Assignment 3
Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the course of
1209 QCA Reading the Visual
Visual Text
The visual text that will be used and analysed is contained in the appendix and is an advertisement appearing in the August issue of PC Gamer which advertise an online games of Lord of the Rings. The main aim of advertisements is to manipulate the viewer to pursue a specific course of action (1999). In addition, the goal is to attract more audience to play the Lord of the Rings which is known as one of the greatest movies of this time.
Ideology
The main goal of my essay is to analyse the chosen visual texts, using ideological content. This particular visual text will be analyse through the ideological perspective or context of cultural context and virtual ideology and its position as an advertisement commonly found on the internet to attract players with different cultures in real time.
“set of social values, ideas, beliefs, feelings, representations, and institutions by which people collectively make sense of the world they live in” (2003).
This essay will also attempt to reflect the ideologies of the virtual time. Accordingly,
The ideology of the gaming fraternity is to create an imagined world that includes non-gamers and allows the participants to interact in a virtual world through assuming personas. The success is dependent upon the nature of the universe created, the degree of interaction and the size of the gaming community that populates the world.
Privileged term: players who belong to lord of the rings online
Non-privileged: those who do not belong to the online community
In this perspective, visual text analysis entails various considerations relevant to the different moments of the image in terms of social life and the community that the advertisement will create.
Points
Advertisements create illusions of the reality (1982). Through the use of visual advertisements online, the advertisers are able to attract individuals from different regions.
Aim is to get the viewer to join the community. Assuming identity and escaping reality.
Make online community which has a common goal of attaining the major objective of the game as patterned to the movie LOTR.
Culturally PC online gaming communities provide the opportunity to assume another life.
Acceptability of blood and gore.
Generation that uses the PC and Internet as their source of relaxation and entertainment.
Visually stimulating environment creates a platform for individuals to interact with each other.
Appeals to males and females aged 25 years or younger – teenagers.
Moreover, there are also some meanings of the picture. For example, one of the signifier “crowd of faces”, it could means gaming creates communities. And the pictures of the button has some screen shots, they show the sense of the fantasy world which means it is capable of escape into a fantasy world if you play this game. This game also emphasis on blood, gore and violence, which means violent games are socially acceptable on nowadays. The vision based on golden colour, it represents the premium and success on this game.
Assignment 2
Visual Text Analysis
Introduction
It is said that vision comes before texts. An individual, specifically, a child looks and recognizes before it can speak. However, there is also other sense in which seeing or perceiving comes before words. It is the kind of seeing which creates an individuals position in the surrounding world; it is explained that world within texts or words, but texts alone can never undo the fact that people are bounded by it. The link between what people see and what people know is never settled (1999). Any effort to institute a social premise regarding visuality seems to be hindered by paradox.
In this manner, the main goal of this paper is to provide a visual text analysis of the advertisement of an online game. Herein, the visual text that will be used is contained in the appendix and is an advertisement appearing in the August issue of PC Gamer which advertise online games of Lord of the Rings (See Appendix 1).
The main goal of my essay is to analyse the chosen visual texts, using ideological content and semiotic analysis. This particular visual text will be analyse through the ideological perspective or context of cultural context and technological, globalism and socialism ideology and its position as an advertisement commonly found on the internet to attract players with different cultures in real time. Accordingly, culture is a set of social values, ideas, beliefs, feelings, representations, and institutions by which people collectively make sense of the world they live in (2003 191). This essay will also attempt to reflect the ideologies of the technological advancement and how technology enables people to build community in an online perspective.
Visual text analysis
Perhaps, the notion of advertising and promotional campaigns will always be regarded as one of the most effective way and important instrument for introducing or presenting new discoveries for the targeted individuals. Generally, advertising or promotional campaigns are regarded as an open sponsorship of offering products, services and any ideas through the use of any mediums of communication. The main aim of advertisements is to manipulate the viewer to pursue a specific course of action (1999). In addition, the goal is to attract more audience to play the Lord of the Rings which is known as one of the greatest movies of this time.
The ideology of the gaming fraternity is to create an imagined world that includes non-gamers and allows the participants to interact in a virtual world through assuming personas. The success is dependent upon the nature of the universe created, the degree of interaction and the size of the gaming community that populates the world. In this perspective, visual text analysis entails various considerations relevant to the different moments of the image in terms of socio-cultural contexts and the community that the advertisement will create.
As mentioned, this paper will attempt to analyse the advertisement of an online game “Lord of the Rings”. Furthermore, the visual text will be analysed using the context of semiotics. Semiotic analysis is the technical study of various signs and how these signs forms and restructure meaning. It can be said that signs can be concurrently indexical, iconic, and symbolic. A sign is indexical; this means that there is slight or some relationship between what is being signified and the meaning. It is iconic if it portrays a good illustration of the signified meaning and it is a symbol if there is note relationship between the meanings and sign.
