Conversations Beyond the Classroom (Eng 100O): Shane Sanders video text analysis

Welcome!

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?

As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).

Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!

--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Shane Sanders video text analysis

Analysis of Video Text Through a Scholes Approach (Dos Equis)

Shane Sanders

English 100O

The Society in which we find ourselves today is full of advertisements through different media sources. One of the most common of these media sources is through video text or on Television. These advertisements try to appeal to different interests that people may have in return for an almost subliminal message to the viewer telling them to go out and buy or invest in something. To get past these manipulations of the human mind we must learn to openly criticize and analyze the different forms of advertisement. An example of this type of mind manipulation can be found in simple commercials such as a recent Dos Equis commercial. This commercial appeal to several different interests that people may have including: comedy, mystery, classy or upper class status, and also rugged and manly behavior. Some people say that the Dos Equis commercials are aimed at older generations while others say that the commercials are aimed at a younger generation that yearns to be of the status that the character shown in the advertisements is. I hold that both of these sides have some merit, but as also, I believe that the Dos Equis advertisements are aimed specifically at the male gender. My claim derives from the fact that the commercial is centered on an older gentleman who is surrounded by mystery, manly behavior, and class. This is something I believe to be something that most all men today seek after. In addition to all those traits, it reinforces that if you posses any of them you will be surrounded by women and nice items. At the end he states, “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.” This is showing that with such high status he doesn’t drink a lot of beer because he can obviously afford better alcohol, but occasionally he will, and with such a high class he chooses the highest quality of beer which happens to be Dos Equis. The different appeals of this commercial combined, create a almost subliminal message to a audience of men that if you want to be of high status and be surrounded by success, you must drink Dos Equis.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-4zfsy6rsM

3 comments:

Michael SperrySeptember 30, 2010 at 2:23 PM
The ad hopes that the viewer will surrender to how if you drink Dos Equis then you will be a more interesting person. In the ad it shows "The most interesting man in the world" climbing out of ice which shows that he’s a manly man. The ad wants you to think that you will be tougher if you drink Dos Equis. Later it says that he’s aloud to touch the art in museums, which would mean that you’re a very special person. This show that the ad wants you to think that if you drink Dos Equis that you will be more special. The myth is that since the “most interesting man in the world” drinks the beer, it portrays the drink as the “best” beer, but it might not be that good at all. It could taste like Budweiser.
The gaps that the ad is portraying are that if you drink Dos Equis, it will not make more interesting. The ad shows the drink as a higher class, more fancy kind of drink that makes you feel like you’re a better person when you drink or buy it. In reality all the drink does is get you drunk. Nobody will think that you’re a better person just because you drank Dos Equis.
-Michael and John
ReplyDelete
Replies
CrockettSeptember 30, 2010 at 2:25 PM
This commercial clearly shows that males from the age of 21 and beyond who drink Dos Equis, they will become, classier, more manly and above all, more interesting. Stated before in the blog, this commercial appeals to the people (i.e. men) that tend to enjoy the greater things in life such as adventure alongside drinking Dos Equis, whereas what doesn't show in the commercial that women and perhaps non-heterossexual men arent't able to have as enjoyable lives even if they also drink the beverage. This commercial also shows that drinking Dos Equis makes you feel rich and part of an upperclass status, however in real life you might be sitting in a trailer park. (question 7)

The commercial also shows that the style of presentation is that you have to be classy, aged and sophisticated to drink this beer. (question 9)

Alex Crockett & Rob Delacruz
ReplyDelete
Replies
DestinyMasseySeptember 30, 2010 at 2:31 PM
The oppositions that are present in this advertisement are, old/young the favorably is that his sucessful and rich because he did things when he was young that got him respect that he now has that he's older. The effects are that he's rich and respected.

Marco, Armando, Destiny
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Practice Introductory Post, Please!

Please Post an Introduction (for practice) by Monday, Sept. 22nd so that we can all be prepared for the first blog post assignment coming up next Thursday.

Here's what to do:

Once you've accepted the invitation to become a contributor to this blog, you will notice a "new post" tab at the top of our blog. Click on that and enter your text. (I suggest you first type in a MW doc and then copy and paste to our blog to minimize the risk of losing your work.) Then, post!

For your first post, please:

Write a brief informal introduction of yourself. Say whatever you’d like about yourself to us—your audience & collaborative learners. Check out Mary’s introduction if you need some ideas about what to say about yourself.