise producers try to guide the consumers would be created from the role models from movie stars, singers, and public celebrities by using simulated situations comprising persuading verbal expressions and phrases in accordance with advertising strategies. Hence, the strategies used have much influence on the consumers ideas and behaviors at present. Bodies and figures of movie stars, singers, and actors are one of the representative images used by the producers to create image for their products. Modern, healthy, charming and complete representative bodies complying with the popularity at the time are used as a master form in creating the images for those who are passionate and desire to change or modify their bodies to look like those celebrities. The bodies can, therefore, be compared to the public areas attracting the consumers to look at. In the mean time, they also convey the message of identity determined by the merchandise producers. The awareness for the body management has been cultivated to become a common social value via different media and public relations. Apart from what mentioned above, other components coming with the figures and bodies like automobiles, body decorations, clothing, dressing, gestures, and verbal expressions are cultivated to become people s common attitudes, as well. The important fact the merchandise producers try to implant into people s attitudes is to stimulate them to see their body defects comparing with complete body and life in the myths for each type of product advertising. As a consequence, the mentioned myths would persuade people to improve or modify their body defects by consuming the advertised products though the fact is that natural bodies usually possess common defects like wrinkles from old age, over weight from fat accumulation. So, improving, modifying and enhancing the body defects are the everlasting procedures and the producers always see the benefits from this fact. They, then, use tricks to create the representative images to the effect that there should be the correction of the defects in every part of the body to display the popular master forms of the desired one at the time, which is a complete one according to the myth image. Thus, the representative image would present itself as a persuader, and a stimulator to lead astray the consumers behaviors endlessly. Presentations on the media issues regarding their influence on people s excessive consumption at present are perceived only among related students and academics. There is no evidence that they are disseminated among consumers at large and they are also perceived as a normal daily matter. However, the researcher has different views in that although they may be perceived as a trivial matter easily found everywhere and it is 92

3 an individual right to select what to consume, the problems stemming from the excessive consumption could be reduced if consumers see through the tricks and are wise to choose things for their consumption. As a result, the researcher aimed at interpreting the representative image of women s body appearing on advertising media so that people would know the mechanism for their real persuasions including their background. Then, the obtained meanings would be used as the data for creating pieces of visual arts with techniques and artistic process in order to convey individual messages and facts for people to know and understand the mentioned facts in two parts: documents in terms of research reports, and pieces of visual arts. 2. Objectives of the Research To analyze and interpret the meanings of women s bodies appearing on advertising media in terms of interdisciplinary integrations To create pieces of visual art reflecting the consumerism the merchandise producers impart on women s body image through the researcher s form of individual attitudes and artistic creations 3. Working procedures In regard to the working on the creations, the researcher divided it into two parts: (1) the working on documents involving research reports (2) the working on the creation of pieces of visual art 3.1 The Working on the First Part At the initial stage, the researcher studied pictures of women s bodies appearing on advertising media in consumer societies by determining the way of study from different ideas comprising: The ideas on consuming behaviors (Consumer) The ideas on social Arena (Social Arena) The ideas on capitalism (Capital) The ideas on Mass Media After studying all these ideas, the researcher would use them as a guideline for analyzing and interpreting the image of women s bodies so that the obtained meanings will be used for creating pieces of visual arts of which procedures would be concluded in the forms of picture diagrams as follows: Figure 1: Conclusion on Important Messages for Research Framework 93

4 After studying the theories and the concepts relevant to the research, its procedures can be concluded into the analysis of women s bodies and its interpretations. In the first place, the researcher found that women magazines were divided into 3 main groups according to the consumers as follows: Magazines for women earning high income Magazines for young women Magazines for women earning low income Regarding the analysis of the above three groups, sociology theories were used for the analysis firstly in order to classify women s initial characteristics of each group. Then, the next ones were social arena, and taste respectively. After that, semiotic theories and those of visual art were used for the further analysis in order to classify pictures, symbols, verbal expressions, and artistic components for the benefits in interpreting the women s bodies 3.2 The Working on the Second Part The outcomes obtained from the procedures and the concepts for the artistic creations on the second part have important working procedures as follows: Basic Drawing Computer Drawing Determination of Forms and Materials Creation for Real Pieces of Work Problems of the Creation In regard to the working procedures, the researcher determined the main concepts for the whole creation in that it is the body pictures creations on the transparent surface, and the other part is the creation of the myth pictures on the transparent surface, as well. Afterwards, these two types of the pictures were put overlap so that the viewers can see them in one picture, however, in some angles, the picture can also be seen as different parts as shown in the following pictures: Figure 2: the Concept for Creating Pieces of Art 94