For this advertisement, it can be said that the figure is iconic since it presents a good illustration of various signifiers and signified which means that the ad is attracting the target audience to be part of the online gaming community. This image shows different signifiers which broadcast both the identity of the online game and a picture which is in accordance with the notion of the text in which it is seen.
For this particular visual text, there are also some meanings of the picture. For example, one of the signifier “crowds of faces” can mean that the advertisement is attracting the audience to be a part of the online community by joining Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). The faces of the crowds also signify multiculturalism since it shows different personalities which have different norms and cultures. In the advertisement, we can also see three pictures which is emphasised in a box.
These pictures are the screen shots, which show the sense of the fantasy world which means it is capable of making an individual to escape reality and being part of a fantasy world which is a part of this game. This game also gives emphasis on blood, gore and violence, which means violent games are socially acceptable in this generation. The vision based on golden colour, it represents the premium and success on this game. The colour also served as a linkage from the online game to the film LOTR.
Another signifier of this visual text is the text, “One game to Rule them all”, which signifies the game LOTRO as a game that will rule all other existing games only. This text creates a myth that gamers would want to be the largest gaming community. The visual text also include the Windows logo, which means that using such software in playing this kind of game, will provide the best platforms and scenery for the players.
It is noted that online advertisers had been successful for introducing modern style of advertisement and creating an illusion among audiences ( 1982). This advertising campaign is characterized by its uniqueness and modernity which makes it more appealing to online audiences. Herein, the advertisements have used huge image in which images and pictures of different stages of the game were presented and the name of the advertised online game which is “Lord of the Rings online” are superimposed and the website or link () in which this online game can be seen is also presented in a box to get the attention of the audience.
This visual text fantasy shows multiculturalism and inter-communal harmony among players of the said game. Further, the advertisement also aims to show the benefits of technological advancement through the use of the internet. Through the use of visual advertisements online, the advertisers are able to attract individuals from different regions. In addition, the aim of this advertisement is to get the viewer to join the community to be able make an online community which has a common goal of attaining the major objective of the game as patterned to the movie LOTR. The advertisement is for audience who needs time to relax while enjoying and being entertained. The advertisements tend to attract teenagers and other individuals who wanted to be a part of an online community with one goal.
The more interesting and captivating semiotic aspects of the image exist within its ideology of multiculturalism and technology, which is the principal signified concept of the advertisement. The notion of multiculturalism is principally express by the image of the faces of the crowds imposed within the ads, which can be figured as individuals with different personalities from different parts of the world.
In conclusion, it can be said that in order to make the advertisement more appealing to the audiences, most of the advertisers in this modern age should be able to become more innovative in their visual advertisements by including different special signifiers within the visual text that can be associated with different ideologies. Furthermore, the use of colors for this visual text seems to be fiery which depicts that aggressiveness of the game as it is played by the audience.
Table 1
Signifier
Signified
Sign
Myth
Crowd of faces
Community, variety of demographics
Gaming creates communities; size is important
Online communities have a physical reality.
The text ”One Game to Rule Them All.”
Online game
Game dominates other games in the genre.
Gamers want to be part of the largest gaming community
Screen shots
Sense of the fantasy world
Play characters in an environment with other characters
Capable of escape into a fantasy world
Golden colour
Premium; success
Link to film and cult; ‘greatest’
The online community is the crown of all the games
Lotro.com
URL
Location
Windows logo
Strong game machine
Premium software
Windows provides the best platforms
Teen rating
Emphasis on blood, gore, violence
Violent nature of the game
Violent PC games are socially acceptable.
The advertisements also show some binary opposition in terms of the dominant privileged term and the non-privileged term. The privilege individuals in this case are those who have been playing the online game while the latter are those who do not belong in an online community. This visual text also signifies that if one will play LOTRO, there is a possibility of being engaged in fantastic adventures of the game.
Table 2
Binary Oppositions
Privileged term(dominant)
Non-privileged term(subordinate)
fantasy
Community
Violence
Real, truth
alone
peace
Conclusion
Analysis shows that the advertisement or the visual text had been able to use images and pictures to depict the messages that they want to give to the target audience. The advertiser perceived that the concept of advertisement is a means of communicating to people. Advertisement styles used by the organization above also shows that they used such kind of advertisement for information dissemination.
Another analysis that can be depicted from this visual text is its intense consideration of multiculturalism, socialism and globalism and technological advancement. This advertises considers multiculturalism and globalism so that people from different part of the world may not feel discriminated. All, it can be said that this visual text has been able to use a unique and distinctive approach that makes it more attractive and appealing to its audiences. From the colors, images and the texts used, and how they are positioned have helped the visual text easy to understand.
Appendix
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