5 Figure 3: Example of Putting Body Picture and that of the Myth in an Overlap Way 4. Conclusion for the working outcomes 4.1 The Outcomes from the Working on the First Part The researcher concluded the meaning of women s bodies in each group from the analysis of the meaning in terms of myths disguised in the women bodies image in each group. Regarding this, it comprises the signs in terms of pictures, verbal expressions, language, and the dominant features in visual art. The meanings in this regard would be beneficial for the working on the second part which is the creation of the further pieces of art. The researcher shows sample pictures in the table to conclude the meanings of the women s body image in the three groups as follows: Table 1: Conclusion on the Interpretation of Women s Body Image Appearing in Group 1 Magazines 95

6 Table 2: Conclusion on the Interpretation of Women s Body Image Appearing in Group 2 Magazines Table 3: Conclusion on the Interpretation of Women s Body Image Appearing in Group 3 Magazines 96

7 Conclusion tables on the interpretation of women s body image in the three groups of the magazines have adopted the signs and the dominant features on visual art to supplement the ideas so that the viewers can see the pictures corresponding to some parts of the meanings in the mythical ideas. The whole obtained meanings were discussed in Chapter 4, which are those relevant to the women s body image that would be used as a guideline for creating further pieces of art. 4.2 The Outcomes from the Working on the Second Part As mentioned on the working for the creation of visual art about putting the pictures of women s body overlapping those with mythical meaning, the important reason why the researcher wants to create overlapping picture is to allow the viewers to see the women s body possessing several advertising meanings. The women s body can, hence, be compared to the area containing endlessly the meanings relevant to consumption ideas. The researcher creates three sets of the visual art work with use of inkjet printings on pieces of stickers and having them attached on a piece of transparent plastic which is an important technique for these sets of the art work resulting in the creation of whole three sets of which details were shown as follows: Figure 4: the Work Set No. 1 Figure 5: the Work Set No. 2 97

8 Figure 6: the Work Set No. 3 The meaning and information obtained from the interpretations of women s bodies appearing in the magazines, and the creations of visual art work based on the research can be conducted concurrently by starting with research to give some ideas for the creations of the art work. These two parts can well support each other. The answers obtained from the research do not seek for an in-dept meanings of the bodies according to the sociology dimension. Rather, the answers obtained from the interpretation of the bodies appearing in the advertising media of the consumption societies found in the first part (research reports) are those involving with various dimensions which were connected with the ideas of social classifications. This makes human bodies become tangible and maintain status according to the levels of taste, position, occupation, gender and age. They, thus, try to create the identity of the body created in conjunction with products or merchandises, solicitations, symbol, and different meanings that represent the bodies and eventually become meaningful for people. So, the body image appears in different dimensions in accordance with the directions of the human taste and desire. All these are of accepted mythical ideas that still continue without any objections. From what mentioned above, the researcher set the hypotheses and analyze all these phenomena by using sociology dimensions, semiotic, and visual art principles yielding the answers which are the meanings of different types of the body according to the empirical evidence. When the two mentioned parts were concluded together, it was found that the creation of pieces of art based on the knowledge and information from research can become a much useful guideline for arts and academic arena due to the fact that in the arena of art work creations, they give most of the importance to the practical creations rather than the explanation of the origin of the ideas and the mechanical systems including different working steps which would be beneficial for the researcher and relevant interested people to know and understand completely about the creative research. Hence, the research methodology, used as a data base for the creative work appearing in this doctoral dissertation, can be an example of what the researcher defines as creative research of which the researcher can conclude its methodology in terms of the simulated pictures for the individual working on the two mentioned parts showing input, process, and output as in the following pictures: 98

9 Figure 7: Creative Research Model in the Researcher s Individual Style References Athikom Komolwithayathorn. (1994). The study of consumer society in popular culture consumption. Concepts and Analysis. Bangkok: Research and Textbook Product Center Krirk university. Featherstone, M. (1992). Consumer Culture and Postmodern. London : Sage Publishing. Gray, Carole & Malins, Julian. (2004). Visualizing Research A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design. Aldershot : Ashgate Publishing Limited. Shilling, C. (1996). The Body and Social Theory. London : Sage Publishing. Barthes, Roland. (1987). Mythologies. New York : Hill & Wang. Fachinger, J., Behavior of HTR Fuel Elements in Aquatic Phases of Repository Host Rock Formations. Nuclear Engineering & Design 236, p